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Bush Administration Stops Microsoft Breakup
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had been instructed by the Bush Administration to cease its drive to break up Microsoft, which has already been found guilty of violating U.S. anti-trust law in a complaint filed by the Federal Government and 19 states. See the BBC or CNN for more. It isn't clear what wristslap, errr, remedy the Justice Department will seek instead. Update: 09/06 15:21 PM GMT by M : Declan McCullagh of Wired notes: "The text of the DOJ announcement is here. Wired News has an article. Also, the DOJ says a 'Senior Antitrust Division Official' will brief reporters at the department's DC headquarters at 11:30 am ET, so look for some followup stories from that."
Gee, I guess this means the people who think Flash is going to replace everything are SOL now.
Hi, Rob!
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
... and in a related announcement, spokesmen unveiled an upgraded version of the United States government, to be named "Microsoft US/2010", scheduled for release first quarter '02.
OK folks, time to come out swinging. As a tech writer, I hereby swear to do something worthwhile for the Linux Documentation Project by the end of the month.
What are you doing?
Deep in the ocean are treasures beyond compare; but if you seek safety, it is on the shore.
We could see Microsoft above the law if this goes on.
C
There's no problem that cannot be solved with a suitable amount of high explosives
The worst part is that couldn't we all see this coming? Ashcroft was such a weenie during his appointment hearings, especially whenever the topic of Microsoft came up. Microsoft, of course, must have been getting the inside word on this, which explains their incredibly nervy behavior (many aspects of XP, Smart Tags, etc.) in the last few months. This was surely all arranged between Bill and Double-Yah many months ago.
Those bastards!
-Waldo
eh?
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had been instructed by President Bush...
Funny, i don't see any claims that George W. Bush told anyone to do anything.
Typical Slashdot bias.
P.S. Write your state senators and tell them to press on -- the trial can go on without the DOJ.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Before everybody gets all worked up about it, I think it's safe to say that a Democratic president would have done the same thing eventually. In recent years, MS has started contributing heavily to both parties, thus they can get pretty much whatever they want, no matter who is in the White House.
Free Hans!
The CNN story does not mention Bush at all...
Just because a few of us can read write and do a little math, doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the universe
Don't blame me. My vote didn't count.
He didn't give an order to the judicial branch, the Department of Justice is under the executive branch. It is a law enforcement body. They are persuing the charges but they aren't a judicial body in charge of the case, That would be the distict court. Bush gave no order to the court (at least not officially)
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
I remember when I was reading slashdot before the elections and the microsoft point was brought, everybody seemed to agree that if bush was elected, he would jump in and stop this... so this isn't a surprise...
The sad part is now you can see how the American Gov is above plain basic justice...
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Certainly took MS's checks long enough to clear...
Oooops !
I am afraid the stock prices of Red Hat and Mandrake are going to hell in a handbasket...
Gosh, this is just bad news.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Where does this say Bush was the reason for stopping the MS breakup? I see a reference to the Bush administration, but I assume that means someone he appointed (ie John Ashcroft) is the person who "Stop[ped] the Microsoft Breakup".
I think the EU has been sitting on the sideline waiting to see what happens. I wonder if they will get more involved now that DOJ is dropping the ball.
This isn't the company you want. Move along.
Bush isn't mentioned in either CNN or BBS article... The only explanation I could find is that The decision was made in order to obtain a "prompt, effective and certain relief for consumers", said the DoJ in a statement.
I don't know about you, but this has had exactly the opposite effect on me. Relief? No. Disbelief? Yes.
It seems like Bush, as the head of the
administrative branch, is in no position to
give -any- orders to the judicial branch.
And you'll notice that no article claims he did. It's just the Slashdot editors abusing their power to stir up resentment and further their political views.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
I'm no political analyst, but IIRC "Bush Administration" != "George W". And for those of you who are wondering, the BBC article names the Bush administration. There's no mention of it in CNN.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I fail to see how breaking Microsoft up helps consumers, or more / less importantly, how it will help our falling economy.
If you split microsoft into Windows / Apps or something like this, then you have 2 monopolies. If you go with a top down split, then you get the same thing that exists with Linux user interfaces, or that still exists with web browsers. You have KDE, GNOME and countless others, making it a bitch for developers, and for users to get used to. In some situations, you really want everything to be the same way.
Captain_Frisk
The worst part is that couldn't we all see this coming
During the campaign flame-wars here, I dont know how many times I saw people right here on slashdot predicting Bush would stop the breakup. Everyone knows he is deep in the pockets of big oil and industry, did you not think Microsoft would get a piece of that action?
If anything the past couple years have shown, is that we now truely have a government by the corporation, of the corporation, and for the corporation.
The ivory tower has never had to reach so h
Jeesus... Just after having a friend finally convince me that breaking them up would be a good idea, they come around and reverse their stance and pull this crap? On what grounds does the Bush administration have to unilaterally push a decision down like this, other than possibly a bucketload of cash?
As much as a MS user I am, I even like Win2K and XP, and their office suite is good, but look at how much consumer benefit came out of having competition with the Intel vs AMD... I doubt we'd be past 1GHz by now if AMD didn't step in.
There is no details as to why this happened, and after finding out about some of their more sleazy business practices, I think it would be a good idea for them to get a good smack upside the head.
Oh well, there goes the market. Lets hope that linux keeps gaining ground like it has, maybe at least that'll force MS to get a bit more competitive. (Hmm, $0 for Linux, or $200 for XP... hmmmmmm)
If God gave us curiosity
One is Microsoft, who has done it a couple of times now.
The second is the Church of Scientology, who got the IRS to consider them as a tax-exempt religous organization.
All I can say is, look out Heber Jentzsch and David Miscavige, Microsoft is thinking of releasing MS Religion 1.0
You'll see this: "The US Department of Justice has announced that it will no longer push to have software giant Microsoft broken up.
The decision by the Bush administration reverses the Clinton White House legal strategy against Microsoft. " Since Bush is (nominally) the head of the Bush administration, it's proper to presume that Bush gave the order. Whether someone advised him on it is another matter, but Bush is the president.
If you ask me, George is just plannifying his strategery to get the economical situations back. Bush, like his father, has a keenly awarity of the severeness of the recent economical turning downward.
Part of the economical restimularity proposed by Bush's administration includes a provision for strengtherizing the stock market. The best way to accomplish this, obviously, is to redistributerate the nations wealth resources. This means we don't want to go after Microsoft. Once the stock market begins to redisconfigure its direction and go itself from its turning down of the economy, the economy will be better!
Leave George alone. He's the best thing to come along since Clinton.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
How can Ashcroft defend his tough-as-nails posture regarding alleged computer crime by a small-time russian company who threatens nobody, while refusing to pursue an in-the-bag conviction already won in part, of a notorious bad actor whose conduct will affect virtually every computer user on the planet?
Ashcroft's new motto: "We're tough on crime, except when they donated to our campaign fund."
Let's face it: We're in for 3+ more years of Bush Jr. doing bad things because he can get away with it in our climate of general apathy and disillusionment. Now, I'm all for being disillusioned, but watching this idiot get away with things that should have us on the White House lawn with torches and pitchforks is getting old.
Let's name a few: -Allowing religion to limit science.
-Irresponsibly cutting taxes and using it to blatently curry favor with the Nascar sect of American society.
- Environmental destruction in favor of short-term corporate gains (Alaska, Kyoto).
- Doing his best to restart the good 'ol cold war (ABM treaty breaking, trying to isolate China).
Let's face it: This guy's the worst example yet of how bad things are getting, and unless people start to notice they might as well just start allowing only Fortune 500 companies to vote in the general election (hey, you said you wanted to get rid of the electoral college, right?).
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
He who holds the purse is in command.
Let's hope in the EU - which incidentally recently opened up a second investigation against MS for anticompetitive practices.
::Looks in crayola box:: I don't have "Pissed Off".. How's about Maroon?
The article that I first saw on CNet said that this announcement was *ONLY* the Justice Department and that this did *NOT* represent the wished of the individual states.
The newest CNet article is unclear, saying that the Justice Department and the States and the Judge will all meet over the next two weeks.
There might be a chance that the states won't go along with this. The Attorneys General of the states tend to be more progressive in consumer protection.
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
And because we live in a democracy that means run by idiots. Yes, tis true, America is populated by idiots. The individual is a genius, the mob is one giant Lemming. Shame on us, I feel dirty to be an American, like always.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
and that did not seem to stop him. He's the Supreme Court's President. Hail to GWBush, King of the 87 IQ Club.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Legislative Branch - Makes the Laws = Congress
Executive Branch - Enforces the Laws = President
Judicial Branch - Evaluates the Laws = Judges
The Department of Justice is part of the Executive branch, as well it should be. The executive branch is charged with law enforcement. Bush can't order the judge in the case to rule in a certain way, but he can tell the government lawyers prosocuting the case to proceed the way he wants them to. Checks and balances are still maintained. Even if Bush were to dangle the carrot of a higher position within the courts in front of the judge checks and balances would still be maintained because congress would still have to aprove her for her new position.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
No MS breakup, what now? What to do with MS?
Well, they have about 30 billion in cash and short-term investments. Maybe about 20 billion dollars in fines?
Massive fines to top-executives of MS (Gates, Ballmer etc.). It really hurts when they touch YOUR money!
Opening of some of their proprietary protocols. I'm thinking of Office file-formats (competing Office-suites could really compete) and maybe DirectX
And, what could WE do to help comptetition gain on them? Well, think of ways to help. You Linux-application crashed? Write a bug-report! You notice something could be done better? Write to the developers (if you can't change it yourself)! Write documentation! Create artwork for the desktops! Evangelize!
People, it's time we got off our arses and start doing something!
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
From the BBC article:
The US Department of Justice has announced that it will no longer push to have software giant Microsoft broken up.
The decision by the Bush administration reverses the Clinton White House legal strategy against Microsoft.
Bush is the head of the Bush administration, so one can presume that it was him that made the decision.
Where ?
CNET and CNN both didn't make one single remark about Bush instructing anyone to drop the suit, so where is it?
Are we that slanted we can't report anything correctly?
burning karma because of bigots is my hobby
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
"All your presidents are belong to us!"
mp3's are only for those with bad memories
But this *is* the single issue that everyone disagrees with Bush on. They disagree that he cops out of Kyoto because big business doesn't want it, that he cuts taxes because the millionaires want it, that he lets criminals off because Microsoft wants it.
Explain how this is a *different* policy, not another instance of the same policy so many hate?
I have long been of the opinion that it ould be good for Microsoft to be broken up. This would reduce the embodied liability of their future actions to some extent and give them a graceful exit from the OS market as hardware sales continue to slow...
This notion of putting severe restrictions on Microsoft's conduct, and imposign additional liabilities if they violate those restrictions will certainly help Linux and other competing products. While I am annoyed with Bush for using political pressure to help decide this, I certainly think that this will have an effect far different than the one Microsoft is seeking.
I also agree with the appelate court that breakups should be pursued only as a last resort in part because it is difficult to ensure long-term effectiveness. This is a real victory for Linux, FreeBSD, and everyone else.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The decision by the Bush administration reverses the Clinton White House legal strategy against Microsoft. BBC Article (emphasis added).
You were saying...?
Liberty in your lifetime
The basis of this lawsuit is Microsoft "bundling" their browser. Let me ask a question from the opposite angle: What should Microsoft have done differently?
It seems to me that, especially from the vantage point of today, it's pretty obvious that a browser is an integral tool in an OS's toolkit. KDE has a built-in browser. The Mac ships with a browser (if it wasn't IE, it would have been Netscape). Hell, even various Unix flavors ship with a browser.
And yes -- the browser should NOT be able to be de-installed. If your going to use a browser as a tool of the OS (say, to display error messages), then you need to know that your going to have a consistent tool there to use. Nothing stops you from installing another browser and deleting the icon -- just like having KDE's browser doesn't stop you from using Netscape.
Of course, we will also have all the Pro-linux people who never use a shred of Microsoft software tell us that they have a clear monopoly.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Too many decision makers in the government are easily swayed by the corporate dollar and charisma in both parties anyway. Very few politicians in DC aren't for sale nowadays, and the same goes for federal judges, I'm sure.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I told everyone on Slashdot that this would happen, in a reply to an article on Bush and the other guys running for president at the time. If you don't believe me, go dig up the slashdot articles on last years election.
:-(
I told you guys, hoping that I would be proven wrong. Oh well
And wait a second... the Republicans always claim that they think the government should punish law breaking. I guess the laws only apply to the lower classes and not higher classes or large companies.
pronoblem
IIRC, the original suit was brought by the DOJ and the attorneys general of 18 states. The DOJ has announced it will no longer seek a breakup, but that's no guarantee it will happen. For starters, the 18 attys general have a say in the matter. Next, the guilty verdict has already been handed down. IANAL, but I believe that only the penalty phase needs to be re-heard, along with any updates. It has happened before on several occasions that someone was sentenced to death even though the prosecutor didn't push it because the law of the land said it was a valid punishment for the crime.
I seriously doubt a breakup will happen, but this case is far from over. Microsoft has already been found guilty of at least some of the charges. The question is what the penalty should be. There may be 1000 opinions, but the one that counts is the one belonging to the judge.
----------
Something cleverHere's a suggestion: require Microsoft to publish all their license agreements, including the ones that prohibit OEMs from shipping PCs that dual-boot Windows and another OS.
Perhaps you cannot read, but the article did not state that the Justice Department did this at the instruction of Bush. You might speculate that he was the source of the decision, but reporting it as fact is clearly extremely poor journalism. FWIW, the Justice Department specifically disclaims any administration involvement, saying that the decision was made internally so that the case could be concluded in a reasonable period of time.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I thought that get out of jail free cards only happened in the game of monopoly.
... the Golden Rule -- the person with the gold makes the rules. And Republican or Democrat, politicians pay close attention to who has the gold...
Is anyone actually surprised by this outcome? I'm not.
All about me
The Chandra X-Ray Observatory happened to be looking at the presumed site of the hole at the moment it absorbed a comet, blasting x-rays off into space as a byproduct.
That hole in the center of the galaxy is Microsoft. It wasn't absorbing a comet, but rather our Department of Justice.
Sigh...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Now you might speculate that they're lying, and that Bush actually did order this action, but to report so as fact is clearly very poor journalism.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Clearly your position is grounded more in a kneejerk bias to defend the President, regardless of the merits, than an informed understanding of what is going on, or a valid criticism of the original posting.
Bottom line, the President is absolutely answerable for this (although it may well be the right thing to do from a legal perspective). Writing "state senators" can and will accomplish nothing.
First, the Department of Justice is an agency of the Executive Branch of Government, that is to say, they work for the President of the United States. John Ashcroft was appointed by, and serves at the pleasure of, the President. While he is sometimes granted autonomy as a matter of course, Ashcroft would take no position contrary to the wishes of the President. You may recall not too long ago, when Richard Nixon sought to have "independent counsel" Archibald Cox sacked -- two officers resigned office (or were asked to resign) rather than follow their boss' instructions. Only Robert Bork, one of the few remaining executives in DOJ who hadn't resigned, agreed to follow those instructions.
Now, just so you understand -- the Department of Justice are the lawyers for the United States Government. If they drop the case, the U.S. government will not proceed. Furthermore, and far more important, the House and the Senate have no constitutional authority to enforce any law against anyone (except a case for impeachment), presuming that, by "state senators," you meant the Senators representing your state in the Federal Senate. Your state senators wouldn't have much to say about anything -- except the cases brought by particular states -- and they would likewise be constrained under their respective state constitution separation of powers from acting against any company. You might write your governor, if you wanted to continue seeking structural relief, for all the good it will do you.
Is allowing a known monopoly to charge grossly inflated prices for an operating system with both security and privacy flaws a benefit to consumers? I'll let y'all be the judge on that one.
Side note: Bush is the same president who thinks that allowing 3rd world style arsenic-in-the-drinking-water-standards, drilling-the-ANWR, and well-nigh banning stem cell research will be good for the economy too...
Really. The point is not that Bush is letting Microsoft off the hook--he's not. The Bush administration (important to remember that) is saying, ``we don't think a breakup is called for, we want to see conduct remedies instead''.
This is not necessarily a bad idea. In fact, Tom Miller, the Iowa attorney general who has been one of the biggest movers in the states' suit against Microsoft, has agreed with the Bush administration's decision on this matter.
When even the most aggressive of all the state AGs agrees that ``conduct remedies are enough, they'll do'', what in God's name are the rest of you mewling about?
Let's also note that the Bush administration is no longer pushing for a breakup. That doesn't mean a breakup won't happen, because in the end, it is the judge hearing the case who gets to decide what action is necessary to restore competition to the marketplace. If the judge in question thinks a breakup is called for, well, it doesn't matter a damn what the Bush administration or the states want--Microsoft will be broken up.
This is, realistically, not news.
According to this Washington Post article, Cheney's son-in-law is now running the MS case.
Sorry to respond to a troll (see my sig and do an internet search for references to "The Barkto incident"). Also, IANAL.
We don't have to depend on Linux now. Especially considering its outrageous cost ownership - even compared to Microsoft products - as explained below.
Actually, we won't have to depend on Windows. See, the court has helt that Microsoft has "market power" in the distinct operating system industry and that this position poses an inherent danger to the foundations of our economic system. Accordingly, per the case law surrounding the Sherman and Clayton acts, we hold companies with market power to a higher level of responsibility because of the damage they can do to our country.
This is fundamentally a bad position for Microsoft to be in and it harms their ability to continue to provide software at compelling values-- as long as there is any doubt about their attempts to control the market, they could be sued for their actions.
If Microsoft was broken up, there would be two monopolies which would be far more agile because they would not have to protect eachother. The IDC was predicting that if Microsoft was broken up, it would be the end of competition in the Office Suite market, for example, because Office would more easily be ported to Linux and used to destroy the markets for StarOffice, etc.
I also celebrate this decision, being the right one, but I see the consequenses very differenty.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Admittedly, I'd rather see the company dissolved, but at least they seem to have retained some teeth in what they (DoJ) are seeking. Namely, the prohibition of unfair licensing agreements and baring MS from preventing OEMs from having their own boot loaders seems like it might go a long way towards opening up the OEM market to alternatives.
I'm not at all suprised that the Bush administration (dubya or his minions) is waffling on acting against a big corporation, as a Texan I have watched him bend over backwards ever since he got elected to lick the boots of 'big bidness'; his agility in that realm is notable even for a Texas politico.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
How much campaign contribution money would it take to get you to change your mind?
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I'm no fan of MS, but given my current job search headaches I'd prefer not to see a recession get triggered by something that could be avoided. Selfish? Short-sighted? probably. But I'd like the economy to recover sooner than later, and a MS breakup would result in later.
cz
Today marks the first time that I have ever been ashamed to say I am an American. I have lost what little faith I had in this administration and can only hope that something stops Bush before big business truly is the highest authority in the nation. As for me, cashing that refund and moving to Japan is sounding better by the minute.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had been instructed by the Bush Administration...
OK, this is blatent flamebait, but I don't care. This is slightly better than the previous "instructed by Bush" (Michael apparently added the "administration" part).
But it's still bad. Michael, why do you think people hate you and think your a total biased fool? For your information, the DOJ is part of the Bush Administration, so phrasing it this way is out and out biased bullshit. It's like saying, "The Bush Administration instructed the Bush Administration".
The decision came from within the DOJ. If you have proof otherwise, then post it. Otherwise, get rid of that total biased bullshit and grow up.
On a different note, this is why I voted for Bush. Finally, rational decisions in government.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Perhaps if you weren't as fucking ignorant about government as the Slashdot editors, you'd post a comment that made sense.
Hint: the Department of Justice is part of the executive branch. The judicial branch, as any good 7th-grade civics class will teach you, is made up of the courts.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Couple of thoughts.
:)
First, who says president Bush is behind this? I followed all the links but saw no-one point directly to the president. While I do not dount that the new atmosphere has something to do with this, direct involvement should be proved. Maybe I missed it though, quite possible.
Second, I believe we need a regrouping. This is obviously a major disappointment for the OSS community. I can forget moving the company to MS Office for Linux now. So where do we go from here? MS will be here to stay, we better deal with it.
That means learning marketing lessons from them. You conquer the world by conquering small markets at a time - the "crossing the chasm" idea. It seems to me we need to identify chasms we can cross. Maybe we can become the desktop system for government. Maybe we can emphasise cost svings and ride on the XP cost increase to conquer a market of small broke companies. Maybe the graphics market (remember Apple?) or some other market. The desktop as a whole is out until we do, I think.
So, ideas anyone? I have sysadmins running Linux on the desktop - that's a statr I guess.
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
Who said that "breaking up is hard to do..."
-Frijoles-
Also in a sick way, I think that there are things that can be imposed that are far worse than breakup. The feds can come up with a concent decree that ties MS's hands pretty bad and then a single judge can oversee that it is imposed properly. I just don't see Balmer and Gates asking someone if they can do something or getting slapped on the hand if they do something they shouldn't. They are egomaniacs.
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
0, 1. (Just my two bits.)
Ummm, 1,0.
Spackler - Keeping Slashdot binarily correct for the last 2 minutes
I have never seen a more perfect example of jerks with mod-points punishing opinions they disagree with than in this discussion.
I've seen a word that describes this pretty well: a Capitalacy. It's like a Democracy, the power is in the hands of the "people". However, instead of being 1 person = 1 vote, it's 1$ = 1 vote.
Unfortunately, it's starting to look more and more like this...
Starting to? This has been going on for a LONG time. The people with the money have been influencing the politicians since, well, at least prohibition. They're just being less and less secret about it as time goes on, because the public doesn't seem to care that their rights and safety are irrelevant when pitted against a large campaign donation. After all, if the public did care, they'd start voting for other people.
Besides, if it doesn't cause problems that the government (notably the republican party) would LOOSEN food safety standards*, then what are they going to do when they let a computer company continue to walk all over everyone?
* See "Fast Food Nation" for interesting facts, such as that about half of all ground beef produced by the big meat packing houses are contaminated with a dangerous strain of E. Coli that is transferred through feces (yes, that does mean there is shit in many of the burgers/tacos you eat), and that after significant donations from the meat industry, congress prevented them from requiring simple tests for this contaminant, which would save many lives, and cost maybe a penny per pound in the grand scheme of things.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
A lot of people saw this comming. During the election flame-wars, many people were posting right here on slashdot that Bush would stop the breakup. This should be a surprise to very few, and certainly none who frequent this board. Bush is so deep in the pockets of big business and industry, it should come as no surprise that Microsoft would jump on that bandwagon when the opportunity arose.
Microsoft donated a total of $4,617,726 to all election campaigns in 2000. Although it does not break down specifically where the money went, 53% went to republicans, 47% to democrats. From an industry standpoint, Bush received $1,177,770 from computer and internet companies, and Gore $580,634. Certainly not huge numbers, but a quick analysis on how Bush's number is more than double the #2, and then there is a pretty linear dropoff, it is not at all unfaur to conclude that since Microsoft was far and away the biggest contributor from this industry group, a large percentage of the Bush money is from them. (A bone for the flame-mongers: More analysis of these numbers would, of course, be necessary for a solid conclusion.)
Although this decision may have also happened had Gore won, I do not think that would be the case - he is too knowledgeable about the tech sector. Also, knowing how Microsoft respects the law, it wouldnt surprise me at all if they made many more untraceable contributions (dont tell me it cant be done, its done all the time). I also wish opensecrets.org would show contributions for the 2004 election, that may be more revealing.
Is any more proof necessary that this is now truely a government of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation?
The ivory tower has never had to reach so h
I am sorry to say that Microsoft regards rules, custom, law, and everything else as something that are to be circumvented. Bill Gate's version is that everyone has the "Total Microsoft Experience" and that he has all the money. Its word is the expediant of the moment and it will refuse to follow any law. Microsoft obviously thumbed its nose at the legal system during appeal by refusing to follow Judge Jackson's orders in preparing for the breakup. As such it is corporately in contempt of court (and should be held so thank you, as you and I woulld under the same circumstances). I would love to see them broken up by the new Judge (which she can do thanks) no matter what the Justice (or lack there of) department decides. Short of that it has now placed itself in a position where it will dictate what you use, not you deciding what is your best solution.
Sex is heriditary, if your parents didn't have it chances are good you won't either.
What most everyone seems to be missing is that the DOJ does not get to decide the sentence for MS. That is in the hands of the judge the case was handed to. She can still break the company into little mini-microsoft clones if she wants to. There is a degree of less likelyhood to that happening, but it does not change the fact that it is up to her not Ashcroft, Bush or the DOJ.
There were 13 comments on this story ("Bush [Administration] Stops Microsoft Breakup") and 1 on another story that we suspect may have had their metadata mixed up somehow. I believe some of them were actually (intended to be?) posted to other stories and they wound up here instead. They were definitely replies to other comments and we had to make them at the "root level." But I believe the rest of their metadata was correct: user id, subject, points, etc.
If anyone who posted one of these comments or otherwise knows for a fact that our metadata is wrong -- at worst we might show them posted by the wrong user, that would be bad -- please email me and I will correct things as best I can.
Sorry about this, but our first reaction is to try to save comments when at all possible in the case of DB corruption, and we all figured it would be better to leave them up, possibly with wrong metadata, than to delete them.
These are the 14 comments: 2259183 2259165 2259166 2259170 2259171 2259174 2259175 2259178 2259181 2259182 2259185 2259186 2259188 2259191
(Please note, discussion of Slashdot downtime is pretty clearly offtopic, so don't be surprised if you reply to this and get modded down as such. Feel free to mod me down. Hm, maybe we need a user-created discussion about our downtime so there's someplace it won't be offtopic...)
In some ways this would be like FDR addressing congress on December 8, 1941, "Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
We will therefore abandon Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the Philippines, and all of our bases in the Pacific and leave it to the japanese as a reward for their initiative and innovative spirit, but leave them with a stern warning not to invade Texas."
What this translates to:
May bundle and give products which are the sole source of income, and thus drive out of business, no more than 35 companies per year.
May not bundle and provide free of cost any of the following: oil, natural gas, lumber, minerals or mineral ores.
May not give more than $500 M^H^H^H^H^H$1 billion per annum to the Republican Party, conservative think tanks, and special shadowy organizations which shall remain nameless.
May not give more than $10.00 per annum to any parties other than those affiliated with the Republican Party, unless they have a popular, but nutty candidate which is competing in an upcoming election and may draw away votes from a party which will be remain nameless.
The Microsoft CEO may not spend more than 3 consecutive nights in the Lincoln Bedroom.
May not include less than 64,000 bugs per major release.
Will release a special W. version of Word with a spell checker which forbids use of words over 7 letters or 2 syllables in length.
Microsft products shall be distributed to all enemies of the USA, free of cost, so that we shall know of their weaknesses.
Should Microsoft be found in violation of any* of these conditions, the CEO will be sent to bed without dessert and grounded to his multimillion dollar mansion for one week of his choosing.
* Excepting the oil and gas provisions, under which punishment shall consist of the Microsoft CEO briefly discovering the resting place of James Hoffa, Sr.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Whoever voted this as flaimbait failed to read the articles. Not only do the articles not say Bush had anything to do with this one specifically says :
"During a briefing at Justice Department headquarters, a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity denied that the White House had anything to do with Thursday's announcement: "These decisions are being made inside the DOJ."
Someone with mod points who took time to read the article should vote the above reply as informative.
I believe billG/Micro$oft contributed on the order of $650,000 each to both bush and gore.
All governments are for sale, it is just disturbing how cheap they are....
for a measely $50K you can have your very own pet congressman, about $200K for a senator and for the low low price of $500k, your very own president.
by the way, these prices are good only for one issue. they also do not guarantee that you have exclusive ownership, it's more like the fractional ownership of business jets that has become so popular recently.
if you have more than one issue, or desire exclusive ownership, volume discounts can be negotiated....
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
Excuse me folks, but you're missing the real bad actor in this story. President Bush didn't have much (if anything) to do with this decision (despite the incorrect statement in the opening message, read the news stories), and the DOJ was painted into the same corner (very few options). When Judge Jackson decided DURING THE TRIAL to get his 15 minutes of fame and rail his venom against Gates he shot the whole case in the foot. Not only did he place his judgement in question, but now no judge is going to want to be associated with that piece of paper in the remotest sense! The DOJ is trying to get the best out of a bad situation, if you don't like it, blame Jackson running his mouth when he should have been writing legal opinions and letting them stand! (I guess he was jelous of Judge Ito)
It doesn't matter what you wrap your emotions around, Reality is a brick wall specifically designed to scramble eggs
1. The DOJ is part of the Executive Branch.
See this comment.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Here is what I know to be true.
Microsoft will release Windows XP on time, with all of the features it alone intends to incorporate. There will be some slight cosmetic changes meant to give the misleading impression that the Bush Justice Dep't was able to reach some sort of deal with Gates et.al. It will be an almost bald-faced lie that nobody in the non-slashdot world will give a second thought to.
In truth, XP will be within approximation exactly what Microsoft intended it to be, its crowbar to begin leveraging their control of the individual PC desktop into dominance of the internet's protocols themselves and thus the server market. Microsoft will attempt to become the IBM of the 21st century, with all of the attendant lethargy, intransigence, and dictatorial control of what may and may not be done with the equipment that old dinosaur used to have. This'll be explained as the best of all possible outcomes for the consumer because it introduces "consistent standards for the protection of intellectual property and the security of personal data."
----------
Their ploy, most likely, will work. You see, I really think that there's not enough appreciation on Slashdot for the crushing masses of people who never, ever think about free software, open standards, or whether or not there are whatever sorts of privacy or antitrust issues involved with XP. They just want to use their computers to do stuff, and if XP makes it easier for them to do things online, work with video, etc, then they will use it even if installing it's a pain in the ass. And it looks all neat and new, too. For them, Linux is geek stuff. They know that Windows is "the only real OS". They've been using Windows and are quite comfortable with it, warts and all. All their friends use it. They don't want to mess with their computers all the time or have to find out what free program is available to do X, Y, or Z. They're just not at all curious about it as we are.
And MS, with a crack marketing dep't, knows all of this and more about their consumers. Linux can't even make a decent distro for idiots yet, nevermind that relatively prodigious learning curve. Linux has its market, sure, but so far it's not even on the same map as Windows & MS's efforts, and I speak as a complete advocate of open OSes. We MUST be honest with ourselves about the extent of permeation Windows enjoys and not fool ourselves with fantasies about how a government that only reflects the aforementioned popular disinterest is gigon to do anything real, anything solid, to stop the big bad company from making & selling its product.
Excuse my rant.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
It might be more complicated than it looks.
I'm not sure I understand the DOJ announcement, but doesn't it say it wants to take action immediately? If I understand it right, it claims a break-up would take too long.
In short, they want to punish Microsoft effectively before XP hits the shelves.
Oh, geeze, I really hope I read that right... It might actually be a good thing, you know...
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
For those who react to this news with righteous indignation over the Bush Administration's 'clear' act of 'selling out' to $$$ from Microsoft, please read the article. The Wired article in particular contains the following tidbits:
That would include restrictions such as: Microsoft can't give discounts to hardware or software developers in exchange for promoting or distributing other company products, and state and federal government lawyers may come onto Microsoft's campus to "inspect and copy" any document or file they find relevant.
Microsoft would also have to monitor all changes it makes to all versions of Windows and track any alterations that would slow down or "degrade the performance of" any third-party application such as Internet browsers, e-mail client software, multimedia viewing software, instant messaging software and voice recognition software.
Hardly favoured treatment for someone supposedly 'in bed' with the B Administration. This sets a precident that will be a lot more useful in the long run than simply 'busting up' Microsoft for the Internet Explorer issue.
This decision rocks!
**>>BELCH
Breaking up MS wouldn't have solved the problem anyway. There would just be two companies with monopolies, and the company with Office would have no incentive to support more platforms, as it would cost enormous amounts of money to port the applications.
A real solution would be passing a law that all commercial Word Processing/Spreadsheet/Presentation applications(Office Apps) regardless of manufacturer, would have to support a standard format defined by a standards body. The standard would be freely available. The standard must also be the default and natively supported format. The penalty to MS would be that they are forced to release their current Office file formats to this standards body to be the baseline for the standard.
Any and all companies (including MS) would not be prevented from extended the formats or developing something new. However, their products must support the standard first. For the user to use the proprietary formats the user would be forced to manually chose a different file format. Like selecting ".rtf" instead of ".doc" is now. Practically, no one would do it, and anyone acheiving a monopoly on file formats would effectively be blocked.
This would spur an enormous amount of competition in the office/productivity software space. And we would be guarenteed that StarOffice, KOffice, WordPerfect, and the like, could become 100% compatible.
I HAVE FUCKING HAD IT!!
.net?
I REFUSE AND I MEAN REALLY REFUSE TO BE SUBJECT TO MICROSOFT! MICROSOFT HAS SHOWN THEY CAN DO ANYTHING THEY WANT AND THEY CAN BUY WHOMEVER THEY WANT IN THE GOVERNMENT TO MAKE IT HAPPEN! PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING!
HOW LONG DO YOU THINK IT WILL TAKE BEFORE LINUX IS OUTLAWED? MICROSOFT CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN! JUST FILL OUT A CHECK TO G.W. ALL IN THE NAME OF EDUCATING AND INFORMING OF COUSRE.
This pisses me off alot more then Decss vs MPAA. Sorry to type in all caps and be really emotional but I feel like I am absolutely powerless
and my most valued piece of equipment, my hobby, and my career will be rented out and controlled by Microsoft and the mpaa. They will no longer be owned. Why can't I play a dvd movie on my Linux box? What if I take some photo's on a digital cmaera and decide to print them. Will I have to pay Microsoft a printing fee wether I use winXP or not? I really wonder what is the license agreemnt to print digital photo's from XP is? This is just another example and since the split is not going to happen, Microsoft will monopolize the photo industry now. It will not stop their. If they take over yet another market microsoft could make even more money. I know lets charge customers for every transaction sold over the net from serverlets written with
What will happen when Microsoft patents file sharing, smb, or.net and who knows what else? Did you know Microsoft owns a patent on css? How could Linux compete?
Face it Linux is going to die really soon if this power from Redmond is not controlled. They are viscious unhuman animals. It will not die from innovation but from clever legal and political maneuvers. Microsoft knows the strengths and weaknesses of opensource and they know we are broke and will take advantage of it. What do you think MS V.P. Murray meant when he said "The government, is encouraging open source. We need to educate the government in the evils of it?"? He said he was only referring to governmentally funded software but I do not believe him. Of course he is not going to admit the truth. Look at the halloween documents from www.gnu.org? Patents is their main strategy. With checks to the patent office they can actually buy them. He also said that there is a wall between the operating systems group and the applications group at Microsoft 10 years earlier. We all know he was being honest. right?
Microsoft has shown they will try to win tooth and nail at any cost in order to crush competition. They will try patenting and using more forceful EULA's banning Linux from corporations.
The guys with big pockets own American and the world and there is nothing we can do. They own %97 of the world's wealth so we can't outlobby them or out buy them. Writing letters to senators and congressmen wont help either. Campaign finance reform won't work becaus your asking politicians to change a system that got them elected. In other words we are screwed.
I will look at other job options and keep my computer for windows based games. I just will no longer seek employment with these kind of attitudes prevailant in the industry. If Linux dies a legal and not a technical death then I encourage all who are reading this to quit as well. By staying in your job, Microsoft wins. You are rewarding Microsoft for their sleazy and illegal business practices and putting dollars in the wallet for it. I am just so disgusted right now its unbelievable.
Excuse while I go vomit.
http://saveie6.com/
Once again from the article,
During a briefing at Justice Department headquarters, a senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity denied that the White House had anything to do with Thursday's announcement: "These decisions are being made inside the DOJ."
I DO NOT LIKE BUSH I THINK HE SUCKS JUST CUT/PASTING WTFing ARTICLE SAYS. I also hate M$ and wish the DOJ didn't reverse this decision.
I think slashdot should report what the news says. Instead they titled the article the opposite of what the article says.
They are going to have a better chance to push through realistic remedies rather than a huge one that doesn't make sense and would take 4-6 years to push through the courts and
Just set them so they don't go back to begining and start repeating history. MS is in for some tough time ahead. Sooner or later the economy problems will catch up with them, as they seem to be slowly crawling up the food chain. (first dot bombs, second bandwidth/hardware, traditional software companies.. brick and morter... etc etc. Soon enough it will crawl back up to MS and bite em!)
- Office files (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc)
- Internet files/protocols (ActiveX, etc)
- Registry files
- Win32 driver API
- Win32 API
In addition to opening the files/protocols, MS would be require to grant irrevocable patent licenses for any patented software routines needed to read/write any of the above files/protocols.With public specifications, there's no excuse for a lack of competition. The playing field is levelled, so to speak.
Nathan
Who cares, Linux, Alan, ... etc are not going to stop working on the kernel. All the software we use is not going anywhere. Microsoft will continue their normal operation. The world will not end. Who really gives a rip what happens to MS. I don't use Linux because I was waiting for MS to be broken up. I don't use open source software because I was just waiting for until MS comes out with better stuff for me to use. Why doesn't everyone just grow up. Its not an us vs. them. MS is a competitor, but thats great. So is Sun, SGI, and every other software company out there. We deal with it.
Here's a thought, how would MS being borken up help open source?
Nothing to see here, go on your merry way...
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
I have yet to understand why most slashdotters, a group of above-average intelligence, can be so stubborn and mule-headed about political issues.
Microsoft is not off the hook. The DoJ merely came to the conclusion that a breakup of MS would solve NOTHING. Do any of you really think that would have made a difference, or did you just see it as a way to stick it to Big Bad Bill?
This whole tying-the-browser-to-the-OS thing was BS from the get-go. No one was stopping anybody from downloading and installing Netscape or any other browser. I actually thought it was rather USEFUL that a browser was preinstalled so that I could go out and download Netscape!
Regarding the political stuff, don't get any happy thoughts about Clinton starting this suit to protect the consumer. As if he cared about the consumers - the same ones he screwed by enthusiastically signing the DMCA? This whole thing was class warfare from the get-go. The bottom 50% loves it when the guy at the top at the food chain gets pie in his face, don't they? So Slick Willie bolsters his poll numbers by going after MS for some trumped-up crap and gets full cooperation from their competitors, of course. Just try to be honest with yourselves here.
Look, sure MS is evil. XP is full evidence that they're evil. So don't upgrade. You know what happens to products that screw the user? They don't sell. Look at DIVX. That sure didn't go far. XP is the OS equivalent of DIVX, from what I've read so far. Let the market do its thing.
"Property is theft, therefore theft must be property, right?"
Think about it for a moment. M$ finally thinks it has won, and that nobody is able to stop them (Muhahahah). While this maybe true, it most definitely will make M$ more bold, and isn't this exactly what we want?
Think about it. A embolden M$ is more likely to think that it can (and more importantly will) get away with its Monopoly (TM ParkerBros), and proceed to enslave the corporate world. This will do two things, make Linux (TM Linus Torvolds) more popular, and secondly (and more importantly), allow new charges of monopolistic behavior against M$?
The core of the US case against M$ was the stupidest level of incompetance (browser wars?) I have ever seen. Judge Jackson was the only one in the courtroom to see the true implications of the M$ Monopoly (TM ParkerBros). The US Justice Dept. was completely clueless and out of touch with the real issues in the case.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
(From the Wired article)
Microsoft can't give discounts to hardware or software developers in exchange for promoting or distributing other company products.
State and federal government lawyers may come onto Microsoft's campus to "inspect and copy" any document or file they find relevant.
Microsoft would also have to monitor all changes it makes to all versions of Windows and track any alterations that would slow down or "degrade the performance of" any third-party application such as Internet browsers, e-mail client software, multimedia viewing software, instant messaging software and voice recognition software."
This is much more effective than simply breaking up the company.
**>>BELCH
Oh, very simple, actually. Go re-read the remedy suggested by Judge Jackson. The break-up was only part of it. The most important part, wildly underlooked, was that all technical communications between the different parts of Microsoft would be made public. In short, there would be a Microsoft-OS part that would make the core OS, and the rest of Microsoft, that does IE and the Media Player and everything, couldn't commingle its proprietary apps into the OS without the very way they are commingled becoming public.
It was a smart ruling. Judge Jackson did an immensely good job of understanding the problems at stake.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
In the parent comment, I had posted a comment about President Bush and slashdot bias. The excellent slashcode rendered into what you see above.
This whole thing has been a colossal waste of taxpayers money.
We should let corporations do whatever they damn well please with no adverse consequences whatsoever. Brilliant. The problem is that Microsoft has done the same damn thing several times. They got off with a slap on the wrist the first time around. Now it's gonna happen again. Where is the remedy to keep them from doing it again?!
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Heh. I want to call the Democrats the DFL party, but I guess that's a Minnesota thing.
Anyway, I realize it's easier if you can pigeon hole decisions into a political landscape. But you really can't with this Microsoft trial.
The DOJ case was brought forth by the Clinton Justice department, true. It's also no secret that many Microsoft competitors contribute heavily to the Democrats. Most notably is Larry Ellison who gave multiple millions to the Democrats in the Florida public relations campaign.
On the other hand another Microsoft competitor who has complained fiercely is Novell, which exists in Utah and is championed by Senator Hatch.
Also on the DOJ side are two very notable Highly Republican partisans by name of Robert Bork and Kenneth Starr.
I don't agree with the DOJ case, and I'm a very partisan Democrat. Yet on the other hand my boss and many of his friends are highly Republican and they do disagree with the case.
Yet I encounter numerous persons in newsgroups who are clearly right-wing extremists who are very anti-Microsoft.
I realize these are a lot of random anecdotes and facts, but the point is there really is no trend of Republicans being for Microsoft and Democrats being against Microsoft. It's all over the board.
There was another provision -to require a standard and consistant licensing price schedule- which obliquely touches on this issue, but none that address it directly; just as in the trial it's being ignored. Particularly troubling is the suggestion that the DOJ will model their proposed remedy on the restrictions proposed by Judge jackson in so far as those restrictions to business practices were relevant when they were originally proposed but the landscape has changed drastically sice then. Microsoft has moved on from the battle for the desktop, to the battle for the net, and if the restrictions do not relate to practices associated with the new battleground, then they will be on no value at all.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
The only way that this wasn't Bush's decision is if all the stories about Cheney really running the country are true. The decision may well have been issued and executed by Ashcroft and his cronies, but Bush is his boss, and can fire him if he makes decisions with which he disagrees.
It's not like Ashcroft is some gunslinging maverick who doesn't toe the party line- he does what Bush wants, or he is replaced by someone who will.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
What's bothered me is that nearly every linux distribution includes one or more web browsers. Recently they also include spreadsheets, graphic manipulation (gimp), and soon they'll all include word processors similar to MS Word and email/calendar/contact magangement similar to MS Outlook.
It seems quite dangerous to establish a legal precedent against including a popular application with the "operating system". At the rate things are going, in a few years a Linux distribution will probably come with work-a-like replacements for every major proprietary application.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
the PC that can't boot anything but Windows? (How will they do this?)
Regardless of the fine print on this decision, I expect MS to spin it as a victory. Most notably, when the Appeals Court overturned the penalty while upholding the verdict, MS went out with the trumpets. Furthermore, their ACTIONS went along with what their WORDS were saying. It appears that they really believed that they had won the appeal.
So no matter what conduct remedies will be, what do you think their actions are going to be, now?
My remedies:
Open up file formats of monopoly-scale products.
Open up protocols of monopoly-scale products.
Open up contract details for monopoly-scale products.
Actually, don't think anything is going to work in the US. It's up to the rest of the world to make up for our ethical laziness.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Um, no.
Even if that were true -- which it isn't, despite what their PR staff tries to tell us -- that would be a sign that our system is even more fucked up than it actually is.
...keep in mind two things.
1. MS still has the Findings of Fact hanging around its neck -- read: civil suits from Sun, Netscape/AOL, just about anybody who wants to bring an antitrust case. Remember, AT&T was broken up after a civil suit by MCI way-back-when in the early 80s, not because of the Feds initiating the action.
2. The conduct remedies are not yet set in stone, just based on Jackson's final judgement minus the breakup (which was pretty harsh already) and not necessarily limited to that. It would be interesting, for example, if one of the remedies were to force MS to take Windows XP from the market...and that is strongly implied in both the BBC and CNNfn articles.
So MS has dodged the breakup bullet, but OTOH the breakup as specified -- AppsCo and SystemsCo (or whatever the heck the stupid names were) -- would have just created two monopolies where only one existed before, and with both still having the same kick-'em-when-they're-down culture of MS. If you ask me, that would have been worse than the current situation.
And XP may yet be barred from the market (at least for a while) -- and later come to market sans Messenger, Hailstorm, Passport and so on. Maybe. *fingers crossed*
Of course, IANAL and all that.
So there is a silver lining...well, maybe a mercury lining. Oh, whatever.
cya
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
So, after what...years? of arguing, the solution to the M$ problem is to figure out a better solution.
It seems to me this wishy-washy behavior is just the start of simply letting the entire monopoly thing go unpunished.
I'll be fair, its a decently sound theory to say the reason this is happening is to not hurt the economy anymore, but isn't that the reason the trial happened anyway? To prevent one company from having such a large economic presence as to be immune to the law? To singlehandedly drive or slow the economy?
is it terribly unreasonable to expect someone to make a decision and then follow through?
In reaction to the news, large holders of MSFT stock were delighted by today's announcement.
"This is exactly the kind of relief from burdensome regulation and government oversight that we had decried so often in the past," said one Bush advisor.
"It shows the kind of cooperation that you can get. That government and industry can work together for all Americans that pay taxes," said the President, arriving back after a recent 24 day vacation.
At Microsoft's Redmond, Washing headquarters, a teary-eyed Steve Ballmer could barely whisper his joy at the occasion of the news that the feds at discontinued their pursuit to break up the software giant.
"I'd like to thank everyone out there that supported us. It just goes to show that the American way is working, that we really do have the best government that money can buy." said Steve, wiping away tears.
"Protecting our right to innovate has been vindicated by the government of the United States of Amerika. We're heartened," said Bill Gates at a conference on Bridging the Digital Divide in Haiti. Gates refused to answer questions that he was negotiating to buy Haiti in the event of an unfavorable treatment from U.S. courts in the landmark anti-trust trial.
"The President of Haiti and I have reached an understanding that his police force can cooperate fully with the BSA in an effort to prevent software piracy, which, as you can easily see, has led to the ruination of this once-proud nation."
"Provided by the management for your protection."
You have to understand something here: As the president, Bush is named responsible for the actions of all those underneath him, whether he made the decision personally or not.
It is quite likely that this same decision would have been made even had Gore or Nader been made president, at which time you'd be reading, "The Nader administration..." and you'd wonder, "What? Nader would NEVER do anything like that."
Of course he wouldn't. But being president means delegating authority to others, who then make the decisions. You then get blamed for their bad decisions.
[Off-topic rant: This is the major reason why I couldn't support Gore. It seemed to me, through various incidents during his campaign, that he had chosen to surround himself with people who were not very competent, no matter how intelligent he himself was. Bush, despite the perception that he's not very intelligent, has a knack for surrounding himself with very intelligent and competent people. Because of the size of the Executive branch of the US gov't., the ability of a man to surround himself with the best and brightest -- people to make him look good -- is far, far more important than that individual's capabilities in itself. In the end, the president becomes an effigy of himself that's then hung, burned, and shat upon by the public at large anyhow; in this way, the position protects the people who do the actual legwork of diplomacy and policy-making. It's a waste of the talents of a talented individual to make him or her president; he or she can do much greater things as a cabinet member. Why do you think Powell hasn't run for President yet? It's because in his current position he can do more to change the world, and he doesn't have a bigass bulls-eye on his back. In other words, in the US Executive branch, it's much better to have a buffoon surrounded by good puppeteers than a brilliant man surrounded by fools.]
comment 2259181 was attributed to me, but that is not the message I sent. It is my sig, though... weird.. that would seem to indicate that the form data got mixed up in transit.
I think this is because the DB hosed right I was submitting a comment.
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
Excellent idea. I've created one here: http://slashdot.org/journal.pl?op=display&uid=&id
Mind posting some details there, Jamie, or in the journal of the first guy to make the move if I'm not the first one? That'd get the discussion started, hopefully...
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
They can ban it from doing business in Europe -- this was the reason why some mergers were called off.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Okay, Slashdot readers, let me explain something to you. As a member of the Executive branch of the US Federal Government, I apparently have some insight that others of you don't.
In the world of government, there is a magical thing called 'Delegation of Authority'. You see, without the concept of Delegation of Authority, absolutely NOTHING could possibly be accomplished in the world of modern government. There is no fathomable, feasible, logical, REASONABLE way that a man with as much responsibility and power as George W. Bush could possibly handle each and every aspect of the minutia and day-to-day operations of an organization like the federal government. That is why authority is DELEGATED. Yes, you heard me right, AUTHORITY IS DELEGATED (for those of you that are really slick, you will note that responsibility is NEVER delegated).
So what does this mean' It means that when you are the president, you can't possibly stick your nose into every detail of operations and politics. It isn't possible. Even if people wanted to, you CANNOT MICROMANAGE THE US GOVERNMENT. It is simply too large. There cannot be far-reaching conspiracies of men in blue suits behind closed doors that are secretly plotting every detail of your life and working their hardest to oppress you and your way of life. Even if they wanted to, IT ISN'T POSSIBLE.
Did President Bush personally instruct the DOJ to reverse their policy? No. Does Bush have some 'secret agenda' to restore Microsoft to its former glory? No. Did not John Ashcroft himself have something to do with it? Maybe. It's not like these people aren't busy, folks. They have a government to run. They don't have the time to screw with your lives and make things hard on you. That happens through carelessness, neglect, and bad decisions. It happens because of NOT trying, because of a lack of effort on the parts of lawmakers and politicians. Not because they hate you.
Now, after all of that, does this mean that Bush is responsible for the decision?
Yes.
Per the NY Times article discussed above, Ashcroft didn't make this decision.
However, you are right to point the finger at Ashcroft in the sense that as the head of the DOJ, he is responsible for decisions made by those to whom he has delegated his authority.
Now you might speculate that they're taking the quote out of context, or that there might be another implication to what he said (or almost didn't say), but to only go from one source and ignore all others is clearly very poor investigation.
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
The picture of Bill in the Wired.com article should be "Eeexcellent, Smithers. It's all going according to plan."
Actually, this is one of the few issues where BushGore differed by more than a hair's witdth. Whereas Dubya was using the phrase "we shouldn't restrict innovation" in his speeches, Gore campaigned in favor of antitrust action in the software industry while visiting Redmond. Here's a quote from the Seattle Times:
Let me repeat -- Gore said this at the heart of Microsoft's campus, to their faces, while asking for their votes. He may be an arrogant exaggerating tight-ass, but he's got some big brass balls.
Of course, Microsoft probably would have gotten a breakup thrown out on appeal either way, but at least the DoJ wouldn't have rolled over like this. When they appointed Charles James as head of DoJ antitrust division, Dubya's handlers knew exactly what they were doing.
The appeals court only assigned a new judge to determine the penalty, they didn't say she could not issue a breakup. The judge can still issue a breakup order if she decides to, the DoJ just stopped asking her to.
Ray of hope? For what?
Microsoft is being slammed royally and in real time, rather than the nebulous affair that was looking to be drawn out over the next ten years.
I agree with others, tho', that this (parent) posting has no business being labeled 'flamebait'.
Everyone is welcome to their own (wrong) opinions...
; )
**>>BELCH
I've got a great plan...
/.'ers out there can take their $$$ from Mr' Bush's ill-advised "tax rebate to the American People(TM)", send those monies to the Open Source Movement of your choice (Patrick Volderking's getting MINE!), and beat Microsoft at its own game. Who needs politicians when you have each other?
all
Money wins again. WRONG!!! Geeks win again!!!
-PONA-
+that's funny...I don't FEEL tardy.+
Don't have a reference handy, unfortunately. I first heard of it from David Boies, when he was hired in relation to the Napster/RIAA debacle. He figured that if Napster could show RIAA was acting in violation of antitrust law--difficult, but possible--then they could get all those copyrights turned over to the public domain, and Napster would be home free.
:)
The law predates the twentieth century, apparently, having been passed very late in the 1800s. Almost everyone had forgotten about it or overlooked it until Boies found it while doing research into converting copyrighted works into public-domain works. The law has, to the best of my knowledge, never been tested in court.
The law is filled with all sorts of landmines like that--laws passed over a hundred years ago which everyone has forgotten about, up until the point someone points the law out and you discover you just had your balls cut off by a rusty spoon. That's why I'm so deeply suspicious of the law, myself.
...and Open Source in general. With the Bush administration letting MS off this easily after being accused of being a monopoly, what do you think this tells other major corporations? Big businesses will be a lot less worried about getting into trouble when attacking smaller businesses. Bush doesn't want to protect small businesses, he wants to support Big Business.
As for Linux running into hard times. MS is going to have more freedom to attack Linux now. Do you think the Bush administration is going to support Linux against MS? No way, Linux doesn't make any money, it's against the Bush administrations ideals. Other Open Source projects better watch out for any commercial competition. It's open season on the little guys now.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Flaws in a treay do not mean you must throw it away. You fix the flaws. The Bushies haven't come up with an alternative, have they? And the other 100+ countries involved did sign it. Are they all idiots?
From what I have heard (I have not read this), the Kyoto Treaty was especially cruel to the U.S. in terms of penalties and would cost many jobs. Other countries would not face the same consequences if they broke the rules. This is why almost the entire Senate voted against it. It never came close to President Bush.
BTW, the other countries were not idiots. They could benefit financially whenever the U.S. broke the rules. Who would pay? We, the citizens, would pay.
You're damn straight it was especially cruel to the US - the US emits 25% of the worlds CO2, with just 5% of the population. It wasn't that there were different rules for the US, simply that the US is currently, far and away, the worst offender.
But of course, the Bush administration's view was 'We won't do anyhting that would harm American interests'. At least, I suppose, he's honest in his blindness to ever consider the world beyond his back yard...
There are other penalties that could make Microsoft wish it had been broken up.
The basic idea is that Microsoft should not benefit or profit from the proceeds of their illegal acts.
Therefore, one possible solution could be:
1) the equivalent of a jail term
- Microsoft should not release any new software or any revision or update to their operating system software in any way for an extended period of time. Occasional patches may be issued so long as they are standalone, issued for no cost, and can fit on a single standard format floppy disk. (1.44) megabytes
- The period of time that this prohibition should be in force should at least equal the period of time that they have had profit from their illegal acts (5 to 10 years), if not more. The purpose of this is to inhibit their dominance of the market as it was achieved by illegal acts, and return the conditions as much as possible to what it was when Microsoft committed the illegal acts.
- If Windows XP is not released to market, then the penalty can be reduced slightly (3 to 5 years).
- There should be a very substantial fine to remove any profits that they have accrued as a result of their illegal activity.
Again, the idea is to remove any profit or gain that resulted from their illegal acts.2) Another alternate solution is to require that all operating system software releases must meet the approval in advance from a government commission comprised of a large number of industry experts. This includes any software integrated into the operating system, and any software intended to replace the operating system. Maybe three from each state in involved in the law suits, plus three from the Federal Government. With a quorum of 2/3 needed to vote. Again from a 5 or Ten year period.
With each of these, if this means that .NET is put on hold, then tough. It is meant to be a penalty. Similar to if you when to jail for several years.
Of course, criminals routinely protest that the jail sentences are unfair, and that they are mis-understood. This should not inhibit the administration of Justice.
- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Just three years ago a Microsoft exec told my (then) manager:
"We are going to eliminate all non-microsoft programming by 2003"
I think they might pull it off.
Between embedded XP and the favoritism shown to MS by governments and corporations, I don't see how they can be stopped. Ethics doesn't work, the law doesn't work, the slow speed of government is ineffective in dealing with the information economy.
I've just about had it, too...I've got two other possible careers in the works, neither of which is "tech heavy" (little or no computer use required) so I'm thankful for that!
Hopefully, after some time off FT programming and just enjoying life for a bit, I'll be able to devote some time to improving Linux.
I'd love to work on a decent "Security Control Panel" -- things like PortSentry, Nmap, Satan, Tripwire all controlled and configured by one GUI. That would be a fun project.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
The head of the X-Box project has claimed that it will not be possible to boot Linux on it. Now everyone here knows that will be taken as a challenge. We can expect at least Linux and NetBSD to boot it within a year of it's introduction. Of course, it would be a much longer road to fully support it's hardware.
This boast that the X-Box will only be capable of running it's pack-in OS seems to mean that steps have been taken lock down the environment as much as possible. It's true that it is being marketed as a console rather than a PC but it seems like a ThinkNIC on steroids to me.
If Microsoft can get out of this with a wristslap then locking down commodity PCs does seem like a plausible step. They've already shown their ability to strongarm OEMs.
Amen, brother. Also note that the "correction" was quietly inlined instead of an appended update. Show some respect!
This sig intentionally left blank.
The funny thing is that this action, which MSFT believes to be in its favor, will almost certainly cause Europe to pick up the bat dropped by the US government and whack MSFT even harder.
MSFT may be able to influence the US government, especially through very large contribs to GWBush (I park my car next to The Ruins sometimes, I'm not naive), but they have little or no influence on the EU, which has the total and absolute power to dissolve MSFT into two companies.
"But wait!", you say, "Europe can't do that to an American company!" Silly person, you fail to understand that as a condition of doing business in Europe, the EU may require that MSFT split in two or three parts. No split, no sales.
This is the lesson that many US multinationals have been learning over the past few months - sometimes it's better to have your friends whack you over the head (US penalties) than to let your enemies do it instead (EU penalties).
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
That would make a great T-Shirt :)
Bill... a big cross... and Uncle Sam with a mallet and a handful of railroad spikes...
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
By that way of reasoning, Bush makes every single decision the federal government makes. That must be millions of them a day.
Now I see why he needded that vacation...
Hint, XP isn't going to be the tonic to get the tech sector back on its feet. MS isn't the be all and end all of the stock market. And even if a sushi chef of a judge diced MS into a ton of Baby Bills you wouldn't get a recession.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
If it weren't for Microsoft....who would post to /.? I mean, MS seems to get alot of airtime around here.
/. is the mole?
I think its a plot to keep all the open sourcers busy commenting and reading and preventing them from coding.
Following that line of thinking it seems that MS has infiltrated deep into the open sorce community. Which leads me to the question....so who at
Troubling very troubling indeed.
I'm still working on a clever footer.
From opensecrets.org:
"During the 1999-2000 election cycle, Microsoft contributed more than $4.7 million in soft money, PAC and individual contributions to federal candidates and parties--almost three times what the company contributed during the previous three election cycles combined. More than two-thirds of that money went to Republicans."
You get what you pay for, eh? Or, in this case, a lot more -- an excellent return on investment.
And Bush was the guy that was going to bring honor and integrity back to the White House? Not bloody likely.
1. This does not get M$ off the hook. There are 18 state attorney generals who are also plaintiffs here. ALL OF THEM must agree to any deal with the Redmond monster. This has been a big problem in past settlement negotiations (thank God!).
It only takes one state AG to keep the ball rolling here. True, it will be hard without the DoJ to help.
2. President Bush ABSOLUTELY made this decision. He appointed Ashcroft and he owns him. Remember how Ashcroft was down in FL disrupting the recount? AG was his payoff. Also remember Bush is the head of the executive branch of the US government, and the DoJ is part of this branch. Bush was talking about letting M$ off before he was even elected.
Bush is a political whore and the big corps. of the USA are his Johns.
But there's a world of difference between indirect influence and direct instruction, which Michael claims.
I actually agree with this statement. When a president wants to take credit for an action, she will directly instruct her inferiors. When she wants to avoid blame, she will not announce her direct culpability.
Bryguy
ps- I'm sure someone will complain about my use of the feminine preferred. My statement applies to any hypothetical president, and all our female presidents so far have been hypothetical
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Let's see if they can really do it. If by this time next year, Dell, Gateway, etc. are free to put any software on the machines they sell, I will be very happy the Feds decided not to waste any more time on now hoplessly obsolete issues. What M$ does with it's platform makes absolutely no difference if people are free to do what they want on alternate platforms. If the DOJ pushes through, and makes stick, regs and laws on anitcompetitive behavior for vendors M$'s unfair power and advantages will vanish like last years .DOC format.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
> Hint, XP isn't going to be the tonic to get the tech sector back on its feet. MS isn't the be all and end all of the stock market.
> And even if a sushi chef of a judge diced MS into a ton of Baby Bills you wouldn't get a recession.
Pundits keep saying that the tech sector will recover once Windows XP is released . . . only that ain't gonna happen.
Why? There isn't anything in XP that will make a user happy with either Windows NT or Win 2000 want to upgrade. Yes, there's a few bug fixes, but most of the stuff that has changed either (a) locks the user into depending more on MS; or (b) encroaches on her/his fair use rights to the software. And this has been pointed out not only in the computer press, but in such media outlets like CNBC.
And I suspect the Shrub knows this. This is why his underlings are trying to walk away from this suit as fast as they can. Otherwise, another rich buddy of the Shrub may suffer some financial hurt -- which he doesn't want to see.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
I think this is a legitimate decision on their part, since Windows in some form or another runs on all government computers (minus a few thousand Linux boxen in the DoD, and all of the Apple PowerBooks on the West Wing).
I also think that this will have some clear and distinct effect on the market share of Windows and other Microsoft products in the future, but I'm not sure which way it will go. It could go up, if people think "Oh, now that it's in the hands of the government, it must be stable and OK" (that's not stable as in not crashing stable, but stable as in the company's future). It could also go down, if people see this as the government trying to get more control (which they are).
Seeing as how there's at least one precedent set for this type of thing so far (Bell), I think everyone challenging the constitutionality of this should go read up on their American history.
Sorry 'bout that.
Reserve your judgement until you see an inefective wrist slap instead of reasonable judgements. Reasonable restrictions on MS dirty and market forces will make you happier much faster than an unregulated MS or an unrestricted MSOS company. Know anyone that really wants XP? I don't.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Obi Europe! You're our only hope!
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Salon
Cnet
The Economist
Washington Post
National Post (Includes trial timeline)
NY Times
Globe and Mail
and heh.. MSNBC
In theory you're right. In reality GWB only can go in and rectify the most egregious deviations from his principles. There just isn't time to do much else than trust the people you appointed and deal with the everyday crises that pop up.
All I think you could correctly say is that GWB isn't opposed to this, not that he strongly agrees with it.
While the M$ trial is a pretty big deal in the nerd world, it's still a second rate issue in the big political scene.
gee, shucks, since the original poster framed it this way;
"The question is, does this (the procedural remedies suggested by the DOJ and imposed by Jackson) go to allowing PC vendors to bundle additional operating systems like Linux with new PCs without the penalties that are now part of the Microsoft Bootloader License [byte.com]?"
the byte.com article, linked by the original poster, states clearly, that the DOJ decided to ignore the "bootloader" issue in the current case (a BIG mistake IMHO), so the bootloader issue was NEVER introduced at trial. It will be very hard (nearly impossible) to introduce it now without reopening much or all of the existing findings to further litigation (that's the way our legal system works)
FURTHER, in case you've been living in Elbonia and/or don't understand M$ OS architecture, the ENTIRE thrust of their FS, LOADER AND EXEC is to NOT SUPPORT interoperability with anything but M$ architecture...why do you think they own 90% of the desktop market...their good looks and charm?
so, presuming that the original poster that i responded to meant what he/she said about multi-booting....
...THE ONLY WAY TO ACHIEVE MULTI-BOOTING WITH ***data interoperability*** on M$ ARCHITECTURES IS THROUGH ****substantial redesign****
TRUE, you could force a "Chinese Menu" screen solution (not really completely within the current trial scope, BTW), but how does that help the "monopoly" problem?
...if the average desktop user can't seemlessly and invisible interchange DATA between her multi-booted OS...guess which one they're gonna pick, the one with 3-6% market share amongst geeks like us, or the one with 93% market share amongst home users and businesses?????
Now, just WHO do you think would have to control the necessary architectural changes to M$ OS????
Bubsy F*****G Berkley?
BTW, you might have the stones to not post AC, if you want to be taken seriously, unless taking cheap shots is ALL you're about
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
Slashdot's database was hosed from sometime around 7 AM EDT
:)...
Sorry, but in lieu of this thread, I just HAVE to troll
If you had been running MSSQL server this would be a non-issue.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
$16M in political contributions [Common Cause] by Microsoft in the last four years obviously didn't go to waste. Time Magazine and the BBC also have good (although a little dated) articles on the size and scope of Microsoft's intense lobbying effort since the antitrust trial started.
I really want to know why Not Breaking Up Microsoft is a bad thing.
Obviously the DOJ Finally realized that the worse thing they could do is break up Microsoft.
For example, they were talking about breaking up MS into a Windows division and an Office Division. If they would have done that, then all they would have done is break up the one big monopoly and split it up into 2 Big monopolies which would put them in the same boat two to three years from now fighting two Microsoft's over monopolistic practices.
Keep in mind that the DOJ is still on the MS case, they have only ruled out the Breakup because they realized that it was just not the logical way to deal with the Windows Monopoly.
The Best remedy that they could choose to breakup the Windows monopoly is to force them to open source everything in current and future Versions of Windows and allow it to be freely downloadable. This takes the Windows Monopoly out of Microsoft's Hands because anyone now can make changes to the Windows Kernel and software and sell their version as a Windows Distrubution (Much like Linux is done now)
Once you take the Windows Monopoly out of Microsoft's Hands and allow other companies to make Windows Distributions, you will get a more competitive marketplace for Operating Systems, more Choices, Less Bullying, Higher quality software overall, and a much higher quality operating system than you could ever get with just MS supplying the OS code.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
They shouldn't have paid ISPs, OEMs, etc. to NOT distribute Netscape. They should have allowed OEMs to bundle whatever software they wanted, etc, etc, etc, etc...
I agree with you though, bundling IE was not a bad thing. What was wrong though, was the way they forced Netscape out of the market.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
well, i presume that you're supporting M$, because every major poll has shown that around 70% (running average, very rough) of the American public DO NOT support the breakup of M$..
throughout the period of this antitrust trial, this public support in the major media's polls (CNN, Zogby, ABCNews, NYT, et al. when they have polled on this question, which isn't that often) has ranged between 60-80% of the American public supporting M$ in this, and many question the G's role in antitrust as a whole
i presume most of these people have had trouble finding the "Any" key, and while i would dearly love them on the jury of any trial i was subject to...
i sure wouldn't want them making technology policy for my company or my country...ever watch PPV Wrestling????
you want these folk driving major public policy, eh?
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
Note that this original comment was NOT mine and was caused by this morning's meltdown of the comments system.
.NET and XP are probably going to trigger it, too.
What I had said was that It was a predictable outcome. It's good to know that for the right price, government can still be bought. No worries, though, Microsoft will implode upon the mass of its own arrogance.
What kind of movie Star Wars be if it ended with the Empire being broken up into civilian and military branches and the Rebels being given some say in how the Death Star was run?
Bush is protecting our Freedom to Whoop Microsoft's Ass by protecting Microsoft's "Freedom to Innovate."
"When the DOJ announced that they would allow Microsoft to stay united, the relief was palpable. Both the operating system side and the applications and consumer products side gazed into one another's eyes and sighed. Sources close to Microsoft say that the make-up sex was unbelievable."
l ay=20010907&id=400
full story:
http://www.ridiculopathy.com/news_detail.php?disp
it's usually right-wingers who spout this crap
I am independent.
100+ countries signed Kyoto. The US did not.
Actually, the U.S. did sign it. Very few countries have ratified it.
However, it is proven that CO2 emissions are not a good thing. Don't give me any crap about that because it's TRUE Ask the vast majority of scientists, and they'll tell you that CO2 emissions are bad.
A vast majority of scientist thought the world was flat at one time. Majority does not make it true. There is proof that the climate started warming up before we started burning fossil fuels. It is looking like a cylical event.
That said I a trying to do my part by buying a fuel-cell car or at least a hybrid for my next car. I refuse to buy a gas hog (SUV).
So it makes sense to ratify it! Unless you're being payed off by people totally self-interested (which is usually big buisness in this case)...
If you disagree, you must be evil? Sorry, but that does not have to be the case. You do realize the Kyoto treaty has exemptions for "developing" countries like China, India, and Mexico. The pollution production would have just shifted from the U.S. to some other country. If people truly want a treaty against pollution, they should draft it to cover everyone.
This version of the link works, apparently.
http://slashdot.org/journal.pl?op=dis play&uid=3167 03
Too lazy to do HTML this morning, cut and paste and then remove the space between the 7 and the 03.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
... or PostgreSQL running on Linux boxen, which would probably be faster and more reliable, not to mention a hell of a lot cheaper.
Sorry troll, no one is going to argue with you that MySQL is better than MSSQL. We're not that stupid.
You have got to be off your rocker. The significance of the M$ case as both a matter of government business and as a political issue, and the President's responsibility as the final arbiter of high-level decisions in the executive branch, certainly are reliable premises. I went into those things extensively in the post; would you care to quote those parts in italics in your next post?
The inference that W approved the executive decision on this case flows from those premises. Of course it's a probabilistic inference, but there's nothing illegitimate about that. Real life is hardly amenable to deductions based on absolute truths; just about all of our everyday reasoning is based on likelihoods. Welcome to the real world, champ.
Do you think it is at all likely that the President didn't approve this decision? Well actually, given the reports of Bush's disengagement in office, and the role of Cheney as a shadow president, it might actually be possible! But that would be shocking indictment of Bush as a President whose irresponsibility is unprecedented. Let's hope it's not true. This case is so important to the future of the software industry, and the hence the US economy, that no President worth a damn could have neglected to take responsibility for this decision.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
Perhaps English is not your native language... I meant to imply that MSSQL is indeed better than MySQL, but that PostgreSQL is better than both. Do you have anything to say about that now that you (hopefully) understand my point?
That's insane. Many of those companies were pushed into the toilet, directly or indirectly, by Microsoft. After having left the hen-house unguarded for so long, the attitude seems to be ``not much left in here, just this fox, we'de better protect it in case it goes too.''
The sanest thing to do would be to promptly fine Microsoft a hundred billion dollars, payable in five-billion-dollar annual installments over twenty years, and throw it at the national debt, OSS incubators, net access for the poor, or something else actually useful.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Actually, allowing science to limit religion is the dangerous one, since scientists have religious beliefs including Atheism.
Alternatively, passing religious laws and then selectively enforcing them - which history shows happening often - usually results in seven-figure bloodshed (think Crusades, both World Wars, Reign of Terror...).
Cutting taxes I like. Cutting taxes for any reason is a welcome novelty. Any government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have. Playing favourites with the remains is not such a good idea.
Not at all surprising, if you assume that Big Business 0wns Bush.
Not at all surprising considering that Dubyah is in the pocket of big industry, and that both sides of the cold war were largely funded (directly and indirectly) by the USA for the nett benefit of certain large US corporations (read Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler sometime).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing