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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."
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
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.
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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.
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.
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!
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?
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?"
Built-in protection against Micorosoft's lobbying efforts at the federal level. I wouldn't have thought our government capable of such forsight.
The government can't help it. The protection is completely integrated with the Operating System. Removing it would break the government completely, or worse, we'd be seeing literally thousands of U.S. government variants! You don't want that, do you?
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
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
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
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.