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All MS Settlement Comments Now Online
Sundance writes: "The DOJ has published their answer to the Tunney Act comments on the Microsoft settlement. The gist of it is that, basically, they like the settlement agreement the way it was written and won't change much of it, if at all. Choice quote: "A number of commentors are concerned that Microsoft will deny disclosure of APIs and Documentation, or licensing of Communications Protocols, to open source developers on the grounds that the developers do not meet the "reasonable business need" or "authenticity and viability of business" criteria of Section III.J.2.(441) The United States believes that the requirements in Section III.J.2 are no broader than is necessary to prevent misuse or misappropriation of intellectual property." I guess that crimes pays, after all -- provided that you're rich enough to start with." hbo adds: "The comments are
indexed by comment id. There is also an alphabetical list of commentators. To find a particular comment, look it up in the list, then find the comment id in the index. Finally, click on the particular comment to view it."
If they use terms that can be interpreted a number of ways and they are the ones responsible for interpreting them, the result being a choice wether or not to let competition gain footholds, do you think they'll do the "good" thing?
A child gets in trouble for cheating
The parents find out and sit the child down to talk about punishment
The child says "I won't do it again unless it's unreasonable."
The parents laugh and say "You will NOT do it"
This is clear and understandable and is appropriate because it's the child's judgement that was flawed in the first place that led him/her to cheat.
Leaving any leeway is irresponsible.
Ever as a teenager try to get out of being punished for something that your parents told you not to do, by interpreting their directions obviously wrong?
Didn't work then but in a courtroom I could see it work and that's not justice that's Microsofts obvious hope.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
This system invites unnecessary load (in the form of reloads on that index file), makes it difficult to look up comments, and makes it impossible to search them. These are all problems that the worlds of library science and computer science have solved many times over, and the solutions are not being used.
Ignorance? Deterrence of public participation? Slap-dash job? Gross incompetence? The world may never know.
new kind of soft-war by M$... The template! A lot of comment like this: ...I would like to express my support for the revised proposed Final Judgment
in the U.S. v. Microsoft case. This lengthy litigation has cost my fellow
taxpayers and me more than $35 million...
Huh. I emailed a comment to the DOJ, at the proper address, very soon after they began accepting public comments.
I can't find any permutation of my name or email address in the 'public comment' list.
Did this happen to anyone else, did you mail a comment but it's not showing up there?
Where's yours?
MTC-00004462
Any US citizen who didn't comment on the "settlement" doesn't deserve to be able to bitch about the outcome. My comment is actually a copy of someones elses writing, but at least I took the time to email it. The part about the DOJ saying "We really like our little agreement with Sata^H^H^H^HMicrosoft, so we're going to ignore all of your comments and continue as we are" REALLY SUCKS ASS! Damnit! If there ever was a time to talk revolution, this is it. The DCMA and probably the SSSCA soon have done more to undermine the constitution and the bill of rights than all of the communists that ever existed! God, this boils my hemmoroids! I've never felt this helpless. What is our great country coming to? An ever widening spiral of lost rights and freedom? I say to the Congress, DOJ, FBI, CIA and whoever else is with the Fed reading this, tread lightly where our freedoms lie, for you shall feel the wrath of those you wish to step on. Not a threat, but my god given right to protest and make for change. It's written down, right in the constitution. Don't ever forget that.
PHEW! That was one of my better rants. Back to eating my MacDonalds breakfast now...
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
Microsoft has 'cut off the air supply' of dozens of competitors over the years by copying their ideas and selling products at a loss until the competitor is run out of business. They've outright been proven to have stolen code from other companies such as Apple (QuickTime) and Stack. They've violated court decrees telling them not to do this, and they've falsified evidence in court (remember the videotape?). Their products are bad for productivity; look at how much time and money has been wasted fighting the viruses that keep plaguing Outlook and Internet Explorer again and again!
.NET is that Microsoft's going to make it cheap and easy for the biggest e-commerce companies to make web sites which work seamlessly with Windows, using proprietary Microsoft standards... and once that happens, Linux and Macintosh become second-class citizens. The day may come when you can only buy things from Amazon and eBay if you're using Windows XP or if you're willing to jump through lots of hoops.
And for all this, they're effectively being given a slap on the wrist and told 'don't do it again.' Microsoft has learned a very important lesson: laws can be broken. Just like speeding tickets don't physically prevent you from speeding, consent decrees don't prevent Microsoft from undermining other companies. They've learned that as long as they can drag out court proceedings, they can keep doing business as usual. It's even better if they can frame the battle as 'the evil government and evil competitors versus Microsoft's innovation, freedom, and all that's good for consumers!'
What's more, they're growing increasingly independent of other companies and outside standards. They tried to break Apple's Quicktime by suddenly dropping support for Netscape-style plug-ins; fortunately Apple was able to quickly release an ActiveX plugin. They decided that since Sun wouldn't allow them to 'embrace and extend' Java to lock users and developers into the Windows platform, they'd make their own replacement instead, and now Java support requires a separate download that most users won't bother with.
My biggest concern with
The real danger with Microsoft is that they have so much money to throw around that they can buy any market they want to buy. Whatever the Next Great Thing is to come down the pipe, mark my words: Microsoft will either buy the company responsible for it, or copy the ideas and give them away for free until the company is dead. You don't agree with me? Tell me how to compete with Microsoft. Say you have a great idea for a technology which will be as much of a leap forward as GUI's were over text screens, what's the use of bringing this to market if you know Microsoft's only going to bundle a workalike with Windows?
It's no longer possible to compete with Microsoft. They own the industry, and the government won't even slow them down.
I just realized: There's a very important lesson to be learned from these public comments.
Look at the sheer number of people who simply signed off on a form letter. Look too at the large number of people who, in their own words, condemned the antitrust suit as 'sore losers picking on nice Microsoft.'
What this means is that people have been buying Microsoft's propaganda. Lots of people. It also means that people have no idea there are any alternatives other than Windows.
More clearly than anything else I've seen, this shows the uphill struggle Linux is going to have -- or that anything will have, if it ever wants to unseat Windows.
People have been hit by Windows viruses and Outlook trojan horses, they've had to put up with all the nastiness and instability which is an inherent part of Windows, they've had to deal with exorbitant upgrade pricing and heavy-fisted licensing practices... and yet they still sing the praises of Microsoft.
As long as this continues, we will never have justice.
Bill Gates's wifes name is Melinda, not Elizabeth.
I read quite a few of the comments, and most of what I was able to find (albeit in a very small sample, 20 or so) were pro-Microsoft comments. Now, at least 5 of those 20 were form letters that must have originated with M$ and quite a few others seemed to be so clueless as to what M$ does in the marketplace..."stop harrasing Microsoft"..."stop keeping M$ from innovating"...ugh...
The United States is populated with sheep. I can't wait to leave...
I sure wish they would have deleted the email addresses of the posters, what a gold mine for spammers.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
This makes a nonsense of the rest of that section since it is based on the premis that OSS companies will be able to obtain licenses for Microsoft APIs and network protocols. What are they going to do with them? Since access to that information is restricted they won't be able to release the results as open source.
At the end of the day, we might as well accept that the US government (and most US citizens) would be entirely happy with a world where Windows was the only operating system which could either run on modern computers or connect to the internet.
So, basically, they wanted comments from the consumers, who the suit is supposed to protect, but they've ignored and dismissed all of the comments. They acknowledged no validity in any comment, nor attempted to seriously address any of their concerns, other than by saying, "that's not so". Being quite frank, the remedies in this proposal don't go far enough. The only way to ensure a competitive market which is beneficial to the consumer is to impose strict remedies -- preventing MS from imposing ANY restrictions on what OEM's do with the products they put on their machines, forcing MS to license at least some critical components of Win9x, NT, 2k, and XP to allow for competition with MS' "bundled" software and to allow alternate OS' to be able to use Windows software.
The ignorance of some stupid commentors is noted. "Would you rather be using anything else", and "there's nothing else easier to use" predominated among MS-supporters. Had MS not been a monopoly and had an unfair advantage with OEMs, BeOS would have superceded it by now and become the standard desktop OS.
The incompetence of the Justice Department is easily discernable through comments such as these:
174. A few commentors argue that, under Section III.C.2, Microsoft has control over what non-Microsoft products may be promoted by an OEM because Microsoft could define what "impair[s] the functionality of the user interface."(183) Section III.C.2 applies only to shortcuts, but it allows those shortcuts to be of any size and shape. Potentially, these shortcuts could be so large as to cover key portions of the Windows user interface (for example, the Start Menu). As the Court of Appeals found, Microsoft has an interest in preventing unjustified drastic alterations of its copyrighted work. Microsoft, 253 F.3d at 63. The limitation preventing shortcuts from impairing the functionality of the user interface was designed to respect this interest, while still giving OEMs considerable freedom to promote Non-Microsoft Middleware.
No, actually, its not possible to for shortcuts to "be so large as to cover key portions of the Windows user interface (for example, the Start Menu)". Even if it that would be MS' fault for design flaw. Furthermore, MS should only be allowed to sell OEM's its OS. The OEM's should have the freedom to modify it as they will. MS should not be allowed to HURT consuemrs by preventing their OEM's from tailoring their OS to their needs.
Granted, this proposal is better than nothing at all; but it doesn't go far enough to punish MS for past illegal deeds, rectify the monopolistic situation created, and prevent MS from future monopolistic deeds.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Microsoft has 'cut off the air supply' of dozens of competitors over the years by copying their ideas and selling products at a loss until the competitor is run out of business. They've outright been proven to have stolen code from other companies such as Apple (QuickTime) and Stack. They've violated court decrees telling them not to do this, and they've falsified evidence in court (remember the videotape?). Their products are bad for productivity; look at how much time and money has been wasted fighting the viruses that keep plaguing Outlook and Internet Explorer again and again!
And for all this, they're effectively being given a slap on the wrist and told 'don't do it again.' Microsoft has learned a very important lesson: laws can be broken.
If that had been all they had learned, freedom and progress might still have had a chance in the United States. Unfortunately, Microsoft has learned much more. They have learned that, not only can they break the laws they don't like without any repercussions to speak of, they can purchase new laws to actively legislate their monopoly into perminance.
Consider: Microsoft owns most, if not all, of the patents on DRM technology as applied to computers. Microsoft is the only major software company promoting the SSSCA that will mandate this technology into every PC sold in the United States, while every other player in the industry, bar none, vehemently opposes this legislation.
We are about to make the Microsoft Monopoly the only legal operating system in the United States, modulo those unthreatening "competitors" they might choose to license the patents to, for a heafty fee. Anyone taking any bets on the survival of GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, or any new OS startups within the United States if and when the SSSCA passes?
It will soon become time to emigrate folks, I kid you not.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
This is only sorta on topic I realize. But isn't it convenient that all of us got to post comments to the first RPFJ and right after all the comments were in they release a new version of it. Is it just me or does that totally slam the purpose of the Tunney Act? I commented on the original document by reading it thoroughly and writing my specific problems with each section. Given their changes, sections of my commentary (and undoubtably numerous other's commentaries as well) are irrelevant, and things I would've commented on are not included as it was impossible to know these changes.
Step One: Release a bad settlement
Step Two: Accept public commentary
Step Three: Modify the bad settlement slighty to give the appearance of having listened to the commentary in order to get the settlement originally desired, not allowing the public to comment on it
Step Four: Laugh all the way to the bank
I think there should be a new Tunney Act period for the new settlement. But hey, what do I know anyway. It's not like they listened to my original comments...
-Mike
Well, let me start by saying here's mine.
That said, I don't think the current DOJ gives a rat's ass about the public's opinion on the case (duh). Republicans repeatedly criticized Clinton for using public opinion polls...I guess they think that those corporate campaign contributors are much more worthwhile to listen to (DISCLAIMER: I am not a Clinton supporter or apologist, nor do I believe for a second that Clinton wasn't beholden to corporate interests...I'm merely pointing out a hypocrisy). Those $4M USD in campaign contributions will grab the attention of the DOJ over the public interest any day.
Someone with time on his/her hands should index these comments and come up with some statistics: how many of the comments were (a) for or against the settlement, (b) how many were form letters, (c) how many were submitted by corporations vs. individuals. Not that these are terribly meaningful, but they would shed some light on the DOJ's summary comments.
By the way - notice the .htm extension on all these pages. Netcraft says they're running Netscape-Enterprise 4.0 on Solaris, but I wonder if they didn't use Front Page to create these pages...
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
The problem is, the biggest "whine" was from "poor Netscape" regarding the browser war.
Well, actually Netscape has some of the best arguments against Microsoft when it comes to breaking antitrust laws.
Antitrust being defined as "when a company with a monopoly uses their monopoly proceeds to undercut their competition in other markets by selling below cost." For example, Standard Oil did this in the earlier part of the century (when gasoline was a new market, kind of like software is today) by obtaining a monopoly in certain cities, then jacking up the price of gasoline so that they could undersell everyone else in other cities, repeating the process as needed. They could have easily extended this monopoly ad infinitum to completely different markets, like cars or electric razors if it pleased them, and noone would have a hope in hell with competing with them. Thankfully the DOJ bitchslapped them and broke up Standard Oil before they started making electric razors. Microsoft used the funds they generate in operating systems to fund development of Internet Explorer. Microsoft then gave Internet Explorer away for free, among other things. This is a product that Microsoft has spent millions of dollars developing, but "out of the goodness of their hearts" they gave it away for free. You might argue from a completely subjective point of view that "noone ever bought Navigator" but Netscape Inc says otherwise, with the books to prove it (which were used in court as evidence by the way). Navigator was a significant source of revenue for Netscape right up until they had to give it away to compete with Microsoft.
Now, you also argue that Netscape died due to its own bungling and IE's technical superiority, rather than because Microsoft went out of their way to kill it, but you might have noticed that development of IE has slowed drastically since Netscape was bought by AOL. Why is that? Microsoft has already clinched the market through exclusive licensing deals, their control over OEMs and "special deals" with big businesses that ensure that they wouldn't dare buy another browser from anyone else ever again. They no longer have to invest in a money-losing market by actually developing software. The internet explorer design team now probably consists of five guys in a forgotten office somewhere who occasionally fix bugs not when CERT says it's a good idea, but after a billion script kiddies take advantage of some security flaw, bringing the internet to its knees with unintentional DOS attacks. (Okay, maybe that's really exaggerating, but to say the least, MS doesn't care about IE much anymore, and is allowing it to stagnate because there's no competition and there never will be either.)
So the process? Microsoft spends millions of dollars on a product that eventually stagnates, for no other reason than to put Netscape out of business. Those millions of dollars didn't come out of thin air, they came out of the lucrative monopoly Microsoft has on the desktop. And that's Antitrust boys and girls.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert