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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.
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?
Campaign contributions from Microsoft to the republican party this last election cycle have amounted to over $680,000. (They've been generous with the democrats as well, totalling at over $450,000). Their total contributions, just over 1.1 million dollars, are ten times bigger than those from any other software vendor, and nearly half of all the contributions from software vendors combined.
Check my source here.
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.
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...
You said "When's the last time you saw a Microsoftie plow an airliner into a skyscraper, torch a research facility, or form a mob to take to the streets during a meeting?"
Slavery often ends brutally as well. Most Americans make us slaves though indifferance towards minority opression. Sensory depervation or water torture are definatly brutal when spread over a long enough period of time, yet do not need to utilize a angry mob of teenagers or a violent act. Class economics removes hope and independance from our future. Class economics are at the root of the Talibans power over their soldiers and are behind the inability of an individual with merit to sue a company without being wealthy to start with.
Our classes are no longer earned on a generational basis but inherited. Another name for that is a caste system. A caste system is bloodline slavery mixed with religion (of greed in this case). Given enough time slavery is always brutal. Our system can be a brutal as the 11th but not with such force in the span of an hour. Does that make it more humane?
His argument was poorly put but not toothless. Americans need to wake up to the fact that they can never Bill Gates without being rich to start with. He is not the American dream, but a generation of a legacy. Each person should have the means to make his own way, and they won't need a three generation head start.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath