MS Settlement: Six States (And Samba) Say "Stop!"

Masem writes "The BBC is reporting that because 6 states have refused to agree to the settlement between Microsoft and the DOJ, Microsoft is conceeding that a settlement adjustment will not be possible, opening the door for Judge Kollar-Kotelly to begin rapid remedy hearings. There is a slim chance that negotiations might happen before the end of business today (Tuesday) that will allow the settlement to go after several refinements over the last few nights, but few expect any success. While Judge Kollar-Kotelly is promising to resolve the issue as fast as possible, legal experts are projecting a drawn out battle, with the additional time no longer on Microsoft's side. No word on which states were on which side, beyond MA being very much against the settlement and IL being for it." Besides the states, the Samba team has its own objections, below.

Jeremy Allison and Andrew Tridgell of the Samba team have posted a brief analysis of what the current settlement proposal would mean to that project. (Thanks, jdfox.) Considering that Samba is one of the most important links between open and closed software, it's worth mulling over.

Comments

Samba team should brief this and submit to judge

[sphealey]

The Samba team should get this statement transformed into legal-brief-ese and submit it to the judge in the case. This (plus the DMCA/SSSCA gotcha's hidden elsewhere in the proposed settlement) hits the core of the weakness of the proposed settlement.

sPh

Protests

[xonker]

The geek community has been quick to organize protests in favor of Dmitry Skylarov -- why not protest the DoJ caving to Microsoft. Even people who *like* Microsoft products have been saying that they don't like the corporate behavior of MS.

Ashcroft and Bush are far too eager to let them off easy. I think that Microsoft should get much more severe punishment for the damage they've inflicted on the computing industry. I don't think breaking them up is the answer, but neither is letting them go about business as usual.

Most of the items that Microsoft and the DoJ negotiated in the end were little more than a list of things that Microsoft should be doing anyway. It's not punishment, merely requiring Microsoft to follow the law...

Some penalties I'd like to see:
1. Require open standards. No more proprietary protocols or file formats. All have to be published by the time Microsoft releases a product to the public.
2. Divest MSN, and X-Box divisions.
3. A fine of no less than 25% of Microsoft's yearly income. Not profit, income.

Why aren't people gathered around the country to protest this obvious miscarriage of justice?

Re:Protests

[Reid]

In case you forgot, or weren't born yet, IBM hed much more of a monopoly than MS ever will. You just never hear about it these days because computing was not in the spotlight of the general public back then. The market righted itself in the past, and it will this time too.

Wasn't IBM under the antitrust gun themselves for many years? Kind of disingenuous to say "the market righted itself" when the government played a large part in fixing that problem.

Re:Protests

[MadAhab]

Actually, Microsoft walked into the area opened up by the antitrust suit and that created a balance in the market, not the market itself, which failed Failed FAILED, as markets periodically do absent oversight. In much the same way sporting contests without referees tend to fall apart now and then; when was the last time you saw a referee-less sporting event where money changed hands? No one has yet moved into a space opened up by antitrust suits against Microsoft; nor are they likely to, since Microsoft's leadership clearly believe they are above the law and can ignore any judgement against them.

Bush's belief in aristocracy before capitalism and money before values and power before technology will ensure that the next generation of change - be it a multi-media WWW or whatever - will be held back for another 20 years while an abusive monopoly tries to get the markets to pay in advance for every niggardly improvement, unless, of course, crushing yet another hopelessly optimistic would-be competitor happens to make some innovation appear to be worth stealing.

Samba project not hurt, but not helped

[Osty]

Maybe it's just me, but reading through the Samba project's analysis I didn't get the same sense of urgency that the Slashdot article gave. As I understand it, the Samba project would be no worse off if the settlement went through. They would simply not benefit from the settlement. IANAL, but it seems to me that a non-related third party to the legal action has no "right", if you will, to profit from the settlement. That's between the DoJ, the States Attorneys, and Microsoft (and potentially AOL/Netscape, Sun, and Oracle, as they were the ones that greased the pockets that got this started in the first place).

If the settlement doesn't hinder Samba any more than they currently are, I don't see where they have grounds to object to it simply because it doesn't help them either. (hint: anti-trust legislation is supposed to be designed to protect the consumer, not a monopoly's competitors. Samba's the latter, not the former. We've bastardized those laws to the point where they're just legal protection for companies that can no longer compete in a market. There's nothing illegal with going out of business.)

Re:Samba project not hurt, but not helped

[sphealey]

Maybe it's just me, but reading through the Samba project's analysis I didn't get the same sense of urgency that the Slashdot article gave. As I understand it, the Samba project would be no worse off if the settlement went through. They would simply not benefit from the settlement.

You need to factor the DMCA, the SSSCA, and language elsewhere in the settlement agreement concerning security, encryption, and "digital rights management". Those factors could easily be combined to allow Microsoft to use the settlement to sue Samba, rather than the other way around.

sPh

Re:Samba project not hurt, but not helped

[MrResistor]

hint: anti-trust legislation is supposed to be designed to protect the consumer, not a monopoly's competitors. Samba's the latter, not the former.

WRONG!

For Samba to be a competitor it would have to be a company, which it isn't. Even if Samba was a company, or the product of a company, it wouldn't be a competitor.

Samba is a tool created by consumers, for consumers, for the purposes of sharing files and printers in a heterogeneous network using Microsoft's communication protocols and standards (namely SMB and CIFS), which currently have to be reverse-engineered by contributors to the Samba project.

Samba is entirely free, free as in speech, free as in beer. Samba protects the consumer by promoting interoperability in heterogeneous networks.

The Samba team has grounds to object because they are consumers who would like to be able to keep their important files on a single powerful and RELIABLE *nix server rather than clusters of redundant and UNRELIABLE NT servers.

Had you bothered to find out what Samba was before declaring judgement upon them, you would already have known all that.

Effective remedies

[shanek]

I think that any effective remedy that will stem Microsoft's behavior would include, at a minimum, the following two conditions:

1) Microsoft must fully open the APIs and protocols to all interested parties, including rival software manufacturers and those who would set up emulation or compatibility layers (this would include WINE and Samba). It would seem to me that this should be considered the responsibility of anyone who makes an OS for general consumption. (Note that this would not require them to open up their source code.)

2) Microsoft should be prohibited from restricting equipment manufacturers from altering the software or reconfiguring the computer, such as installing rival software running on Windows or setting up a dual-boot with Linux.

Anything that doesn't do at least this much, in my view, will not make any difference whatsoever.

Paying off politicians

[snarfer]

This settlement undermines respect for the law.

It is obvious that Microsoft paid off politicians. The Bush administration has proven over and over again to be little more than a clearinghouse for corporate criminals - give Bush enough cash and out pops a (huge) tax break, or a pesky environmental regulation is disposed of...

It's like the government is about who has the money. It isn't about US anymore. Like this war - we say ,"How can we help?" They respond, "Shut up and buy stuff, this country isn't about YOU anymore."

Re:Tom Reilly

[Osty]

Of these three groups, are any of them actually interested in protecting their businesses from this predatory monopoly? Is anyone truly acting on principle?

If this is the principle they're supposed to be acting upon, I'd really hope none of them are acting to principle. Anti-trust legislation is about protecting consumers, not competitors. In the process of protecting consumers, it may be necessary to protect competitors of the monopolist to some degree, but that should not be their first and foremost goal.

Re:Samba team should brief this and submit to judg

[sphealey]

You think the judge heard about "samba" -- I mean, other than "south-american dance"? I really doubt it.
And what can be added to the solution agreed upon by the DOJ - some specific technical requirements, like naming ports and protocols? There are no words for that in legalese. :)

I think Judge Jackson's conduct of the original trial (excluding the stupidity of talking to a reporter, which I thought was dumb at the time) shows that lawyers/judges are capable of handling complex/subtle technical issues. That's the job of judges, after all.

And the Samba team brief would of course have to start with a discussion of what Samba is and what its position/market share is in regards to Microsoft. Having a better-known name (dare I say RMS, or Linus?) sign on wouldn't hurt.

sPh

Free to Inundate!

[twisty]

As an IT professional, I struggle with the daily problem solving of getting software to work in a Microsoft dominated environment. It amazes me the level of disservice this giant provides to its customers. Yet this settlement takes the cake.

I'm sick of designing databases to see an application crash because Microsoft didn't anticipate an empty result. I'm sick of hearing they're aware of their bugs, but do not fix their application, and would rather you upgrade to their next version at your expense. I'm sick of them misrepresenting their proprietary formats or protocols as "standards."

I'm amazed how they get away with treating their own customers and partners as adversaries. I hope Ralph Nader follows the "content discrimination" scent to this perpetrator. While competitors like Sun and IBM have embraced "pluralism," in a world where many platforms harmoniously cohabit the planet, Microsoft still serves no one but themselves.

The new television campaign brings to mind customers placed on catapults... Sure they can feel the rush of flying when using Microsoft's XP to mix sound, take pictures, and edit video, just like we do on Macs and Linux, but when they find themselves locked in to Bill's software with the support's freshness dating expiring in three years, forced to upgrade or perish... that landing's going to be brutal!

Yet the settlement is another example of lethal idiocy... The double-talk makes very few concessions to ending Microsoft's disservice to the customer, and totally omits the original issue of antitrust. If our federal government is "of like mind" to this lobotomized shell game, may God help us all!

It's ironic how Microsoft got its beginning by writing BASIC for every personal computer in the late 70's. But once Windows got going, they must have asked themselves, "Empower the USER?!? -- What were we thinking!?!" Now their operating system no longer gives you a way to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and write your own applications. BASIC, the debugger, even the DOS-prompt is eliminated. Here's where we want you to go today.

It's been decades since I've seen Bill's name on a piece of software, and the only innovation I've seen from Microsoft is new ways to write licenses. There was even a paper on Microsoft's own web site how some of its programmers discovered new ways that programming languages compared to the legalese of conditional clauses in writing license agreements! Call it 'freedom to inundate.'

The BIG SELLOUT

[ackthpt]

``The settlement is fair and reasonable and, most important, is in the best interests of consumers and the economy,'' Gates said in a statement.

``A competitive software industry is vital to our economy, and effective antitrust enforcement is crucial to preserving competition in the constantly changing hi-tech arena,'' Ashcroft said.

``Eliminating uncertainty is going to be good for the economy,'' said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Now the economy is certainly a good thing to keep healthy. But I'm pissed that I see sidestepping the lack of punishment (i.e. fines) for their habitual unlawful and unethical behavior, all done for the good of the economy. What a great thing that employees and shareholders of Microsoft should not have to feel the burden which has been shouldered by so many others.

Maybe misters Gates, Ashcroft and Spitzer would like to bring back indentured servitude, since that would reduce unemployment.

Here's hoping the Finding of Guilt, in regard to monopolistic behavior, gives Microsoft's foes enough ammo to slap them around in court for a few years and for significant monetary damages, since clearly some politicals are dropping the ball for the good of the economy.

Re:Slashdot headlines

[tswinzig]

It's interesting that Slashdot focuses on the six states that decided to continue litigation.

Normally I agree that Slashdot is too biased. However, in this case, they focused on the most newsworthy aspect of this development. Prior to today, the government had settled with Microsoft. It is not news when 6 states AGREE or want to continue negotiating, as much as it is news that 6 states will NOT settle.

The real remedy: scare the customers

[iabervon]

The main thing, I think, that would break MicroSoft's monopoly would be if it looked plausible that using MicroSoft products might soon become impossible. If people thought that, for example, Passport might get shut down in such a way that, suddenly, XP systems would just stop working, centralized services and buying from a monopoly would, by itself, become a significant deterent.

I think that the most effective settlement would be something like the existing one, with an extra clause that, if MicroSoft violates the terms at any point, all of their assets will be divided among their competitors.

Really, the terms of the settlement don't matter much. Nobody seriously expects MicroSoft to abide by them, and nothing seems likely to happen when they violate them. If there was a specified, negotiated, and fatal penalty for violating the agreement, the customers and investors would have to bet that MicroSoft would actually obey the law. Suddenly, going with MicroSoft would be a major risk, rather than a pretty safe bet, which would greatly change the business prospects.

Dull Things

[kels]

It always got me how many dull things these addressed - water rights, highway funding, etc.

I hate to tell you, but I suspect most people find software litigation at least as dull as water rights or highway funding.

Re:this isn't necessarily good

[ahde]

Bill gates was quoted as saying the settlement was "fair and reasonable" -- If you heard any other convicted criminal say that their sentence was "fair and reasonable" wouldn't you wonder if it really was? And this is not a civil suit.

Re:Force MS to innovate.

[rela]

If Apache was a commercial product they would have bought it long ago and we would all be using MS Apache.

And -that- is exactly why microsoft dislikes open-sourcing.

MS is in the game of finding the next big moneymaking niche and buying it out ahead of time. That's always been a moneymaker for them before, and it will continue to be... as long as there are companies developing those potential future killer-apps for them to buy out.

I think a real big fear for them is that the next one will come out of an open source project, leaving them no way to take over.

Or I could be just spouting, like everyone else. =) Time will tell, as always.

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U.S. shouldn't punish with law, but with purchases

[Ukab the Great]

The U.S. government is the world's largest consumer of software. If they require government agencies to buy something other than microsoft software, they can more than adequately punish microsoft and attack their monopoly status without having to further drag this through the court system.