Microsoft, Feds Revise Settlement Agreement

An Anonymous Coward writes: "This AP article writes of some changes negotiated by MS and the Justice Department to the anti-trust settlement. MS urges Judge Kollar-Kotelly to accept the settlement it negotiated with the Justice Department b/c doing otherwise would raise constitutional issues. Please."

Comments

Ohter news regarding this....

[lemonhed]

It was also reported that a federal judge overseeing the Microsoft antitrust case has dismissed a suit brought by a nonprofit antitrust group claiming that the parties didn't fully disclose communication related to the proposed settlement. See this link

And this...... Microsoft has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court to block media access to four depositions that have already been taken in its antitrust case, as well as one that has not yet occurred. See this link

And this.... A great place to get all the goods on the case... visit here!!!

And finally.... A great place to get the latest press releases Click Here!!!

Re:Huh?

[FooKuff]

Huh?

Go to OpenSecrets Search, put "microsoft" into the individual donor search field and click the "Go!" button. I think the answer as to why the Republicrats are behaving this way will become immediately apparent.

Microsoft -- ruthless and lucky (and ruthless)

[blueskyred]

Microsoft pulled every single trick in the book and basically won the case. They got lucky with Judge Penfeld Jackson talking a bit too much to the press... but that wasn't enough. The main thing is that since we had a change at the White House, and therefore the DOJ, everything about this case has been a sham.

If Gore was given the election (he did win it, but he wasn't given the keys) would this case have been settled? If it were settled, would it have been so generous? (Even with the current changes, it is a sweetheart deal.)

Here is a small list, off the top of my head, of the things Microsoft has done or has used to get an advantage in this case:

• Delayed the case from coming to trial for almost two years
• Made the trial take much longer than needed
• Committed perjury -- remember that icon in the system tray that gave it all away?
• Claimed in court that Linux was a threat while simultaneously dismissing it in the press and in the industry
• Argued that if they didn't get the result they liked that they would appeal to the Supreme Court
• Judge Penfeld Jackson rules that Microsoft was guilty of illegally maintaining a monopoly -- this was on April 3, 2000. He then talks way too much to the press
• When indications were that they wouldn't win in the Supreme Court, Microsoft tried in the court of appeals AGAIN
• Court of appeals vacates Jackson's breakup judgment
• Gore win the election but the White House goes to Bush
• Bush talks-down the economy. Microsoft uses this as an excuse to end the trial as soon as possible, for the good of the economy.
• September 11th. Microsoft uses that grizzly act as an excuse to end the trial as soon as possible, for security (??) reasons as well as for the good of the country. "We don't need internal strife in a time of war" or something like that...
• Justice gives a sweetheart deal. 9 states go with it while 9 others do not, including California and Massachusetts.
• Microsoft makes some slight changes to the agreement in an attempt to make people happy. It barely works, but hey, they were working "in good faith."
• To quote an article from Salon.com, Microsoft also argued that the trial judge's role in approving the proposed settlement is "almost ministerial," and urged her to defer to the judgment of the Justice Department about whether the agreement "is the most appropriate mechanism to resolve the competing interests at stake." To do otherwise, the company argued, would risk constitutional questions over the separation of powers between the executive and judicial branches of government.

Finally! I found the revised settlement

[Anonymous Coward]

From their press releases go to U.S. v. Microsoft: Stipulation (02/27/2002) and from there you get Second Revised Proposed Final Judgement.

Now to actually read it...

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:The free market argument

[Spoing]

Numbers 1,3, and 4 don't address the FSF's monopoly since the FSF still holds the copyright.

The GPL does not restrict use, so copyright only becomes an issue if the GPL is violated. 1, 3, and 4 don't violate the GPL, so those uses -- those actions -- still can be performed by anybody or any company. The FSF is powerless to prevent these changes -- and that's the whole point of the GPL. It's about user's rights, not developers/corporate rights. (Note: This is a restatement of the intent of the GPL, not my personal single minded thoughts on the subject. The GPL is one of many tools.)

Number 2 is illegal under the GPL.

Also wrong. I wrote "Add seperate but different propriatory, BSD-style, or GPLed code." With the operative words being "Add seperate". There's nothing in the GPL that prevents taking two seperate programs -- one GPLed the other not -- and placing them in the same package. Most Linux distributions have propriatory parts in one form or another.

The issues come up with extentions of the original GPLed code...so if those extentions are also GPLed, there's no problem. If there are no extentions, and all the new stuff is in other programs, the GPL is not violated regaurdless of the licence used for that new stuff.

In either case, there is a 'monopoly' in GCC only because nobody cares to change that. If they did, the GPL would allow them to do so almost immediately. With enough backing -- social or corporate -- the actual monopoly would not exist for long. Microsoft's monopoly isn't even similar.