Public Comment Period In MS/DOJ Battle

PacketMaster writes: "Somthing that I didn't know, and perhaps many others didn't know is that now this settlement by the federal government and some of the states will go back before the judge and be opened for a 60 day commentary period by the public as required by the Tunney Act (See Sec 5,USC Sec 16). This is a great opportunity for everyone to send in their intelligent and informed opinions on the matter. If some of the major developer groups (i.e. Samba) would put together a well-thought-out and easy-to-read commentary on their concerns, maybe we as a community can affect the process. See the ZDNet article for more information." No forum for public comment is up yet (first, the proposed settlement must be published in the Federal Register), but should be in the near future.

Comments

Central website?

[Manes]

First of all, I really hope the slashdot crowd refrains from silly flames and other immature letters, like some unfortunately have resorted to in the past.

Anyways, are there some sort of comprehensive website that explains in lay-man terms what has happened in this case?

Reading court documents and simular isn't too thrilling, especially when I don't understand half of the legal mumbo-jumbo, and I also find that much of the info that I _can_ read is spread across a zillion websites.

Re:Central website?

[ThePilgrim]

Try this link

Re:Central website?

[Technician]

Be sure the read the full document of the Finding of Fact. Most of it is understandable, clear and not clogged with technobable. It is broken down into individual infractions with examples and an expination. Very convincing good read with lots of facts lined up in a neat row. If you read any John Grisham novels and enjoyed them, you won't have any trouble reading Finding of Facts from front to back. It's like reading the first 15 chapters of a Grisham novel.

Best way to contribute

[overshoot]

We all know that the deal sucks, we all tend to agree that the deal-making process sucks, and most of us think that the deal-makers have serious personal problems.

Don't bother telling the Judge that part.

What we can tell her that the Court might actually listen to is this: how can Microsoft wiggle through loopholes? A consent decree is, when you get down to it, code. Legal rather than computer code, but code nonetheless. Let's apply the famous myriad eyeballs to finding bugs in the code here, and tell the Court in clear terms (as the Samba team have) just how it's broken.

Let's tell the Court what they don't know about this deal.

Re:Best way to contribute

[Surak]

What we can tell her that the Court might actually listen to is this: how can Microsoft wiggle through loopholes? A consent decree is, when you get down to it, code. Legal rather than computer code, but code nonetheless. Let's apply the famous myriad eyeballs to finding bugs in the code here, and tell the Court in clear terms (as the Samba team have) just how it's broken.

Well, that's just it. It won't be a consent decree, it will be a court-imposed penalty. What penalties the court will be allowed to give is unclear to me, but I'm fairly certain that the court-imposed penalties will be much harsher than anything the DOJ and Microsoft and 19 states were going to work out together.

Of course, the ruling itself will be like code, yes. The question is, how good is the judge at writing said code? Because Microsoft, unlike in the case of a consent decree, will have no say in what goes into that penalty whatsoever. But neither will the DOJ or anyone else but the judge really, unless she solicits their opinions on what the penalty should be or unless she adopts the consent decree in draft form, but I don't see either one of those happening.

Also, said ruling won't be available until the judge writes it. Which AFAIK won't be until *after* the 60-day comment period mandated by the Tunney Act.

So we could pick apart the consent decree, but there's no guarantee that's what she'll use and in fact it's probably NOT what she'll use.

But then again, IANAL either. :)

Re:Best way to contribute

[Surak]

Ok. The new District Court judge in this case ordered Microsoft, the DOJ and 19 states to enter into settlement talks. In a settlement, the parties basically agree to drop the case and enter into a consent decree (a contract), that would be by entered into the court's documents on the case and signed and ordered by the judge.

It's much better for all concerned to enter into a settlement, because each party will get something that they want, since this is a negotiated contract. And it's better for the court system, because the case will be off the docket and not tying up the court system needlessly.

While Micros~1 and the DOJ agreed some terms for this consent decree, several states still refused to sign off as of yesterday (Tuesday). That was the deadline that the judge gave for the parties to settle before she would continue with the case and enter the penalty phase.

So as of Today (11/7), several states still have not signed off. THat means that the judge will continue into the penalty phase. There will be no deal, no consent decree. The judge will arbitrarily rule what must be done, unless she adopts the consent decree which was written. That is not likely to happen, because several of the plantiffs (the states), refused to sign that consent decree, so that means if she adopts that, those states will either appeal the case or ask that the verdict be set aside, a new judge be assigned (on the basis of bias, most likely) and the case retried. Nobody wants this, so she's likely to write her own ruling.

Here's what you can write:

[Zach`]

Here is a list of states suing microsoft (courtesy of Microsoft's "freedom to Innovate Network"):

California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Utah, Washington, D.C., West Virginia, Wisconsin

Here's what I sent to the Attorney General in my state:

"
I believe that any settlement that would have a chance of restoring competition to the computer industry would require at least the following:

1) All terms must be enforced by a non-Microsoft party with full access to all Microsoft resources, including source code. Microsoft cannot be trusted to voluntarily comply with any agreement.

2) All communication protocols used by all microsoft products must be fully documented. Such documents must be made available to any and all parties for any reason. Microsoft is not allowed to change their protocols until 90 days after documentation of such changes are made available to any parties requesting them.

3) The previous term must also apply to all Microsoft APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).

4) Microsoft may not keep agreements secret. In particular, the terms of the current OEM agreements, currently protected as "trade secrets" must be disclosed.

5) Microsoft may not use agreements with Computer OEMs to restrict in any way the addition of other software to the computers, along with Microsoft products. In particular, OEMs are not to be prohibited from selling "dual-boot" systems,
where the system can be booted into Windows or into some other operating system, such as Linux or a form of BSD or BeOS.

6) Microsoft may not use their licensing terms to stop users or developers from using Open Source software or Free Software.

7) Microsoft may not meddle in the the legislative processes of Fderal, State or local governemnts or bodies that make recommendations to them, with their work on UCITA being a prime model of behaviour that is prohibited to them as a
monopoly.
"

Re:Here's what you can write:

[magi]

2) All communication protocols used by all microsoft products must be fully documented. Such documents must be made available to any and all parties for any reason.

This is a very important part. I'd suggest a few additions:
- the clause must include also file formats used in any Microsoft products
- the documents must be made available for free at the Microsoft web site, not just in MSDN nor through some other expensive service or licensing.
- the documentation must be released at least 60 days before the publication of the product, and also 60 days before the publication of any updates.
- Microsoft itself must follow the documentation and not make any unpublished private extensions on top of the published protocols
- the clause must apply also to any security protocols or fileformat encryptions

The fileformat documentation is very important, because they are also "communication protocols" used when communicating content between application instances. This would be especially important for MS Office, as it is strategically essential component of the infamous application barrier. Microsoft has an effective monopoly in Office products, which work properly only in Windows, which is the single most influential factor in creating and maintaining the OS monopoly.

There might still be loopholes for protocols requiring pantented or otherwise closed or proprietary third-party components. Microsoft should be forbidden of using such 3rd-party components to circumvent the requirements.

Re:Here's what you can write:

[Twylite]

You have to bear in mind that MS is a public company, with a responsibility to share holders: making money. The DoJ/MS deal is not about punishing MS for past offenses, but about bringing MS in line from this point onwards. But it still has to bear in mind that MS must be allowed to act as a business.

While I appreciate the sentiment in your comments, I feel some are an overreaction, verging on a penalty. Forcing MS to disclose its APIs, formats and protocols in advance of their publication is not going to happen; from a purely economic point of view it will be laughed at by the judge, let alone the implications on MS's rights to trade.

It would be reasonable to force MS to disclose this information AT THE TIME of publication. This does mean that MS will be ahead of the rest of the market, but that is NOT the problem! The problem is to disallow MS from preventing the market from "catching up".

If MS brings out a new product with new formats and protocols, it will attract some attention from the market. Within a few months competitors will have compatible products, so the bulk of adopters will not be forced down the MS path.

Regarding Office suites, there are several competitors on Windows, including Corel and Lotus.

As for prevention of using 3rd party components, this is a difficult one to justify. While there is no doubt that MS could circumvent requirements in this manner, such a limitation would force MS to use only open standards. Although I strongly support open standards and wish MS had to use them, it simply does not always make good business sense to avoid patent-encumbered technologies.

Please realise that any submission to the judge needs to have some level of balance. Recommending ridiculous or unworkable 'solutions' will not assist, and will likely get your comment into the ignore pile rather quickly.

