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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."
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...
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.
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.
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?
Without a doubt. If this goes thru right, MS will wish the Feds didn't go so easy on them. Imagine being pulled apart by 9 large dogs. I think this might be pretty similar to what is about to happen to MS. We can only hope.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why? There is no real issue; the states have a right to proceed as written in statute.
Well, a signifigant number of cases have been dealt with which were opposing existing laws, such as Pleshy v. Ferguson, or Brown v. Board of Education.
Have no doubt, MSFT will push as hard as they can to erode the ability of states to harm them.
When encryption is outlawed, ?o'AZ-,++o+i++##4AoA+-/-C++bI+/.+~
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.
Or, if it offends your base...
Witness Oregon - we've passed (TWICE) a death with dignity act. It allows terminally ill residents to request from a doctor (with a 2nd opinion, and only if the physician feels the person making the request isn't mentally unstable) a lethal perscription when they have 6 months or less to live.
Republicans are very wary of pissing off their right wing so called "religous" base.
[I digress madly here, so if you want the short version, skip the next section!]
I say so called, because their religeon as far as I can tell, is trying to get the state to "improve" the morality of its' citizens. [Before you get all foamy at the mouth, I am a conservative protestant abstraction too.] What's so utterly absurd about this, is that people choose to take the steps to a higher spiritual morality - the state doesn't influence anything. Harranging your citizens or outlawing what you see as immoral behavior won't improve the spiritual lives of those around you. A spiritual experience is what I choose FOR MYSELF - no one can "help" me choose it. The only encouragement that I can see that might be appropriate, is that of a close friend, of whom I ASK about spiritual issues. Notice that this is MY CHOICE to investigate spiritual avenues.
[End of wild digression! Sorry...]
I just wish the Republican party would slink back to being a conservative economic policy group, that generally supports a laise fair policy. Get out of the religous/moral stuff - it's not doing you or the country any good. Plus, it just gets us more and more Rep candidates that are extreme, because they're the only ones who get through the primaries.
Anyhow, I'll cease ranting, but it generally seems that both parties will take whatever stance they want, as long as it's convienient at the time.
Makes me want to spit!
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