Slashdot Mirror
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.)
The sheer amount of comments, interest in the case and outdated dead-tree publishing philosophy of the Federal Registar has got me thinking.
:-)
Perhaps it is time for the Government to create, adopt or otherwise standadize a system to allow registered voters to discuss and debate on current issues and policies.
Something like Slashdot, but the people who run the show would be our elected politicans instead of our current dictatorship
That's not what I meant.
So it'll save $4m not to publish these in the Federal Register? It's good to see officials looking to save public money like that. But I wonder, if it's seen to be sufficient in this case to publish only the index in dead-tree form and to supply the full texts online and on CD-ROMs, whether a precedent will be set for the comments on all such cases to be published in this way. The consequent savings would presumably be non-trivial.
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
It appears that one of the five representative comments in favor of the settlement is from Ayn Rand whackos.
Of course, this is all just conjecture. I could be dead wrong.
Because that's not what the the law says to do. The issue needs not to be "We don't want to follow the law because it costs too much and we shouldn't have to", but "We think this law in it's present form is not in the best interest of the American people, so let's start the ball rolling to change it."
IANAL, but it shouldn't take much more than a federal judge issuing an order allowing the DELAY of publication while the legal issues of the method is resolved.
-- "Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"
from: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_tuncom/major/mtc -00033650.htm
Too bad guys, you're gonna die. Not the first and not the last.
uh...the orignal results were posted to slashdot as well. something like 15000 to 7000.
Here's the post on Slashdot.
It's been a long time.
They did take into account comments from non-US citizens. Paul Johnson is from Britain.
I found it slightly amusing that Sony's reply descented due to the "common licensing" provision. Basically they wanted to make sure their preferential licensing, and their ability to extend *their* monopolistic tendancies was not affected by the ruling...
Anyone else find it rather odd that supporting opinions from the Associate for Competative Technology and the Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism? Maybe not. But then they also were both formed in 1998. Call that a coincidence. Also, the Computing Technology Industry Association was formed in 2000 (as far as I can tell).
I didn't bother searching for the other two opinions for the settlement. Here's hoping that the judge can read between the lines here. Lord knows I can't figure out just who is the main contributer to these organizations.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
Sony argues that in the past, they have added language which would strengthen their claim to it's intellectual property.
Now that Microsoft is renegotiating with Sony, MS claims that in order to be compliant with the settlement, they cannot accept Sony's modifications of the license. -which only strengthens Microsoft's ability to extend it's monopoly.
and here I thought that was one of the safest proposals of the settlement!!
" We stand today on the threshold of writing the rules of competition in the digital age. We have two options. One option involves one dominant company controlling the computer desktop facing minor restraints that expire in five years, but acting as a gatekeeper to 95 percent of all personal computer users. The other model is the flowering of innovation and new products that resulted from the breakup of the AT&T telephone monopoly nearly 20 years ago. From cell phones to faxes, from long-distance price wars to the development of the Internet itself, the end of the telephone monopoly brought an explosion of new technologies and services that benefit millions of consumers everyday. We should insist on nothing less in this case."
Sen. Herb Kohl, D-WI
I didn't vote for this guy as one of my senators, but I'm thinking seriously about voting for him the next time he comes up for re-election. I like the way he thinks. He hit the nail right on the head.
I'm disappointed that the only "major" responses are mostly from corporations or lawyers. Perhaps this case will introduce a new section in high school English -
"How to respond to a proposed settlement against Microsoft".
I'm sure this isn't the last one we'll need to protest...
I don't have a solution, but I certainly admire the problem.
While reading some of the comments, it was interesting to notice that the Computing Technology Industry Association made it obvious that they formatted their document using WordPerfect9 and that if there were any problems "downloading or formatting this file" they would be happy to provide it in another format.
First: Only the major comments are receiving any attention. Only corporations and funded organizations are able to devote the time and resources required to prepare a reply worty of attention. I haven't seen any numbers but I wonder how many individuals are considered in the 47 major comments. Could they take into account a random selection of other opinions? This would allow for minimal goat sex, but a chance for the average Joe with two lines to say get heard.
Second: The DOJ is the one doing the sorting. Isn't this their proposal being commented on? Isn't it in their best interest to limit the number of responses? Why bother sending in comments if the DOJ gets to remove them? Again a random selection of other comments would help. You'ld get a better idea of the true number of people for and against the proposal.
That said, (step down from soap box) I'm glad to hear that the opposition to the agreement seems to have been able to have their say. I'm also very glad that this is a system that allows for public comments on a hot topic. It could have been settled behind closed doors without any knowledge of the proceedings much less any influence on the outcome.
Their first complaint about the settlement is "there is a need to have broader disclosure of file formats for popular office productivity and multimedia applications. Moreover, where Microsoft appears be given broad discretion to deploy intellectual property claims to avoid opening up its monopoly operating system where it will be needed the most, in terms of new interfaces and technologies. Moreover, the agreement appears to give Microsoft too many opportunities to undermine the free software movement."
Exactly. Most of the other comments that oppose the settlement, including the nine litigating states, think that Microsoft should be forced to continue to develop Office for Mac, and some want to force Microsoft to develop Office for Linux and other unices. What they don't seem to understand is that that will simply move Microsoft's most important monopoly from operating systems to office suites (i.e. applications). In fact, this would do Microsoft a huge favor. It is becoming more and more clear that consumers will not be so dependent upon using the same operating system as everyone else. Instead, what most people care about is the ability to share Word files. If the centerpiece of the remedy is to force Microsoft to develop Office for all competing operating systems, no one will be freed from essentially forced use of Microsoft products; we will simply be freed from forced use of Microsoft operating systems.
What Microsoft needs to do is exactly what Nader proposes: open up their file formats so that competitors can produce software that can read and write Office files as well as Office itself.
Nader is also the only commenter that I saw (I've only looked at four or five of the comments, and haven't read all of any of them, given the length) who recognized the strength that the PFJ gives to Microsoft by allowing them to exclude developers whose "business viability" is not certified by Microsoft, i.e. open source and other not-for-profit developers.
May Nader continue to watch out for consumers' interests (but may he try to effect change in the Democratic party through the primaries and other methods rather than by throwing the presidential election).