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DOJ Argues in Favor of MS Settlement
hpa writes: "It is described in this article on CNET the Department of Justice is arguing in favour of the proposed settlement, because the government's case was too weak to impose additional penalties on Microsoft. Somehow this seems like a very odd thing to me, effectively the prosecution is pleading on the part of the defendant..." There's also an AP story.
Somehow this seems like a very odd thing to me, effectively the prosecution is pleading on the part of the defendant
It's amazing what a few million dollars under the table can do...
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
The article states the the DOJ was explaining why they settled, not defending MSFT.
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Just because the DOJ are wusses doesn't mean that MS is totally in the clear.
A settlement is an agreement by two sides as to how to end a lawsuit: why WOULDN'T both sides be arguing for the settlement?
It's pathetic when the U.S. Government can take a hard line on terrorism in traditional forms, but is cowed by a multinational corporation that has been demonstrated to be involved in monopolistic forms of terrorism. The DOJ is basically giving up because they're tired of trying to fight Microsoft. What sort of precedent does this set for the Standard Oils of the new millenium?
This government has bowed to corporate interests at every turn. I'd be happy to see a list of cases where individual freedom was held in higher esteem than corporate interests. This is yet another side effect of the US's desire to remain an economic superpower. It has changed from a Representative Democracy to a colossal beauracratic corporation. Perhaps we should call it The United States of America Inc.?
Remember folks, a government that tramples the rights of the citizen is a tyrannical government. There is no leeway for arguement in that.
Pot.Kettle.Black.
Way to compare the Nazis to Microsoft. Pardon me while I roll my eyes.
Face it, Microsoft is a major corporation and, yes, a considerable influence on our economy. No administration (that can actually get elected) is going to gleefully attack them, because they fear the economic effects (yes, I realize that any negative effect would likely be short-lived, and would be more than made up for by the subsequent explosion of new entrepreneurship, but many people don't see things this way).
GWB, "I prefer inovation over legislation."
It was all down hill after GW Bush started to use the term "inovation" when referring to Microsoft. The conspiracy theorist in me says that he was bought out. Maybe he slipped when he said it?
Personally, I think that is great for you. And I try to do the same.
But I can't read most of what is emailed to me from a business perspective without MSFT. Heck! I couldn't even submit a resume for a job working on Unix without the document being in WORD. That's whacked.
To take it further -- I can't read Word from Linux unless someone has managed to hack out the latest variation of the DOC format.
Netscape has died as the direct result of Microsoft intervention.
Wordperfect has died as the direct result of Microsoft intervention.
Lotus is mostly dead as the direct result of Microsoft intervention.
And now through SSSCA, all GPL software stands a chance of dying too. Then you will only have Microsoft to work with and you will be labelled an enemy of the state, part of the Axis of Evil
The DOJ, with every detail of the trial available to them, decided that further litigation would not be of further use to anybody. A large number of people with very limited access to the details (but with heavy anti-Microsoft biases) conclude that the DOJ is wrong. Who's right? I know who I'd put my money on. Do you believe that the righteous always win in the courthouses of the United States? Or that the lawbreakers never escape conviction or punishment? Whether or not the settlement agreement is fair is beside the point. The decision to end the trial makes sense. Within the framework that is the justice system of the U.S., it appears the DOJ has gone as far as they can.
I don't think that there is a good solution to this problem, because for the most part, they seem to be attacking the wrong problem. For most of the trial it seemed that the DOJ and company were attacking the software end of MS, meaning the IE browser, the integrated-ness of the OS and such.
When they should have ignored that completly. They should have attacked their business policys because that's what the problem really is. The problem with MS is that they used their position to destroy all other oses. DR-DOS, IBM-DOS, OS/2, etc. all dissapeared because MS played dirty pool and wouldn't let computer manufactures sell PCs with those OSes without penalizing them for doing so.
It doesn't matter if IE can be removed or not, if MS wants to make it part of their product then so be it. If they want to integrate Office with their os then so be it. It's their product, if you don't like it, complain to MS or don't buy it.
I feel that linux is now a real alternative to windows on the x86 platform. And if you really don't think so, then go buy a Mac. They are also good machines.
I don't know how they can pay for the deaths of the other software they killed by being a monopoly. I don't think that this settlement is enough punishment, but that's a biased opinion.
the RTFA post...
for all you zealots that base your posts off the slashdot headline instead of the article.
expect to see this one more often, kids
//radiotakeover.
For some reason people tend to ignore that the DOJ went to court with the wrong case. They became enamoured with the Netscape case and left out much better arguments for a monopoly case.
I really don't think MS was inherently wrong by tying the browser to the OS. Maybe it was bad engineering (crippling the OS on purpose), but having an integrated browser did benefit me as a consumer.
Konqueror, for example, benefited me more as a Linux user, because it is a better integrated browser. I would also prefer a lightweight, less-buggy, integrated browser in Windows, but I don't see releasing a crappy product as an anti-competitive maneuver.
Forcing the market to accept a crappy product AND REJECT competition is an obvious anti-competitive maneuver. There is no way MS could give that the "benefits the consumer" spin. The BeOS case was a much more obvious evidence of monopoly abuse than anything Netscape-related.
It's not clear it's monopoly abuse to alter your product to compete with other companies. It is monopoly power to force legislation (OEM contracts) and/or artificial technical constraints (false incompatibility error messages with other OSes) upon the market.
Declaring MS a monopoly for the wrong reasons just makes it less likely for it to ever receive the punishment appropiate for the "right reasons".
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
The morning session ended with Brad Smith, Microsoft's incoming general counsel, who said that the company was already trying to comply with the terms of the settlement proposal.
I wondered what was going on over at Microsoft with the recent Kerberos protocol documentation release. It seems to me that this could be a clever and subtle move by Microsoft. Imagine what would happen if for some reason the settlement was rejected. Microsoft can now claim that in an effort to be good citizens they attempted to comply with the proposed settlement and released several protocols. In other words they can now claim that the cat is out of the bag and the settlement must be allowed. This claim is specious at best but could be used to extend this process for years. Hmmm....