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Talk to the Man Who Wants to Oversee Microsoft
Imagine "campaigning" for a job that doesn't exist, may never exist, and is sure to be full of heartburn for anyone who takes it on. Stephen Satchell is a self-declared candidate for the three-person committee the Feds might appoint to ensure Microsoft's future good behavior. Satch is certainly qualified; he's been online nearly forever, he's worked with computer operating systems darn near as long as computers have had operating systems, and he's certainly not afraid to speak his mind. But even the best-qualified job candidates need to be interviewed before they are chosen, and Satch has consented to have Slashdot readers conduct the initial interview in this hiring process. One question per interviewer, please. We'll email him 10 of the highest-moderated questions, and post his answers next week.
Do you feel that it is possible to have a unified monolithic Microsoft exist in the market without being anti-competetive? Specifically, if the United States government leaves Microsoft as-is (no "break-up") do you feel it is possible to regulate a company that in the past has shown no respect for government intervention?
Of course, certain personalities are more interested in making policy decisions than technology decisions, as well as vice-versa.
Do you plan to stand over Gates and Balmer cracking the anti-trust whip, or do you intend to deal more with the executive board as a whole, saying 'You can't do that' to certain policy decisions.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Why would you want this job?
Guvegrra?
Just one of the standard interview questions, I guess, but I personally would like to see Microsoft working on their "Quality" as opposed to the "Quantity" of software. I wouldn't hate MS so much if I couldn't easily slam their products like I can now. Microsoft OSs don't have good uptimes. Microsoft products have security issues out the wazoo. Microsoft has their hands in everyone's pockets, but they're not trustworthy (as far as quality software goes).
Q: Where do you see Microsoft in 5 years?
Q: What will you change about Microsoft if you were CEO?
Do you think other operating systems have a chance to actually compete with microsoft?
What operating system do you use (be honest)?
If you are using Windows, what can other OS's do to make you switch?
If you aren't using Windows, what made you switch?
Has anyone really just asked "One Question Per Post"? I guess these are all related and can be answered all together... sorry.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
... That the only monopolistic practices of Microsoft are those that were publicized by the suits?
For example: Isnt it a monopolistic practice to make the Kerberos Login protocol closed so only Windows workstations can connect to Windows servers??/ Isnt that illegal leveraging into the computing server market?
Anotherone (although maybe immmaginary): Microsoft Passport will be a server side and client side technology. It will implement the server side only in Microsoft web servers and it will probably be imposible (by licencing lock-out) to implement them in a UNIX server. Isnt that illegal monopolistic leveraging into the web server market?
Alex
NO SIG
Why in the world would you *volunteer* for this no-thanks sort of job? Keep in mind that one-third of the population will think you're doing too much, one-third will think you're not doing enough, and one-third won't care.
Surely, the chance exist that wou won't get the position. What are you going to do if that's the case? Are you going to spend more time in advocating alternatives to Microsoft's products? Or are you going to mope in a corner?
One reason for Microsoft's monopoly is the proprietarity of their operating system. Conversely, the reason why open source products such as Linux work so well is that the operating system itself is publically available, while companies can use it to make money off of support, documentation, and separate resources which improve the use of Linux (i.e. HardDrake, Red Carpet, etc). This allows an economic model of computing in which competition is possible, and it means that programs written for Linux will work under most distributions, thus taking the software industry out of the hands of a single all-powerful giant.
What would your plans for Microsoft be in this regard? Obviously, having MS open up the Windows source is not a realistic goal, but do you feel that there is any way to establish a set of non-proprietary operating system standards that would re-enable competition in the desktop market?
/* Steve */
"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of"-TMBG
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
Microsoft is sure to test their boundaries and see how far the overseers will let them go. How much would Microsoft have to stray from the new regulations before you make some noise? Would you be tough and bring to attention the most minor of infractions? Or would you be more lenient and use your judgement to make sure the intent of the regulations are observed?
There are certain people that would be bad to include. Microsoft zealots or people who are extremely favourable to big business are not good candidates, as they would most likely be willing to let some of MS' possible future transgressions slide.
At the same time, Open Source zealots or Microsoft haters are also poor candidates because they may go towards the other extreme: punishing MS for the slightest problems or trying to dramatically change the way MS operates.
What is needed is a nice symbiosis of the two viewpoints, someone who is well-versed in such matters and isn't afraid to play the Devil's Advocate, so to speak, but is also objective. How do you see yourself on this scale, and if you're more one the side of one extreme, how do you justify your pursuit of this position?
There is no escape from The Muffin.
At one point there was a proposal to break MS into Operating Systems and Applications. This was an attempt to address the fact that the "OS" part of MS seems to be primarily focused on producing a platform that favors the products produced by the "applications" part of MS - instead of producing the most useful and interoperable operating system. What do think are the prime conflicts of interest within MS and how would you begin to manage them without a break-up?
Mr. Satchell,
I poked around the net a bit trying to do a bit of research about you (Google's cache of your page at fluent-access.com, which seems to be down right now, and the Amazon entry on your book on Linux IP stacks)
What do you think of Ralph Nader's positions on Microsoft, and his qualifications to be on this committee as well?
And what do you think of Richard Stallman's proposal for dealing with them?
o/~ Join us now and share the software
In this job you would not have power to determine the remedy, only to enforce it. Is the remedy clearly defined (and adequate)? How much power do you believe you will truly have, given that MS will surely follow the letter of the remedy, while attempting to foil the intent of it: for instance the portions which only require MS to share interoperation documentation to commericial entities, as opposed to all software developers?
-Adam
"His cook was goosed, as ordered sir."
To break Microsoft's chokehold on the industry will send their stock into a tailspin, cause their R&D cycle to slow, and cause a chaotic move for power in various niches by everyone from giants such as IBM to various smaller companies that most people have never heard of. This will cause ripples (or shockwaves) in everything from the Dow Jones Industrial Average to unemployment figures to the number of dotcoms that show up and fail at trying to corner a niche to the price of new computers.
My question for you, then, is the following: If you do assume a role such that you oversee Microsoft's compliance with federal guidelines, how will you keep the ripple effects caused by your enforcement in check, and how will you justify the ripples that inevitably are created to the American people?
--
Just lurking, thanks!
one of the stipulation of the 3 judge/panelists is that they be employees of Microsoft.
What is your feeling on that?
Personally I think that is an extreeme conflict of interests. In the same vein as choosing thier "punishment".
And, what is the most *glaring* issue about Microsoft that needs changing in your opinion?
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
What sort of displinary powers do you think you should have?
W9x:Thanks for the make-work project Bill.
Hypothetical question:
If this committee was already implemented 10 years ago and you were a part of it, what strategies and actions that Microsoft took during this period would you consider monopolistic? Would you change anything, and what alternatives would you suggest?
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
How would attempt to keep Microsoft from continuing it's monpolistic practices? The company has a long history of unethical business practices. What do you think you could do to change this? How long do you think it will take to change an untamed beast into a useful competetive company? What makes you believe that this is a possible task?
Um, this is my sig.
How do you think the transition from watching what Microsoft is doing to implementing punishments for bad behavior might actually work?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Where lies in your opinion the boundary between anti-competitive functionality and "improving the users' experience"? .NET Common Language Runtime? Passport? etcetera..
By now, everybody is used to bundling a browser with the OS. But what about video-editing software? The (Sun) Java VM or the
What is your stance on user rights to bought, copyrighted software? Do you feel someone who buys a product can do whatever they want with it, or does the producer (MS) have the right to dictate how their products are used?
What do you see as the future of capitalism in global society? Will ever-larger corporations continue to dominate the world, or is there any merit to the idea of a "free" (both speech and beer) society?
Simple question: how do you regulate what they can do with Windows without hurting their theoretical ability to innovate? Sure they haven't done much innovative work, ever, but who is to say that some new worker won't have a good idea that IS innovative that would get added, but regulation stops it?
Innovation and market forces push new product out the door far faster then government regulation can anticipate (look at XP!). What effect, if any, do you feel this will tribunal will have on MS? My thought is that it will be a paper tiger with no real authority, but lots of noise.
- Buggy software could be irrefutably demonstrated. Customers demonstrating flaws could expect either a resolution within some reasonable time frame, or financial compensation for migration to a system without the flaw.
