Slashdot Mirror
Gates Testifies in Antitrust Suit
teamhasnoi writes "Bill Gates is testifying today in the Microsoft antitrust case.
Here's the 5 page executive summary (pdf) and
here's the 163-page full version (1.1 MB pdf). Bill waxes on about the early days, talks about .NET, xml, and why Microsoft should not be penalized for its role as 800 lb. Gorilla. (Developers, Developers, Developers)" Other readers point to the BBC story on Gates' testimony, as well as a similar one at Yahoo!.
In written testimony submitted after he was sworn in, Gates argued that penalties the states have proposed would give Microsoft's competitors an unfair advantage.
Good...it's doing its job. That's exactly what this is meant to do. M$ has held an unfair monopoly over the industry for years, and this is meant to give other companies the chance to strip some of their power away.
As a monopoly, everything that comprises Windoze and Office are the result of ill-gotten gains and should be plundered like M$ has done to others in the past.
If it is sucessful, this could be what brings the tech industry out of its current slump...
No, but wouldn't it be better if during the windows install it gave you a bevy of choices for each component install?
Have a "software disk" or two or three that includes alternative options.
Install Web Browser?:
(o) Microsoft Internet Explorer
( ) Netscape Navigator
( ) Opera
( ) Mozilla Clone
( ) None
Have options for everything. Their stuff will be default, but allow others to modify installers to install other things as their own distro. MS gets the cash for the sale, with perhaps some for the distro maker due to "value added" stuff.
Because if you notice, those same Alternative OSes are gaining in bloat becuase there's becoming less and less things that you need to go and find and install, because it all comes with the distro.
Do you think attitudes are changing though? Do you think people are actually trying to think about the user? I agree with a number of people who've bought this point up. Just because a lot of people aren't comfortable with computers it doesn't make them stupid. On the contrary, they're probably more competent than us in a number of areas. I for one know that I don't know what the heck goes on in my car and wouldn't be able to fix it if something happened. OTOH, my auto mechanic would, but he is in no way comfortable around computers... Everyone has different strengths
Gates claims today Microsoft's efforts to open its APIs and protocols to developers, so they can develop programs that interoperate with Windows, are enough.
Then the nine states should question Gates over the recently publicized CIFS license incident, asking him why are GPL developers excluded?
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!