Re:Here's what you can write:

[SubtleNuance]

where the system can be booted into Windows or into some other operating system, such as Linux or a form of BSD or BeOS.

If any other of my American neighbours correspond w/ their congresscritters I suggest they include, when discussing the 'dual-boot issue', mention of preventing M$ from hindering a system from dual booting.

If MS is forced to "allow dual-booting", in its present form, they will simply change the OS to *not* boot unless it is solo on the box... Ill leave it as an exercise for the reader as to how this may be accomplished bonus prizes to the person who includes a DRMscheme that precludes dual-booting...

MS: "We had to prevent those other OSes from the machine else we would be in violation of the DMCA" - no, im not joking.

Keep up the pressure

[jweatherley]

Remember M$ are still being dragged through the courts in Europe so Europeans ought to send some of those intelligent and informed opinions to their representitives too.

What bugs me with the proposed US 'settlement' is all those opt outs - the register eloquently outlines the many flaws . Once again the the excuse of 3v1l h4X0rs is used to allow M$ to hide 'security sensitive' information - who decides what's sensitive? Why M$ of course!

Intelligent and Informed, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

So why submit it here? Only 1 post in 100 in a Microsoft thread actually offers anything intelligent to say, with the rest merely about the evils of Redmond and the valiance of those who oppose him, with the general gist being that Microsoft sucks for such and such. This is boring to read. Hell, it must be boring to write. Don't any of you ever get tired of writing the same thing as umpteen other drones every single time Microsoft is mentioned? Posting this here is likely to result in a flood of Microsoft attacks based on poor facts or none at all.

Re:Intelligent and Informed, eh?

[namespan]

We do it to annoy the anti-anti-Microsoft drones like yourself, of course. To feed, as it were, the troll. Posting this here is likely to result in a flood of Microsoft attacks based on poor facts or none at all. I mean, with this prophesy on hand, how can we resist? It's almost as appealing as "I know I'm going to get modded down for this".

But you're absolutely right. That's why it's time for slashdotters everywhere to unite and create (and perhaps eventually, when we learn to spell, even present) .... the Microsoft FAQ:

1. Why does Microsoft suck?

The issue could be succinctly summarized in two words: anticompetitive behavior. More expressively: effective anticompetitive behavior. Lots of software companies produce offerings that, for whatever reason, some people just don't like. Lots of software companies would like to behave anticompetitively. But only Microsoft seems to be effective in their drive to make sure nobody is using anything else. For those of us that like to make choices about what software we use, this is profoundly disturbing. Those who have already chosen Microsoft or simply don't care may, of course, find this point of view hard to understand. But Microsoft's business plan is simple: whenever possible, don't give the customer a choice except using their software. And they're pretty good at it.

2. Is there any evidence to support the idea that Microsoft is effectively anticompetitive?

There are several court cases that point to this -- most recently, the findings of fact issued by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. Some consider Jackson biased towards Microsoft and therefore feel that his findings might also be biased. Others feel that perhaps his bias was influenced by Microsoft's behavior during the trial.

3. You're just jealous of their success! You'd tear down anyone who was at the top! This is a classic case of jealousy!

Sorry, you must phrase your question in the form of a, well, question.

4. Um, OK. Isn't this sort of thing likely to be a problem with ANYONE who's at the top of the heap?

Yes. But we don't have a problem with applying these standards to anyone. We'd prefer to see companies compete in terms of the merits of their offerings and marketing skills, rather than their ability to lock up and strong arm distribution channels.

Bottom line: most of us don't have a problem with Microsoft's existence, we just a have a problem with them manipulating OEMs and other corps -- heavy-handedly in some cases and illegally in others -- to place themselves as the exclusive purveyor of software/software services in the world.

Re:Take your chance

[SlamMan]

Sure you can, the Chineese certainly do. But seriously, if you can actually get ahold of a senator on the phone, or in person, they typically will listen to about any view point presented by anyone, be it one of thier constituants or not. Remeber, most politicians are actually good people. They got into it to make the world (or at least some specific part of it) a better place. Nobody goes into civil service for the money.

You wanted intelligent hu... punk?? ;-)

[TheMMaster]

IMHO The point still being missed by all these settlements is that if everything goes according to microsoft's plan, within 2 years they WON'T GIVE A SHIT anymore about weither or not their protocols are open or closed whatever.

What NEEDS to be adressed is the passport system and the .NET myservices. Microsoft is forcing all IU's (Ignorant Users) passports and microsoft is extremely good at forcing stuff upon people.
In the end of it, this will mean that we will simply be forced to use Microsoft products because we need a way to authenticate to microsoft servers. .NET is free, Myservices not.

I Really feel that nobody is adressing this problem anywhere, microsoft will just get small tap on hand again but nothing more...
anyone agree or am I just pouring out pure crap?

Dumb Question

[Gumshoe]

This may seem like a really dumb question but does anyone know if
the Tunney Act allows/welcomes commentry from non-US citizens?

While I'm here: how does any legal solution rendered in America
affect Microsoft's offshore activity?

The reason I'm asking is, as a British Subject(sic), I'm becoming
increasingly concerned that if thwarted in it's march across
America, Microsoft will increase it's corporate presence in
Britain. Blair and Gates are already pretty chummy so the idea of
Microsoft seeking political exile is a distict possiblity IMO.

Davenet on MS

[serps]

Dave Winer (co-creator of SOAP among other things, so he has dealt and continues to deal with MS on the interoperability front) has a few things to say about what Microsoft stands to gain, what it stood to lose from the settlement but didn't, and a (plausible, and hopefully incorrect) prediction of what the Government stands to gain from Microsoft controlling the greater Internet. (think Hailstorm/XP plus Carnivore)

I think Dave would be a good person to provide suitably knowledgable 'public comment' for this bill. Read his blog; he's a decent guy to boot :)

History of abuses

[Secret Coward]

When writing about the settlement, it would be a great idea to include examples of microsoft's previous and current monopoly abuses. We can illustrate how Microsoft could continue to exploit those abuses even with this settlement. What we need is a well written history of those abuses. The findings of fact cover part of it, but nowhere near all of it.

Has anyone written such a history?

Don't Forget File Formats!

[Greyfox]

They tie a lot of crap up in file formats. All file formats in which user data is stored should also be documented. Nor should they be allowed to patent encumber any communications protocol or file format in which user data is stored. I also question whether five years would be enough to change their behavior. How long did IBM labor under their consent decree? I believe it was in the neighborhood of two decades.

I was reading Antipatterns the other day and ran across the "Vendor Lock-In" anti-pattern. The suggested solution for this anti-pattern was to create an isolation layer on your network, so that interfaces on one side of the layer would not depend on interfaces on the other. Microsoft's behavior with .net, Kerberos and other networking protocols seem aimed at marginalizing the isolation layer that TCP/IP provides.

Re:Don't Forget File Formats!

[NutscrapeSucks]

OK -- we all know that MS Office file formats are a pain in the ass for non-MSO users.

But that has nothing to do with this case! No evidence was presented that Microsoft has a monopoly in the office suite market, and none of the judges have found that to be the case. Sure, we all 'know' that MS has a monopoly in this market, but it just doesn't matter -- that's a different trial -- this one is about OEM deals and that niggling concept of 'middleware'.

So when writing your letters, please stay on target and keep the remedies within the context of what the courts have found (no MS Office, no XBox, no VisualStudio...)

[Yes, I know that MS probably has nefarious plans to link Office to the .NET communication protocols, but as of now it hasn't happened and it's all vapor. It seems that while the tech community knows what MS is up to by seeing the betas and reading the rags, the Courts never address what's going on until Microsoft actually has a product on the shelves (see 98 or XP).]

my simple complaint

[motherhead]

I don't think anyone (with the capacity for thought) thinks Microsoft should be desolved. The ripple effect on the economy and industry would be horrific. I think the major complaint is that it seems that Microsoft is rewarded for bad behavior more often then not. Microsoft needs to be taught to play well with others.

When we talk of monopolies we do not mean that the consumer has no other choice, which is absurd, but rather the consumer is in a position to be lied to and coerced. IBM might have invented FUD, but Microsoft has made an artform and a successful school of marketing based on it. And to make matters worse they direct it not on enterprise level businesses that should know better. But to John Q public, there should be no expectation that john Q should know better.

Some argue that it is just good business, that Microsoft has 85 percent of the Desktop market and should do everything in it's power to maintain it. But that is not the whole story. The same trite crowd that thinks that Microsoft has earned it's position in the market and thinks that it just "out-businessed" the competition would do well to inspect how Microsoft earned that 85%, how it crushed better technologies with it's FUD+Vaporware campaign of the early to middle nineties. And how the badly consumer was cheated.

As the Microsoft apologists argue that Microsoft brought computers to the masses, that windows 95 allowed the blue collar worker a powerful and intuitive OS on inexpensive harware. A counter argument could be made that the competition, if allowed to compete on a playing field that while not level, was fair by the rules of business as established in a post WWII America, would have brought to market more powerful, more intuitive and more accessible technologies.

The horror stories of Netscape and Apple and Stac electronics... etc. etc... are telling, but it is interesting how most companies have dropped the complaints to a large degree because Microsoft is now so monolithic that it is better (more lucritive and "safe") to just cut deals and work with them to bash ones head against them (Read: Apple)

Microsoft became this monolith by stealing, buying, intimidating and coercing. This is not opinion, this is public record and is in the testimony. The reality of Microsoft is that they are now a cornerstone to the technology industry and perhaps even the American economy. Which is sad only in somuch as they will never be forced to atone for the damage they did to innovation and inspiration that the shops they obliterated could have brought to market.

As i type this, there is a talking head on MSNBC, she is talking about airport security, she has just said, "Bill gates could probably come out with a system where a button is pressed and information is brought up on a screen...". Heh, Bill Gates has somehow marketed his name to be synonymous with applied software solutions... That is what the uneducated public thinks, when they think about computers and technology.

Calls for a 10 questions Interview

[smittyoneeach]

Do an interview, let the /. unwashed mod up the 10 best, or at least 10 lucid, remarks, filter them through the proper suit to correct the general non-command of English you see on here, and submit.

Of course you can participate..

[CptnHarlock]

Noone can tell by your emailaddress where you live. You can also make up snail addresses if you need them.. When I was going to register for yahoo mail it needed my Zip code, of course it checked if it was a valid US zipcode so I used the one and only worldwide well known US zip code: Beverly Hills 902101... :) ... You can also make your opinions known to some American friend and they can put them forward for you... The choices are only limited by your imagination.. ;)

Cheers...

Serious question.. please reply constructively..

[nicsterrr]

My question to all North Americans: does it bother you that the USA legal system (as this case confirms) seems to consist of nothing more than 'who has more money eventually wins regardless'?

If Microsoft were a small company or individual with no substantial wealth, this case would have been concluded years ago and a more fair and justified judgement would have been in place. Just what is it that makes it possible for Microsoft and other huge companies to effectively stall and convolute the US legal system until the situation becomes favourable to them?

As a European, I practically dismiss the US legal system as merely a tool for large corporate bodies to use in a similar way as they use other available mechanisms for economic jousting. In a similar way, the 'lobbying' system the USA has in politics (we normally call this 'bribery' here) seems to be another fine tool for the comporations to use.

Wrong number, please try again

[skoda]

This is a great opportunity for everyone to send in their intelligent and informed opinions on the matter.
If by "intelligent and informed" you mean "half-baked and uninformed", then you've got the right place. Otherwise, you should note that your email was inadvertently posted to Slashdot.

:)

The Sherman Act provides for penalties

[greenrd]

Direct quote from the Sherman act:

15 USC S2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.

Draw your own conclusions.

Some Points

[Zeinfeld]

1) The nationality of the person making the response is not significant.

Any written comments relating to such proposal and any responses by the United States thereto, shall also be filed with such district court and published by the United States in the Federal Register within such sixty-day period.

2) The act does not actually require responses to be listened to. All that is required is that they be published in the Federal Register.

3) The biggest problem with the government case is the behavior of the judge.

4) The second biggest problem is that the case the DoJ made in the trial is not the one made out on Slashdot.

5) The appeals court reversed substantial parts of Jackson's 'findings of fact'. In particular they rejected the view that they were bound to consider a statement to be a statement of fact and not a conclusion. As a result Jackson's findings of fact mean very little because most of the findings slashdotters are enjoying are conclusatory opinions that would not have been binding on the new judge in the retrial.

Somewhere along the line the DoJ was captured by Sun, Netscape et. al. The legitimate case against the MSFT licensing arrangements was not given anywhere near the attention it deserved in the trial. Instead the DoJ case was largely made on the basis of Netscape's view of the injustices Netscape felt had been done to them.

It is not surprising then that the remedy is not what many on Slashdot would want. The DoJ did not bring a case against MSFT integrating the Web browser APIs deep into the operating system. In fact the DoJ explicitly denied that it was doing so because by doing so it could claim that MSFT was lying when it said it could not remove IE from the O/S. As a result we now have a court rulling that requires the user to be able to remove the IE user interface application but not the dlls it calls. The IE platform is absolutely untouched by the settlement.

I agree. Mod up parent.

[GrEp]

Here are the good solutions that I have heard so far:

-Free Open File Formats

-Free Open Communication Protocols

-Free Open APIs

-No prorietary 3rd party file formats, API's, and communication protocols.

-60/90 day free an public pre-notice documentation of all changes and additons to Microsoft file formats, communications protocols, and APIs.

-Public Disclosure of OEM agreements

-"Flat rate" OEM agreements, so OEM's can bundle Windows any legal way they want and Microsoft has no recourse.

-Restriction of Licenceing agreements to "Copyright Only"

-Stop all bundleing with the OS. All aplications must be sold as a seperate package, or at least put on a seperate CD.

-Microsoft for a period of 5 years should not be able to invest in/buy out other companies.

-Microsoft must make public all agreements with hardware manufactures.

-The price of Windows must be artificialy price capped using a formula like PRICE = COST_OF_PRODUCTION*1.25 This will ensure that the consumer is paying a true "market" price for the product.

-Auction the rights to develop each Microsoft product for platforms that Microsoft does not support. Microsoft will then give the winner of each auction full acess to the product's source code under a NDA.

-No spinnoff of a Microsoft division can be made into a seperate company for the next 3 years.

Re:So if Linux wins, the competition issue is moot

[matty]

First, GPL doesn't allow its technology to be used by vendors who will charge for their wares.

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your meaning, but you do know that it's is perfectly ok to sell GPL'd software, don't you? After all, that's what SuSE, Red Hat, Mandrake et al do. You just can't use GPL'd code with non-GPL'd code, nor can you take it 'closed' then sell it.

However, regarding your main premise, which seems to be: Linux (and FS in general) present their own boundary to entry due to the fact that you can get the software for no monetary cost, provided you have internet access. This lack of monetary cost precludes a commercial entity from offering an alternative to Microsoft because if someone is going to switch from MS products, why would they pay when there is a (F)(f)ree alternative?

I think this concept is a valid one, but there is a reason why it is so. I think it goes right back to Microsoft in the first place (and other closed/commercial OS vendors to a much lesser extent). Windows (and now Office and Internet Explorer) have such a high monopoly barrier to entry that the only alternative product that could be created and survive is a Free one (or actually several Free ones, if you include the BSD's).

Please recall that there used to be 'traditional' commercial alternatives to Windows: From CP/M to DR-DOS, to OS/2 (and others I'm sure I'm omitting). They were all run out of business by Microsoft's predatory use of its monopoly (this point can obviously be debated, but the Appeals Court agreed with this premise unanimously, 7-0, and this was supposed to be the one court in all the US that was most likely to come down on Microsoft's side) Since there was no more commercail competition (short of $5-10,000+ Unix boxes), the market came up with an alternative that could not be killed or bought out. IMO, Microsoft created this situation by its behavior.

I believe that markets (or any large group of people) react very similarly to biological organisms. In this case, Microsoft is a bad element (I hesitate to use emotionally charged words like cancer or virus that carry their own ulterior connotations) which is controlling an inordinate portion of the market/organism, so the rest of the organism has been trying to take it down a notch or two. Finally, the only choice seems to be to "cut off their air supply" by attempting to kill their 2 main sources of revenue/sustenance: Windows and Office.

If these forces were to succeed absolutely and kill off Microsoft (highly unlikely and certainly not necessarily a good thing), then the mainstream software components we all use every day (OS, word processor, email, browser, etc.) would be Free, commodity products, and commercial vendors could focus on providing something tangible that actually requires true manufacturing: hardware (this is, of course, the main business of many of MS's competitors: IBM, Sun, Apple)

Summation: I think you're basically right, but the situation was created by Microsoft itself. Linux simply grew out of the situation as it existed. Regardless, there's certainly nothing that can be done about it now. :)

Cheers..............