Slashdot Mirror
LinuxPlanet Interviews Robert Bork
Greg writes: "Robert Bork, former Supreme Court appointee from the Reagan era and a recent entrant in the MS antitrust case, did an
interview
over at LinuxPlanet. The topic? The Evil Empire's court settlement." Bork isn't actually new to the Microsoft case or to the subject of monopolies -- his legal experience makes this an interesting read, even for those who don't consider Microsoft an "evil empire."
Where in the constitution is power granted to government to violate voluntary contracts? Yes, voluntary. The resellers wanted to resell Microsoft products, as cheaply as possible, and so signed the exclusivity contracts. Just because Microsoft is good at bargaining, is it a "monopoly"? The anti-trust laws are so vague that merely breaking the law is a matter of opinion.
People talk about "Microsoft using its monopoly power to..." without recognizing that the only power Microsoft has is the price at which they sell their product.
If the suit had been brought by some reseller who had been defrauded, or someone suing how Internet Explorer is falsely advertized as "compatable" without actually being compatable, all they have to do is prove their case. Demonstrate harm.
This whole "anti-trust" stuff is crap. Anison suing Bufferin because Bufferin merely repackaged the asperine in a sugar coating or whatever.
Microsoft never broke down someones door and forced them to buy a product at gun point. I can't say the same thing about government.
I respect Bork in many ways. He is, unfortunately, a party to this action. He is hardly going to say "government should be a last resort" out of one side of his face, and take Netscape's money to say how evil Microsoft has been out of the other side. Principle says "Then make a better product." Pragmatism says, "Oh, for a fee, I'll change the principle."
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Well ... his positions on social issues might not meet your personal criteria of "conservativism for the people". Then again, maybe they would.
What's that book he wrote? "Slouching towards Gomorrah. Modern liberalism and the decline of civilization".
Care to guess what his attitude towards the games you play, music you listen to, body parts you pierce, etc is?
I just wanted to cite the techlaw piece. And now, with thoughts of you, I'm going to race around my chair while flapping my arms and making clucking sounds.
Cluck, cluck, cluck cluck cluck!
Your baseball card analogy is only valid in the current era of late Capitalism. Those cards weren't worth sh!t 100 years ago, all kids could do was read the stats. Oddly enough, if you extract the children from Capitalism they do quite nicely. I know parents, uber-Bohemian Harvard types, who wouldn't buy their 8-year-old baseball cards. So he used Photoshop to create his own, which he then traded with his friends. Of course, that's Communist nonsense when the people own the means of production!
They do have their own party. It's called the republican party. The president was hand picked by Bill Gates and the AG used to consult for MS. In fact I think Ashcroft's daughter is emplyed by MS right now no doubt as a highly paid consultant.
Why do you think the DOJ rolled over as soon as Bush took office?
War is necrophilia.
The fact is that 90% of PC users are as thick as a ton of bricks, and think that if they have a computer that runs Windows, it is NOT PHYSICALY CAPABLE of running another OS (not that they know what an OS is).
They think that if the have MS Windows, they must buy MS word, anything else is not compatibubble, Hell more than half can't tell Word from Windows anyway. Yes folks its true - half of all PC users are of below average intelligence!
Even when you tell them "the reason you get the message Your application has committed an imoral act, and will go directly to hell" is because they bought software from William Gates, they respond "I have to, I use Windows". (These are probably the same morons that buy Ford cars. I have a Mondeo, so I should know :-)
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII