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Microsoft Settlement Comments
GreyPoopon writes: "I'm sure somebody has already sent this in, but what the heck. According to Excite, it looks like a summary of the comments on the Microsoft settlement only show 5 of the 47 released by the Justice Department in support of the settlement. Does this mean that Judge Kollar-Kotelly will rely on only these 47 to make her decision?" The comments that the DOJ describes as "major" are now published; the procedure the DOJ wants to follow for publishing all of the 30,000 comments received is contained in a court filing. (The Federal Register, if you don't know, is a dead-tree, daily publication of the doings of the U.S. Federal Government. The Department of Justice is arguing that there are simply too many comments to publish on paper, despite the legal requirement to do so.)
All the DoJ is saying is that 90%+ of the comments were via email, if they can recieve comments via an electronic medium, why can they not re-publish them via the same electronic medium?
The fact that a majority of the opinions are against the settlement is really a testament to common sense.
I don't want to make myself out to be a MS-basher. That would be hypocritical, since I use MS products in my job as a programmer and at home (mostly for gaming). But even someone who is adamantly pro-MS would have to acknowledge MS's unfair use of it's size and power to not just compete with others in MS's markets, but to crush them.
I used to argue that MS hasn't done anything any other company hasn't done or wanted to do. With the exception that no other company has been in quite a parallel set of circumstances, I still more or less believe that. But MS has become so large and powerful that the decisions those in power make do indeed hinder competition. When MS decides to "embrace and extend" something (like, say, a communication protocol), sure, it protects their business - which is a basic drive of all businesses. But that kind of manuveur by MS just hurts the industry as a whole as manufacturers scramble to make MS-compliant hardware and software developers scramble to implement MS-compatible solutions. And we all do the same dance again when MS Protocol X is revised with (typically buggy) version N.0
It's good to see that the people who aren't agreeing with the settlement are excersizing basic business logic.
My sigs always suck.
Unfortunately, something like that would result in the same types of problems that arise from special interest groups and lobbyists--a vocal minority "seeming" like a majority. The loudmouths would strongly encourage the direction of government. In real life, right-wing conservatives already have this type of influence down cold.
... (vocal minorities, not right-wing conservatives ;)
Also a major problem in all online communities I've participated in
Your logic would be true, if the comments were a random sampling of all the people involved (in this case, all computer professionals, or consumers - in other words, almost every educated adult in the country).
However, since comments were voluntary, and there is a considerable amount of emotion in the arena, the sample is guaranteed not to be random.
It could be that MS tried to form a grassroots campaign (In fact, this did happen)
It could be that Sun and Oracle and Netscape tried to form a grassroots campaign, along with slashdot and the OSS movement (In fact, this did happen)
One side having more people who could write a convincing argument doesnn't have a big effect. You have no idea in what proportions the original 30000 messages were. It could be 30000-46 messages that said "Microsoft should be let off the hook" and 46 messages that went into detail as to other methods.
Further, the popular opinion doesn't (or shouldn't) rule, the actual facts in the case should.
Note, I am not saying that MS is in the right, or that they are in the wrong, just that your argument doesn't work out the way you want it to.
I'll be offering them free space on my server so that they can publish it there.
There more data going over the internet in an hour then there's data contained in the library of congress.
What's 30000 comments? My PDA can probably hold that.
the center for the moral defense of capitalism sez: "...we have opposed the case from the outset, seeing it as an abridgement of the freedom of production and trade and an interference with the right to acquire and possess property." hmmm. when did we get the RIGHT to acquire and possess? i always thought life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were our rights. how can you use the words moral and capitalism in the same sentence without a punchline?
An interesting assertion in the KDE League comment: US Antitrust law protects international parties from local business if it harms the American Consumer. If this is the case, shouldn't international parties have been given the right to comment?
"In addition, many Open Source developers live in other countries, making it extremely difficult for them to obtain any redress through the courts. (Here it is important to bear in mind that while these developers live in other countries, their software is freely available to American consumers, and hence any harm visited upon these international developers results in direct harm to the American consumers which the Antitrust Laws are designed to protect.)"
"It remains to be seen if the human brain is powerful enough to solve the problems it has created." Dr. Richard Wallace
After the initial shock of not seeing my comments appear in the final 47 (all listed in entirety: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms-major.htm), I noticed some of what the individuals (as opposed to companies) that wrote in really do have great comments.
t c-00002572.htm):
Here's an example from Mark Alexander, pseudo-randomly chosen b/c he's the first individual listed (http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_tuncom/major/m
Mark: 4) The primary beneficiary of the settlement, other than Microsoft, is the OEM rather than the consumer.
Me: Great point. I spent much of my comment saying OEMs should have the right to bundle Java VMs or dual booting machines without penalty. How does giving OEMs the *right* to do this ultimately ensure something positive for the consumer? I don't know that it does. This wasn't just a good comment for the settlement, but even for other comment writers like myself.
Mark: IV - D: Coverage for OEM should not be limited to just the largest volume 20, but should include all the smaller OEM who by nature of their size have less of a bargaining position with Microsoft to begin with and as a group represent a large portion of licenses sold.
Me: Another great point. I'd allowed the presentation of the settlement in the media to greatly influence what I wrote and never bothered to break the whole thing down line by line. Talk about your misinformed and underinformed public (aka "me"). Let's face it, Mark did his homework. I didn't realize smaller OEMs didn't receive similar/the same protections.
Anyhow, I find the individual responses to be quite interesting, moreso than, say, RealNetwork's response which was obviously put together by "real" lawyers (Can't imagine being able to say "IAAL!"). Take a look. Whoever sifted through did very well.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
No, this is not a good idea.
The problem is that under this approach there's no way that the vote can be completely anonymous and uncoerced. It's possible you can secure the transmittal, storage and count of the votes (although as a professional security and cryptography expert, I would say that doing so is beyond our current capabilities), but how do you prevent a man from forcing his wife to vote for his candidate? For that matter, how do you prevent the local union from forcing all of their members to vote in a certain way. If there is any way for a voter to demonstrate conclusively who he or she voted for, there is a way to coerce that voter.
Because of this, it is critical for the integrity of democracy for voting to be done in complete privacy. Somewhat counter-intuitively, this means that voting must be done in a public place, where everyone can see that only one person enters the polling booth at a time.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I thought Nader's comments on how the settlement could affect Free Software were really interesting:
Note for example that under J.1 and J.2 of the proposed final order, Microsoft can withhold technical information from third parties on the grounds that Microsoft does not certify the "authenticity and viability of its business," while at the same time it is describing the licensing system for Linux as a "cancer" that threatens the demise of both the intellectual property rights system and the future of research and development.
It seems odd that Microsoft would be allowed to choose to withold secrets based on how viable they thought the other business would be. In other words, they could say (and they have said) "Linux is not a viable/authentic business", and then they would no longer be required to share information with them.
It shouldn't be up to Microsoft to decide who their competitors are, anyway.
-Mike