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25 More States Oppose MSFT Antitrust Dismissal
phebz23 writes "News.com is reporting that 25 more states (even Washington!) are rallying behind the previous 9 to prevent Judge Kollar-Kotelly from dismissing the case on the grounds that the states should not have say in antitrust policy which is opposite of Microsoft's motion. They cite the Clayton Act, which grants them the authority to continue the case." Important to note that the states say: "even when the federal government has proposed to settle a case. Congress has granted the states clear authority to proceed independently under Section 16, despite the fact that the federal government has chosen not to act, has proposed to settle a case, has in fact settled a case, or has taken the matter to trial."
what about 2.4ghtz cordless phones and x10 wireless stuff?
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
The states aren't really rallying around the other 9. What they are concerned with, isn't this case, but their ability to bring antritrust cases in the future. Hence they are supporting the 9 states bringing of the case regardless of what they feel about the merits of the MS case.
This is I feel the beginning of "to the pain" for microsoft. I wonder if even they understand fully how quaint little laws from the states themselves will begin popping up dragging them into dangerous and legally hopeless territory?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I guess democaracy dosent really work after all.
... is futile.
When will the states learn they can't compete with MS?!?!
Heh, just kidding.
Seriously though, what is the impact of the States continuing the case if the Federal Government has already dismissed it?
Does it lessen the damage(s) or penalties that could have originally been levied on M$?
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
Basically this newsbit goes something like: "The states want to have the right to pursue antitrust cases even when they don't have the support of the federal goverment". And this constitutes news?
Seem like a no brainer to me. Nothing to see here, please move on.
This is important for the continuity of government and the law. Essentially the Department of Justice did a complete about face after the Bush administration came into office. (Microsoft gave more money to government and incumbents than did Enron by the way including our Federal Attourney General who while recusing himself from Enron case did not apparently see any conflict of interest in the Microsoft case).
If the states did not have this kind of legal standing, cases that stretched over administrations could side-step the law entirely.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Considering Microsoft's contention that the dissenting states didn't have any legal standing to continue the case, this is pretty unsurprising (although I admit, I didn't expect it).
The states are, at the minimum, protecting their right to bring suit. If the Attorneys General of the states didn't react to the MS contention on standing, they would be falling down in their responsibility to protect the states' legal rights in court.
It will be interesting to see what the actual filings say... so far, I haven't found a public link to them.
We are the Music Makers, and We are the Dreamers of Dreams...
Built-in protection against Micorosoft's lobbying efforts at the federal level. I wouldn't have thought our government capable of such forsight.
Great news, congrats to everyone involved. Microsoft is not getting off that easily.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Then more come.
And more.
Pretty soon any state's attorney looking to add a notch to his belt buckle is dragging you into court on this violation, or that violation, and using state law, not federal, to force you into any compromising position they choose.
Now mind you, this won't put them out of business (the old, don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg theory). But forget about the days where you only had to face a -significant- lawsuit once every 4 or 5 years. Get ready for several a year from now on. And no settlement is going to make it go away.
It's true that this antitrust trial is dragging on and on, but I feel it is good for the general public.
Face it, a LOT of the public doesn't really care or understand the ins and outs of this trial. The more states that stand up for their rights, the more the public gets to learn about Microsoft's blatant misuse of their monopoly. It does drag on and on, but it degrades Microsoft's public image by constantly being in court for stuff they KNOW is against the law.
It seems as if M$'s motion might have backfired a bit. I wonder if this latest development might lead to the 25 backing the 9 in some other areas as well, they've just shown that they finally have the gonads to stand up to the beast.
I stole this Sig
You would be surprised as to the amount of direct outright propaganda that Washingtonians receive every day in favor of Microsoft.
:(
(such as the 'story' on 'software piracy' that they aired last night. Including how you lose out on that lovely support MS gives you, yah right, LOL! If you buy a plan that includes it. . . . Ah, or how piracy only saves companies a 'few' dollars, not mentioning that those office CDs cost a few hundreds from MS and that buying them FROM piraters costs only a few dollars. Heh.)
All of the stories have such a horrid positive angle to them that I swear MS could declare that Washington State is seceding from The Union and nobody in the news bureaus would bat an eye.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Awwww Poor Mister Gates. He is rich enough to buy the state of Kansas. When you find someone that rich you can't help but ask: where are the bodies?
A Beowulf cluster of these...
After a long period of consideration, here is what the remedy should be:
1. For a period of 10 years, Microsoft shall be prohibited from selling any operating system product directly or indirectly to a computer manufacturer.
2. For a period of 10 years, Microsoft application products shall limit their file formats to an approved version of XML. Furthermore, for a period of 10 years, any changes to application file formats shall be announced and documented nine months prior to their commercial introduction.
3. Microsoft shall release upgrades to existing versions of applications to enable them to write the documented XML file format and to disable their ability to write the previous proprietary file formats. Their ability to read the previous proprietary format shall remain unchanged.
Now sit down and think what the world would be like.
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
It's just about maintaining the states rights. They clearly say in the article they are not supporting the case itself but the right to bring the case regardless of what the DOJ (aka "lazy crackwhores of justice") decides to do (or rather, not do). Washington state just wants to protects its rights in terms of future antitrust issues, it doesn't care to pursue such a wonderful company as Microsoft. Believe me, here even the newscasters and reporters suck off Microsoft's collective wang every chance they get.
Hmm, I started being factual and ended up being completely editorial. Oh well.
Yup, the $4.3 million to people in both political parties, including President Bush, appears not to have gone far enough for them. With all those billions, you would figure they could at least afford a cool $20 million to put down the antitrust measure, that sure would do it.
Instead though, they put the same amount of pennies into political donations as they do for bug fixes...err wait...do they have a budget for bug fixes?
I don't think all this rallying and going to court does anything to microsoft, next thing you know, they'll incorporate SQL Server into Windows, and drive Oracle out of the picture. If they win this time, this is going to be the end for a lot of companies.
The comment was posted, the story was changed and now the poor guy gets moderated down because of it. Talk about shitty moderators...
You can bet Bill will correct this horrible situation in the next election. . . problem is, buying off every state could cost more than even Micro$oft is worth! LOL
Don't throw your computer out the window, throw the Windows out of your computer!
what's this? MS support on /.? Makes me wonder if some of these posters aren't secretly dead and just faking it;)
Before I came to slashdot today, I was browsing the archives at The Onion. It took me a moment to realise I was reading a slashdot news header as opposed to one of the stories from The Onion.
Just when the hero is bleeding and beaten and about to go down and has been betryed by his friends, along come the cavallry, lover, reinforcements and the day is saved.
What's that supposed to mean? That Israel are the bad guys?
the isreali's moved in on palestian land and i the rest of the world helped them. what to you expect the palestians to do? bend over and take it up the arse. the palestians have no hope against the isrealis in an all out conflict. that's is why that have to turn to the tactics that they do.
On the other hand, Israel has nuclear weapons, which they have chosen not to use. What do you think the palestinians would do with nuclear weapons?
do you think it would be wise to detonate nuclear devices so close to your home country?
Anonymous Microsoft employee
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As a _Newsweek_ columnist said, one of his Arab acquaintances had been talking to some Arab students, and one of them -- apparently out of the blue -- commented that with several nuclear weapons, they could end the Jewish problem. None of the students seemed to think that this was a particularly outrageous statement.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Since I happen to be watching The Simpson's right now, all I can say is: WooHoo!
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
You have no idea, do you? Travel to the country, speak to it's people, both sides. The palestinian terror acts are acts of protest. The war they are waging is a defensive one. There is no expansionism involved, and, by the seven gods, no attempts to annihiliate the Israelian people as a whole. Atrocities are commited on both sides, but there are few wars where one of the sides manage to kill thousands of soldiers in a 'good-guy' manner. Perhaps you would care to detail exactly how that could be done?
And no, no palestinian would launch a nuclear weapon and destroy the land they are fighting for. That must be the most wayward and ridiculous political conclusion I have ever heard. Dimensions of thoughtlessness and ignorance lies behind an observation like that. You might just have forfeited your rights of existance, through sheer stupidity. Why do you bother to speak at all?
I don't know how much was actually spent on this trial by both MS and the justice system so far, but I would guess it has gone way over the 100million dollar mark.
All that money is just wasted on lawers and their underlings, every paralegal, every patent researcher, on both sides of this case. Money better spent either at M$ with the creation of new jobs or goverment programs designed to give money new business.
Sorry if you don't agree with me, but myself and many of my friends have been affected by this economy one way or another. I don't blame it on M$ though, I blame it on GWB and his staff of Jerry Springer guests.
Apparently it shocks the common sense that there could be people involved in the process who are not politically motivated but are looking at the law behind the matter.
Well either that or there are some hard liberals in Washington. Na, couldn't be.
News Flash: "Hail Redmondia"
MS has defined the borders of "Redmondia"
on 100 square miles of what was formerly
contained in the State of Washington and ceceded from the United States.
The State of Washington has accepted an
undisclosed amount to enable Redmondia
to establish a Monarchy within their borders.
Citizenship to the new country will be granted
to all inhibitants of Redmondia and land rights
will be transferred to MS Corp.
"Change to Rules... whenever you appear to be
about to loose... winning is just delaying
any possibility of loosing."
McD
There is no doubt that Bill will try to correct this situation in the next election. However, (arguably) we all know that Bill is not so dense so as to go bankrupt while buying off every state. So, what else could he do? That's right:
However, he will join neither the Republican nor the Democratic parties, because those were not invented by Microsoft. Instead, he'll be the candidate from the Business Software Alliance Party. Their flag will consist of Clippy drawn over the Windows logo on a blue background.
I shudder at the thought of all this.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
That's interesting. My first question would be, exactly what does he mean by "None of the students seemed to think that this was a particularly outrageous statement." Did all of the students speak up saying "Yes, I believe that is a good idea"? Or was it silence, as in none were willing to speak against the idea? Or was it a mix, with some saying they agreed and the others simply not disagreeing? Or was it that no one wanted the nuke-happy bastard to know that they though he was a fucking lunatic (and thus some kind of "Jew-lover").
I read Newsweek regularly, I know that many of their reporters wouldn't bother to actually make a distinction between any of the above cases. They frequently summarize events with an emotional interpretation without providing the details necessary to see if they are being accurate. Without the information necessary to detect any bias, you basically have to ignore statements like that. The only thing I would actually believe is that one student suggested nukes. Which I wouldn't consider noteworthy, considering how many idiots got actual -airtime- in this country to talk about their desire to use nukes against Afghanistan.
The enemies of Democracy are
Although the sum that this case costs is large on both sides, you should not be intimidated by its size. The damage done to economy by Microsoft's monopolistic pracitices is many times higher and I would bet its even higher than all the profits Microsoft has ever made and definitely more than all the taxes it ever paid.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Justice is served motherfucker!
Bullshit. They care nothing about the land, they just want to get rid of the Jews.
No... millions have suffered much more at the hands of his shitty products. Lynch him
Governments have a DUTY not to allow themselves to be manipulated.
I notice that it takes a long time for abuses to be recognized, and to be stopped. Societies do not have efficient means for stopping a determined abuser, particularly one that exploits the lack of technical knowledge of its customers.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has been continuing exactly as it did before, testing the limits. Perhaps there should be several new anti-trust and abuse-of-commerce cases.
With Windows XP, Microsoft seems to be trying to blur the distinction between its computers and its customer's computers. Windows XP sometimes resembles a trojan (except that you must pay for it). Numerous operating system programs call Bill:
- Microsoft Media Player (tells Bill the music you like)
- Microsoft Direct Play Voice Test
- Microsoft Help and Support Center
- Microsoft Help Center Hosting Server
- Microsoft Application Error Reporting
- Microsoft Management Console
- Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service
- MS DTC Console program
- Services and Controller app
- Run DLL as an app
- Windows Explorer
- Microsoft Office keeps a number in each file you create that identifies
your computer. No one has said why.
- Microsoft porn search looks on your hard drive for those photos of your
wife. Okay, maybe not, but you aren't sure are you?
- These are just the ones I know about. There may be others.
It is such a relief to use Linux! With Linux, there may be problems, but I know that they aren't caused deliberately. Linux is an OS that does not involve me in adversarial behavior.Bush's education improvements were
I'm glad I live in Canada where my biggest problems are
a) Passing School
b) Getting a job
c) Putting up with the bloody cold.
See I have what could be construed as a relative interest in reality. What do you think will come of the "anti-trust" suit anyways? Suppose you guys break up Microsoft, then you will have to tackle IBM, Cisco, Intel, etc... [e.g. all other big mostly monopolies].
What you will end up with is hurting yourselves. What you guys fail to realize is that real United States citizens actually work at these "evil" companies.
While companies should be kept in check w.r.t their EULA's [e.g. fair use] arbitrarly breaking up companies only hurts yourselves.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
If you can't break them up why not try to bankrupt them with lawyer fees?
Then we as the US could bar the sale of all goods here from Redmondia. :-)
Karma whorin' since 1999
1. when saving a webpage to disk, it REGETS it from the web, VERY WRONG. Why? ifyou webpage is a online ordering page, it "RE PURCHASES" your items because of a 're-get' . How fucked is that?
When i hit save, SAVE whats its ram/cache, dont reget it stupid lamers.
What I always found funny when I was living out in Seattle was how, during elections a couple years ago, the candidates always touted themselves as "pro-microsoft," in an effort to win votes. This stance, of course, guaranteed that they wouldn't get MY vote.
I was simply amazed that after all the findings of fact that were laid out on the table during the various trials, that a candidate being "pro-microsoft" could actually win votes.
An AC wrote:
> Can't we end this now. Hasn't Mr. Gates suffered enough already?
Microsoft was found to have broken the law. We are now in the penalty phase of the trial. There is no longer any question as to how guilty MS is, only how much they will pay for breaking the law.
Problem is, we can't get Microsoft and their lawyers (both those who are employees of Microsoft and those who supposedly work for the Department of Justice) to clam up and get penalized already. It would really help if the so called "Department of Justice" would quit defending Microsoft and start prosecuting them like they are supposed to be doing. Then we wouldn't have a settlement that MS is using to repeat their illegal activities, and 9 states off on their own because they seem to be the only ones who care about doing their job.
The 25 states will help here, even if they don't formally join in with the nine states. State governments are important, and they have rights, even in this "War on Terror" era. It's high time they stood up and let people know that.
.Net, DRMOS, using the Settlement like a rolled up newspaper to smack their OEMs around... It is plainly clear that Microsoft has not suffered enough, because it obviously has no intention of mending its ways. Until justice is done, until Microsoft mends its ways, until huge corporations respect the law of the land, this isn't over. We have a choice. Either the computer industry becomes vibrant, prosperous, innovative, and free (as in liberty), or we have the Microsoft Millenium. Choose!
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
"Mosura", 1961
Get it while it's hot!
People use the multimedia to brainwash you into whatever they want. Just watch the sound bites at election time, back stabbing as an artform.
The tv commerical that pisses me off is about kids who are smoking a joint, then they say the drug money is used for supporting terrorism.
-
Sure you can trust the government! Just ask an Indian!
I'll even beccome a state to make them 26
I just hate the fact that the people involved have know idea what's really going on. I mean, without Microsoft, we wouldn't have a lot of cool things (albeit, a few bad things too). Just look at how Microsoft has raised the bar for consumer level computers and graphics. I can easily jump onto a site like NerdTreeHouse and play a sweet 70 frames per second. Linux could never do that. Of course, the irony is that Linux servers power the backend of the graphics app. Hahahah.
The part that so many people miss when talking about political contributions is that for every politician you can influence with your money there are two or three of his opponents that now see you as a potential enemy. That's why most companies that give money give to both sides. They can't afford to make enemies. Besides, Microsoft isn't the only company with money to burn, and many of Microsoft's competitors are very important to the economies of much larger states than Washington. In the end, its votes that get you elected, and if you aren't pandering to your consituents you are likely to get run out on a rail no matter how much money you spend campaigning.
Microsoft's "take on the world" mentality works against them in this case. Microsoft may be rich and powerful, but they have made a fat pile of enemies, and these enemies are beginning to organize themselves into coalitions, both in the technology world and the political one. It's not uncommon to see Microsoft's competitors rallying around technologies like Java or Linux, and many of the large companies that oppose Microsoft carry their own political supporters.
In short, it would take a lot more than $20 million to pull Microsoft's fat out of the fire.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I know I'll probably get modded down as off-topic, strangely enough, that's one of the reasons I'm posting this. Call it a protest against biased moderators who have only modded the posts on one side of this debate off-topic, while leaving the other side alone, or even modding them up.
Well, to get back on topic with this off-topic topic.
What's that supposed to mean? That Israel are the bad guys?
Of course that's what it's supposed to mean. The question is: is that what it does mean? Are those numbers even accurate? If so why not post a attribution? (I checked the link. There's no sign of those numbers there). Even if they did have some basis in reality, they'd still just be raw statistics, not very meaningful out of context. For example, do the numbers include suicide bombers or careless bomb makers? What about those killed as collaborators by their own people?
The one thing that should be clear to anyone following recent events, is that the situation cannot continue as it is. The only paths open seem to be compromise or mutual destruction. In such a situation, demonizing either side shows a remarkable callousness towards everyone involved.
It didn't event cross Jerry's mind to not think about the people who were against the movement of fighting the "25 More States that Oppose MSFT Antitrust Dismissal" ?
heh?
what doia think...?
Washington State isn't jumping on the "let's break up Microsoft" bandwagon; it's jumping on the "if we don't stand up for states' rights the federal government will usurp them" bandwagon.
Governments have a duty to do the right thing. They don't always do it. That doesn't mean it is not worth saying, however.
You said, "I don't suppose you're aware that the bin-Laden family provided the financial backing for George W. Bush's first oil company, did you?"
I'm aware. I wrote a book about these kinds of things. Including the links, it is about 660 pages: What should be the response to violence?
What I want to know is, how did my earlier post about Microsoft abuses get moderated "Redundant"? I looked, and I didn't see another post remotely like it. Bill, was that you? Did you moderate my comment down?
Bush's education improvements were
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Your whole premise is totally incorrect. You are crediting Microsoft with many of the features that you like. However, almost every part of the Windows Operating System has been stolen from competitors and other creative individuals. There are many examples, but if you don't believe me, then you're trying to remain ignorant, which isn't anyones fault, but your own.
You are naive. Microsoft has controled the bar, not raised it.
You can only honestly say that you have no idea where the bar would be, or how that bar would be measured. I believe it would be higher if Microsoft never existed.
Get a free ipod.
The total amount of money spent in all elections, state and fedral was around three billion dollors in 2000. Microsoft has more than that in the bank. It is shocking to see how cheaply you can buy a pol for. That is why it is the way it is. Getting a return of $200 or $300 dollars for every dollar given to a pol is not uncommon.
More than Microsoft can give, Ha, they would even miss it.
Look at the internet boom. One of the reasons so much money was made on the net is because microsoft did note have the net under its control. Pretty much every person that uses the net uses a computer. Yet there never really was a consumer computer software boom, because microsoft was able to kill off and then assimilate any good application. After a couple of companies got assimilated, people just stopped trying. Now sure there some companies that were succesful with consumer software, but there was nothing like the excitement and glut of new companies of the internet era.
2/3rds of the states bother to "show up" and ultimately represent the underlying balance of and right to local judgement. Chalk up another one for freedom, regardless of what you think of this trial in general. I guess the US still has more life to it than I previously thought.
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
Its not really a dificult legal issue. It is simple statutory interpretation.
I really doubt that the Supreme court will take this.
Just like Isreal (or at least Sharone) want to get rid of all palestinians.
Cheers!
Sure like hell Enron guys get every $300 for every $ they put in ...
You generalization is completely baseless.
OT again... :)
Well, I think what the poster wants to point out, is that in a numerical sense, the palestinians are much worse off. I think they're getting the shaft in lots of other ways too...
For every Isreali that dies, something like 4 palestinians die.
Both sides are acting like kids in a sandbox - "You hit me first!" "No you did." "Make him stop first" etc.
Frankly, I think we (the US) should take our millitary aid, and leave the Israelies to duke it out with sticks and rocks - just like the palestinians. (But we won't because that would destabilize the region, and cheap oil would vanish - I don't think we care a bit about the Israelis at all...) Then, it might actually make both sides stop and think about how neither would be able to win. Finally they might grow tired of fighting endlessly, and actually learn to live together. Right now, both sides are the bad guys. Killing isn't the solution. Unfortunatly, I don't know what is, I just have some ideas.
Perhaps I'm niave, but it sure looks to me as if the US is prolonging the problem, and doesn't care, because it hasn't threatened our supply of oil yet.
Cheers!
Just look at how Microsoft has raised the bar for consumer level computers and graphics
Please name one innovative, creative, "bar raising" product from Microsoft. Show me such a program and I'll show you a program that was developed by anoter company at least one year earlier.
I contend that Microsoft has not raised the bar for consumer computers (other than forcing progress through bloatware that crashes old computers) and that they have never innovated in computer graphics.
t'nera semordnilap
They introduced Windows and never kept control over it.
That is all I needed from them.
I still remember old DOS days when every fucking game came with its own set of drives for everything.
Unix world is still like that, fragmented and full of dying dinosaurs.
is the mouse wheel. They did come up with that right?
There is no such domain as news.com.com
www.news.com is not an active site
Is CNet not propogating their DNS records or something? com.com appears to be a travel agency.
"Either the computer industry becomes vibrant, prosperous, innovative, and free (as in liberty)"
You mean like "vibrant, innovative and free" Unix world where progress stopped around 1985 ?
Fuck you, I will take MS Millenium ANY time.
bleh...
icky problem...
why would you keep something in ram/cache if all you needed to do was throw it to video?
... hi bingo
As I see this, this is a (warrented) blow agains the anti-states rights US goverment...
Ever since precivil war times, the state had been sat upon, disrespected, and undermined by the US goverment: the National level gov't makes laws that superseed athority of local laws, creates agencies which have highter athority than local ones do (even if it's not a Fed'rl case). The whole civil war was a war, not agains slavery, but against the states right to leave the union. How many times is Abraham Lincon quoted as saying "The Union must stand" or somthing to there effect? The Emansipation Proclimation (sp?)was merely a byproduct of the war... nessicary to further presue the war against the errant states.
I say 'Why nod secuession? Why not leave the Union?' We joined freely, should not, if an entier poplulation is dissatisfied with the Fed'rl gov't, we be alloud to leave freely?
As I see this, this is a 'Back off!' from the states to the Gov't, saying that they cannot push the states around indefinitly... and i applaud it. Just becoues the Gov't doesn't want to presue this, doesn't mean it can barr the states from. Peroid.
Bill Gates will run for President of the United States ...
However, he will join neither the Republican nor the Democratic parties, because those were not invented by Microsoft. Instead, he'll be the candidate from the Business Software Alliance Party. Their flag will consist of Clippy drawn over the Windows logo on a blue background.
ROFL!
Very little money was actually "made" on the net. The money that was made on the net was made because investors were fooled into believing that the stock they were buying would go up in value - and for a while they were right because there were other people fooled into bidding it higher. It was a big pyramid scheme and it collapsed.
That crap about having the net under the control of one company is just bullshit. Companies with no business model were being valued at several billion dollars.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I agree with the above. I can't believe the number of people who believe that this case is going to "hurt the economy"... obviously the never explain how, that's the mistake the first post in this thread made. The money that is spent on this trial goes fairly directly into the economy, money paid to umpteen different lawyers firms and professionals and their associated aides etc. is GOOD, that's money that's going to "trickle down" in capitalist jargon. Sure lawyers won't spend all of it supporting small businesses, paying for their groceries and so on, but the will spend some. Now seriously, where do you really think the money MS puts into this trial would otherwise go? It comes straight out of profits - profits that go to shareholders, they'll pay company tax on it(if the US is anything like .au) rather than lawyers paying income tax on it. The tax is important because that is cash that is recycled into the public purse and to a reasonable degree, used for the public good.
The point is that the businesses that are most in the public interest, and to whom we should direct cash, all other things being equal, are the ineffecient ones, ie. the small ones. It is always so ridiculous to see govt. looking to big business to "create jobs". Barring the creation of a new industry(about the only thing for which big business is necessary) and ofcourse the running of industries that by nature rely on big corporations(eg. shipping) big business tends towards the destruction of jobs.
How? One McMegaChain fast food purveyor moves into a new area and opens one store employing 1.5 times the number of staff of other stores in the area. However it services 45% of the market in that area. Some of the 9 other stores around (say 4) have to close because with 9 stores sharing about half of their previous market the can't stay afloat. So 4 times the staff of an average store and 2.3 times the staff of the McMegaChain are now out of work. And note here that McMegaChain hasn't even employed monopoly power, except in the indirect sense that's its saturation advertising is an unfair advantage of its size.
Now Linus Torvalds makes it pretty clear that there is no need for a mega corporation to produce an operating system, as does Microsoft's plethora of other applications. Software development can be done by small to medium sized businesses, if it was made possible by the government this would benefit the economy immensely and in fact a single industry being freed up this way could probably produce it's own economic boom, much like the open internet market did for a while, until the competition stopped and money going towards jobs was spent more efficiently, leaving more to go towards investors.
The money that goes towards investors is money that is unproductive. It only pays rental on start up capital for business. The width of your average profit margin is the proportion of the country's goods that goes towards supporting necessary but unproductive services.
Microsoft is about making those margin's as wide as possible and people concerned about jobs should be looking to make them reasonably small.
I knew the world would start to get better once goatees and cigars fell out of fashion...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
And you will find MS actually donated four times the money to the demos in comparison to the republicans, especially to the Gore campaign.
Those states are protesting the erosion of their ability to work in AT laws, as well as their own soveriegnty.
MS will just buy XML and all companies involved, and they can afford to give away their OS... it's not like linux actually has a chance of competing in a fair market given it's cryptic nature and massive lack of compatiblity with even the simpliest of computing standards (quicktime, dx, correct implimentation of opengl, dsound, any sound...etc)
That's a Netscape 'bug' that's been the case from day one, AFIAK. When you resize the screen with IE, it resizes the loaded text to fit the screen. When you resize the screen with Netscrap it fucking pulls it all over the wire again from the source.
It's one reason I try to never use Netscape or Mozilla.
You need to get out a bit more often.
As others haave stated, they are arguing against dismissing the dissenting states petition without additional hearings, (not dismissing the "antitrust", whatever the fuck that is).
The argument is that states cannot set national policy. The DOJ/MS say they cannot, somewhat more than half the states say they can.
That's what the hell judges and courts are for, to decide stuff like this.
And just how the hell do you know where the bar would be if MS hadn't killed off all the competition? You from some alternate universe or something?
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
"Blame me for having to type the backslash in DOS," he jokes.
and see: dos shell(sic) history.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
It won't happen like 1985 again.
This time around the Unix vendors will crowd around to listen to Dick Stallman and his followers. The cry of 'Open Source Forever' will resound around the land.
Children will be happier, babies will be born pinker and fatter. Old men will sit on park benches smiling, and the world will be at peace.
Fuck you, too.
And palestinians want to get rid of Israel, or at least all the Jews. Now that this has been cleared up, what do we do about it?
I honestly was not bashing Microsoft. I am more pro-Microsoft than Bill Gates. If he were pro-Microsoft, he wouldn't let his company be so abusive. The bad PR is dragging his company down.
Anyhow, at the present time, my comment is moderated, "Troll". Since, to be a troll, it would have to be factually incorrect, it is not a troll. I suppose Bill has been moderating again.
Bush's education improvements were
with microsoft owning the patent for a drm os, they become the os gatekeepers deciding who is legally allowed to make an operating system. any anti-trust mesure would then have little effect because they get to decide who plays and who does not and thanks to thier slick lawers and blatant disregard for the law, by what rules. at least this will only be true in america (for now)
fuck the jews
Hey, anything to get the little buggers to stop spending money on useless crap. :)
Jeez, with what pot is costing these days, nobody who smokes it should DARE complain that they don't have enough money because of "circumstances beyond their control."
Dipshits. >;(
---- is sick and tired of hearing people whine about not being able to afford a computer. (then seeing them buying $200 nikes and lighting up a joint. . . . )
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Regardless of what propganda they spread, we all know how Bush feels about "States Rights". He wasted no time bypassing the Florida state rights and going to the federal courts to stop counting the votes because it would have cause harm to his image ---well gosh, his image may have been tarnished! --- thinking back now and seeing how a year of bush has been we should be asking what harm was caused to America by not counting the all votes. OH wait, that's right, we are NOT allowed to question that, we can only wave our flags and be happy.
>>>please remove "nospam" from email address
Actually it hasn't been a very equitable split, (although some people think there's political mileage for them in claiming Microsoft is buying both parties.) Maybe that's what you're getting at - that MS has accepted an exclusive ideoplogical alliance with one party?
In fact while Microsoft has gone from near zero political donations (aka legalized bribery) to the very front rank of PACs in the space of 6 years, they have historically allocated a very high percentage of their money for the Republican party along the way (72% from 1995-1998).Playing both sides of the aisle isn't Microsoft's inclination. Soft money donations to the 2 parties National Committees have been running 1:2.41 in the favor the GOP, during the most recent major election cycle (1999-2000) . Recent donations to individual campaigns have been considerably more evenly split between the parties, running almost even at 1:1.1 in the favor of Republican candidates, but there's no doubt which party Microsoft considers the best value for their dollar.
Interestingly, individual Microsoft employees seem to pull in the other direction from their management. While MS officially favors the Republican Party and the personal example set at the top by Steve Ballmer is to donate exclusively to Repblican candidates, Microsoft employees, taken as a whole, have favored Democratic candidates 5:1 in their donations.
Now you know why Al Gore had no fear speaking with a crowd of Microsoft employees on their campus: they may have been plotting "Dealey Plaza" for Internet Al up in the boardroom, but he had plenty of friends among the rank and file.
Of course, the labor-management split has to be put into perspective. One MS exec acting alone donated to the Bush inaugural fund nearly half the figure donated by MS employees to all Democratic candidates and Democrat PACs. MS donations to the Bush "recount" effort amounted to no less than 10% of the same total for Democratic employee donations for the entire election cycle. And of course Al Gore got $0 from Microsoft the company during his Presidential bid.
So it's a bit of a myth that MS is an equal opportunity whoremonger. They know which whores have a lamp in the window for them.
Not a Netscape bug. In some older versions of Netscape, resizing the window would screw up the rendering of the page, so a lot of HTML editors now put in a javascript thing that reloads the page if it's resized in Netscape. Blame the HTML, not the browser...
Microsoft and the 9 states are still trying to make their arguments stick. The whole issue is whether the 9 states can get their desired outcome to have precedence over the federal one.
Yep, its true ... our only hope is a 767/cruise missile though the bedroom window of 1 Microsoft Plaza.
I guess his generalization would be wrong in your sample size of one. I hope you aren't a scientist.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The part that so many people miss when talking about political contributions is that for every politician you can influence with your money there are two or three of his opponents that now see you as a potential enemy. That's why most companies that give money give to both sides.
This is relativly easy in the US where politics at just about every level appears to be a "two horse race". Does the US even have political parties specific to certain regions, states or cities? Any which stand much chance of getting any candidates elected to either state bodies or Congress?
In other countries it can be more difficult because there can be more sides and different political parties may be effective at different levels. So bribing 3 or 4 parties might give you control of national government, but you'd need to bribe 20-30 parties (and independants) to get all government.
Please name one innovative, creative, "bar raising" product from Microsoft. Show me such a program and I'll show you a program that was developed by anoter company at least one year earlier.
About the only actual Microsoft innovations appear to be along the lines of "egomaniac" naming conventions, e.g. "My Computer" and cartoon style "help". Hardly "bar raising" or even especially worthwhile.
For a list of proposed Microsoft innovations, you can go to:
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.s
I have a slightly more obscure theory that occurred to me during the recent outcries of US protection in the steel industry; I wondered if the motivations are not just plain old patriotic US protectionism - keeping a US company dominant worldwide in the OS market. The US has traditionally struggled to dominate mainstream markets such as cars and household electronics (and in the past would have "buy American" campaigns to try get US consumers to buy american cars out of a sense of patriotism), and perhaps they realise that if competition were really restored in the marketplace, it would allow foreign companies to develop competing OSs. This is obviously not in the best interests of the US, since OSs in the next thirty odd years is going to become an even more enormouse market than it is now, as more and more appliances (e.g. mobile phones) become capable of running scaled down Windows-like operating systems. Keeping MS in its dominant position could very conceivably be a form of protectionism to keep an american company at the top of this market. I don't see why not, its certainly easier than letting companies compete on the merits of the product (something American companies traditionally have struggled to do in other mainstream markets like household electronics, motor cars etc).
The tv commerical that pisses me off is about kids who are smoking a joint, then they say the drug money is used for supporting terrorism.
Now if they could just come up with a similarly effective commercial to get them to stop masterbating.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Hmm .. lessee .. CPU protected mode to vastly improve security and reliability of software, introduced on the intel 386 to the public in 1985 (and actually first to developers in 1983). Microsoft's first consumer operating system that actually properly uses it: released 2001. That should seem like stagnation to anyone with some common sense. Apple computers include the idea of a "trash can" at least as early as 1984. Microsoft's first system with anything like that: released 1995. Over a decade to implement the "recycle bin"? Apple computers that support the concept of displaying thumbnail views of documents such as images and wordprocessor documents in the file manager: at least as early as 1984. Microsoft first manages to incorporate this idea: 2001. Skinnable applications and window managers on Linux around 1996 (I don't know where this first appeared); Microsoft: 2001. Remote GUI access: Unix world, probably older than 10 years, Microsoft: 2001. Alpha channel in bitmaps / icons, rest of world, probably early 90's, Microsoft: 2001. My dates are probably over-optimistic in favour of MS as well. It seems fairly clear that "the bar" would be a lot higher if there were two or three competing major OSs as opposed to just one.
Show a documentary called "Promises" to the kids on both sides. It looks to be a powerful documentary of interviews with the children on both sides of this conflict taken over a period of five years from 1995 to 2000. The same children are interviewed over time. Over the course of the creation of the project the producers showed pictures of the Jewish kids to the Palestinian kids and vice-versa. Eventually the kids decided they wanted to meet each other. It was never the intent of the producers to put these kids together, but they did. The outcome is interesting.