- The quality of third party components could be evaluated relative to the specification of interfaces they claim to support.
The obvious issue with this is "who could declare a specification to be rigorous?" Do you feel you have the correct background for this task, or do you see a better way to ensure MS (or any other software vendor for this matter) respects their obligations?It seems that in industries with high costs of initial production and extremly low costs of replication (i.e. Software), there seems to be an unusually large incentive for becoming a monopoly and an unusually powerful advantage in maintaining that monopoly once formed.
Short of open source, what measures need to be taken to in order to insure that one monopoly (Microsoft or another) isn't dethroned simply to be replaced by a different monopoly?
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Microsft has been granted the ability to not allow porting of code, or information on how to attach to Windows based servers if there is a concern about the 'security' of the solution. What do you define as a 'security' hole, and how would you apply that to projects such as SAMBA and other NT/Linux interoperability projects? (Wine/Winx, LinWin, etc)
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
A new market in which Microsoft does NOT hold a commanding lead (yet) is the handheld market (Palm, Windows CE, etc.)
If you were on the oversight committee, what specific actions or restrictions would you place on Microsoft's behavior in this Marketplace?
As a followup question:
If Microsoft included a "hotsync" capability built into its OS (so that Windows CE handhelds automatically sync with the desktop machine), would you consider that acceptable behavior?
If you were appointed to this MS oversight committee of three, what would trigger you to propose that the committee be disbanded?
In other words, what would cause you to feel you no longer need access to MS corporate books, source, or staff?
Possible examples: [A] another product gains market penetration equal to the MS Windows variants, [B] no complaints from industry competitors for 6 months, [C] MS "gives away" IExplorer and/or MS Office source via a GNU copyleft (makes it publicly-owned code).
Thank you.
--Adam
Thursday 13 December 2001
# # #
I know this is an American settlement, but do you think Microsofts behaviour should be regulated in the rest of the world as well? How would you go about that?
In Murphy We Turst
competent, fair & trustworthy
One major question remains in my mind....
Say you have a company like microsoft, who rightly or wrongly acts as if it has the political clout to do whatever it wants. You see them do things like break compatibility with competing products (lotus/borland), dump software info a thriving market to starve it's competitors (netscape/qualcomm), deny deserving employees fair and equitable benefits (MS "Temps"), and block competitive access to markets ( Be/Apple ).
Assuming you can come up with a sound remedy for these types of problems, how can you get them to actually stop abusing it's monopoly power when it's monopoly power is the battleaxe it uses to hack at apart it's competitors in various markets, yet you cannot take it from them?
Would you be willing to give up some privacy to insure that you are not being paid off or manipulated in any way?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Microsoft can be expected to obstruct the oversight comittee as much as possible. The Microsoft appointed member of the comittee will probably also obstruct the comittee. Not that too much obstruction is needed, since the comittee only has the power to report violations and the current administration does not seem eager to enforce the law. Please explain why you think anyone, and you in particular, can have any affect on Microsoft under these circumstances.
I have read through the pdf file that the DOJ has posted about the settlement details that was linked here on /. a couple of days ago. The settlement is full of available loopholes that any corporation with lawyers like MS could drive truckloads of code and monopolistic business through. How will you attempt to stopgap these possibilities?
I'd be curious about your opinions regarding the breakup of AT&T, and the subsequent behavior/performance of the Baby Bells. Would you be willing to advocate the breakup of Microsoft if it lied to the commission or broke its promises? If not, what would be a suitable punishment? Basically, what are your views of the enforcement of the settlement and the consequences of punishment for failure to abide thereby?
-Styopa
Who else would you recommend for the position -- who do you think is best qualified, willing, and not you?
Couldn't you find a better way to disqualify yourself for this position other than appearing on the most popular anti-Microsoft website that there is?
Microsoft's ability to frustrate two key federal judges, to the point where those judges essentially lost their judicial composure, has resulted in whatever escape from the jaws of jutice that Microsoft has achieved here. Those two judges who had years of service behind the bench essetially flipped out over disgust with this company. Then, in the aftermath of those guys blowing their tops, Microsoft successfully labeled them as biased and the substance of their rulings were essentially thrown out.
After dispensing with two federal judges, Microsoft will not find it difficult to ruin your career and reputation if you show even the slighest bias.
Have you no fear of your impending DOOM?
1) b) If you have used other operating systems, (including palmOS) what do you think could be done to make the playing field more even?
2) Do you honestly think that Microsofts monopoly can be controlled?
Only 'flamers' flame!
How could you assure the public and the government that your ethics would not be comprimised by Microsoft's heavy bankrole?
After all Microsoft has been described as having, "more money than god."
-- "We now know 1/100th of 1% of what nature has decided to show us."
- Einstein
WURD!!
Who will audit you?
"Piter, too, is dead."
By which I mean to say, do you believe they are guilty of that which the government has claimed they are? Or, conversely, do you feel that the government has over-stepped it's bounds and agressively pursued a company that was merely at the top of its industry because they were the best?
oh well I guess it is back to the Usenet :-)
http://saveie6.com/
Do you recognize the importance of the standard OS that Microsoft brought to the computing world and that this played an important part in the computer revolution and in the "dot com" economy?
So do you picture the committee as overseeing a large group of people who are busy reading code, checking API documentation, analyzing network traffic, etc, or do you see it more as just the three committee members sitting around playing Ages of Empires, waiting for someone to call and complain about something?
- adam
Please describe your views on economics to the greatest extent possible, and the influences that helped you to form these views.
I would particularly like to know what you think regarding monopolies, artificially created and sustained, or naturally occurring, and how you believe consumers (and the marketplace) are affected by them, and under what circumstances consumers may benefit, or be harmed, by them.
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
It seems likely that this would be true to say of any company that attained monopoly status in any field of any significance.
I seriously doubt that any of our anti-monopoly laws would have passed if the only motivation ware to keep bullies like Microsoft from kicking sand in their competitors' faces; competition (and thus losers as well as winners) is a vital component of capitalism.
Our anti-monopoly laws exist to promote the health of markets, something that markets don't always do very well on their own, and the present state of the technology market begs for intervention precisely because of the effect Microsoft is having on our industry.
No one wants to compete against Microsoft, because it means losing, period, end of story. So why would anyone invest R&D money in any product which stands any chance of competing against a Microsoft endeavor? Look at the companies Microsoft competes with now: all the major ones existed before Microsoft's rise to dominance (Sun, Oracle, IBM) or got into their fields before Microsoft established its presence there (AOL/T-W).
So: you hear that Microsoft is investing in research in field X, and you're not any of those companies and you don't already have a vested interest in field X. What do you do? You stay the hell away from field X, and you look for some other way to make money. Over time this is bound to have a depressing effect on the industry as any one company, no matter how much they spend, is still a monoculture. Microsoft has no incentive to promote technologies which compete against one another, so the first thing they settle on becomes their own ad hoc standard. If nobody else is trying to set the same standard, the ad hoc standard eventually becomes legitimized.
They look like the industry powerhouse because they're the biggest one left standing in a smoldering, splintered shack of an industry.
Yes, anything you do to knock down Microsoft causes a dip in the NASDAQ. But that's because the market and the technology industry have developed/been pushed into far too great a dependency on this single entity, and too many people can no longer even envision the possibility of any alternative.
Knock them down hard enough, and after the dust settles, the rodents will come out of their burrows to bury their towering bones, and just maybe we'll have ourselves a vibrant, dare I say relevant field again.
I myself make a very decent living writing software which runs on non-Microsoft systems. These systems are developed for our clients, and the clients sell services based on these systems to consumers.
We as the developers were not forced to use Microsoft products, our clients were not forced to use Microsoft products, and their customers are not forced to use Microsoft products. Money changed hands many times and Microsoft's involvement in any of it is entirly incidental. A majority of the users run Windows, but a sizable chunk runs on MacOS, and an impressive (but pretty small) amount even use UNIX systems.
I feel we saved considerable time (and money) ignoring Microsoft's products. To me, Microsoft makes it fairly easy for people to use a computer, but their products are certainly not as appealing to us macho developers. In any case, what exactly is the problem here that regulating Microsoft will solve?