I haven't seen the whole thing, but I intend to. All I have seen are out takes from the film on Fox News. As soon as it becomes available I intend to see it. I have seen another one that was done some years ago with Palestinian and Jewish persons that were resident here in the US and that was also interesting. Another one that is interesting to see, and I don't remember the name, was done with Protestant and Catholic children that were sponsored to live here in the US for a year, and interact with each other outside the context of N. Ireland, and the change in those kids was absolutely incredible.
I know this program would not solve the problem, but having both sides begin to view the other as equally human would start. Also having others, like US citizens and government officials, see that both sides have culpability in the ongoing situation I think would help. The younger generation needs to be willing to make significant changes in their leadership if they are going to achieve peace.
Continuing the off topic thread,
Mark
You forgot the politically incorrect reality that jews own the american electoral process.
That's fine, except Microsoft payed no federal taxes last year. Funny, that. In a year when the US government spent $125 *billion* in corporate wellfare (bailouts, tax breaks such as Microsoft recieves, funding for advertising, and grants for overseas expansion).
So it's much worse than it looks.
And I suppose you have seen into paralell universes to be able to tell us what would have happened if lincoln had not razed the south to the ground, trashed the constitution and paved the way for the corrupt unchecked machine we have in Washington today?
I think splitting the US into two would have been a marvellous thing.. Ya know. Like microsoft. Just because you've been PROGRAMMED to love Lincoln doesn't mean he was a good guy, or that the results of 'Saving the Union' are good.
Now engage brain and re-read that.
And the South got what was coming to them. If they'd acted within the system, and "changed their business model", there'd have been no war.
Just because the South has been PROGRAMMED to pretend it was the victim in the Civil War doesn't make it so.
Blockpoth the quoster:
Israel might be able to tough it through the loss of American military aid. (Or did you think that the U.S. is the only nuclear nation covertly investigating the idea of small tacnukes?) However, the thing Israel cannot afford to lose is the U.S.'s unwavering veto on the UN Security Council. Absent that, UN sanctions would hit them hard and fast.
Need a UNIX/Linux/network guru in the Boulde
Thanks! A voice of sanity coming out of the dark.
I think I heard a bit about this on NPR on Friday - it sounds very interesting.
The first step to systematically destroying your enemy, is to de-humanize him. As soon as you don't see him/her as a "real" person, but someone EVIL/Different/Stupid/UnWorthy etc, it's really easy to kill or destroy them. The opposite is also true. As soon as you have to kill your enemy and you see him as brother/mother/sister/wife, then you have a much harder time overcoming the natural compassion we all have.
Hopefully both sides can come to see each other as human, as one who deserves compassion. Then we might see a change.
Thanks again!
Cheers!
Where do you think they got the nukes in the first place.
I'd bet that the know-how came from the US, either directly or indirectly. What to do about it now...who knows, but IMHO the US put Israel where it is now, and we've CAUSED many of the problems in the region today.
Cheers!
The conflict is about land. Of course the people, both sides, loose sight of their goals because of hatred. Employing nuclear arms, however, is a rather big step. They would consider the implications before launching nukes against the Jews. If for nothing else, then to avoid killing their own. Again, of course the palestinians wouldn't nuke their own land. Never. The answer is given.
Interesting to note, though, that we americans are the only ones who have fired up the oven and launched the nukes without consideration and hindsight. No other people would do that.
Is where did they get their nukes?
I'm not gonna tell. But they didn't 'purchase' them.
You haven't provided a good, reasonable, logical, even legal reason *why* this should be forced though
[ PUNCH ]
The point is to restore competition. Microsoft was able to destroy the market for OS products years by forging exclusive OEM distribution agreements that incorporated a little trick called cliff pricing. This was ruled illegal in the first antitrust case years ago.
By prohibiting MS from selling to OEMs, the marketplace of operating systems is restored. Customers can buy what they want be it Windows or whatever. I suspect (contrary to your assertion) that what would emerge would be a number of Windows compatible operating systems to leverage the huge windows compatible applications base.
The second part of the monopoly is in office suites. This came from Microsoft's ability to take advantage of their control of the platform. Opening the file formats just allows other products to interoperate on a level playing field.
I don't see that this proposed remedy is exessively punitive, it merely restores the marketplace to a state that existed before the illegal behavior. In many ways I feel it is similar to the breakup of the telephone monopoly. True, people would be inconvienced with the burden of choice.
Ok, it looks like the editors (read MODERATORS) have been modding once again.
Well, cheers!
Mr Editor...slashdot will take care of itself mostly - it would be wise to either quit moderating, but if you insist, then allow yourselves to me MetaModerated.
That'll help keep things fair and reasonable.
But, I'm not holding my breath!
Cheers!
How about the technology news coverage in the Seattle Times (Paul Andrews) and P-I (Dan Richman)?
Both are straight M$ cheerleaders.