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Final Arguments in MS vs. the States
Bistronaut writes "Reports are in today on the final arguments between the 9 State Attorneys General and Microsoft (articles from eWeek). CNN also has a summary. Spoiler: States say, "Here are our priorities for reforming MS." - MS says, "We don't need no stinkin' remedy.""
Even all that Microsoft has done that is bad, lets think of the good things that they have also done for us. Where would we be without Microsoft's existance? How easy/hard would computers be to use? I don't think that Linux would even be as mature as it is because alot of people started off on Microsoft products, and turned to Linux as an alternative, but found their love of computers using Dos and Win3.1
Just an idea, perhaps they haven't done anything good, but I think that they have done some for us. We should think of this before we totally bash (no pun intended, well just a little) them.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
so this is finally over...
Uh, no, the judge still has to make a decision. And then it may be appealed. Sorry.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
And nothing will happen to MS as they have probably paid off anyone who matters.
The 9 states want other companies to be able to replace Internet Explorer / Media Player / etc with their own products. Would the end user be able to do the same? Could I download the Opera display engine and replace the IE engine? Freeamp and Media player? Or would this be only availible to the large software companies (AOL and Real)?
Uh, no, the judge still has to make a decision. And then it may be appealed. Sorry.
Appeal? @#$%. I'm not sure I can handle this. Screw the CompSci major, does anyone know where I can get information on becoming a witch doctor to some tribe in Brazil thats never even heard of computers?
Why?
M$ is more doomed by Wal Mart's promotion of Linux. It will eat M$'s revenue stream and leave them breaking their apps to dominate an OS that no one wants any more. The end is indeed near. Go Mandrake!
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
ZDNet is running an article on this as well. It has some interesting comments posted by the readers in their Talkback section.
Most of the talk about the MS case centers around how to keep Microsoft from unfairly clobbering competition, which is good. But how come we never see anything about penalties for past behavior? How 'bout a nice 10 billion dollar fine (only 1/3 of Microsoft's cash reserve...) that we can then throw at the ISS? Yeah...
Not, people want the code to be released so they can develop native apps for it easier, using the libraries already there, and for things like the linux emulators. Openness of the code and the formats, not GPL'd, is what really should happen.
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
Quick exerpt...
---snip---
For their part, the non-settling states said additional disclosure of the source code that would allow rival software to work with the Windows operating system was their most important demand. "If you forced us to articulate the single highest priority -- that's it," states' attorney Steve Kuney told the judge.
---snip---
As far as Microsoft's priorities with respect to the proposed remedies are concerned, Sullivan said its top priority is to make sure the company is not forced to reveal more of its source code, insisting that doing so would substantially harm the company and give and unfair advantage to competitors, arguments that Gates and other Microsoft executives have made repeatedly in the past.
---snip---
Hello? Essentially, Microsoft says it's top priority is NOT doing what the states feel is the topmost remedy to the entire situation.
Again, DOJ and MS lock horns head on and it will come down to the Judge.
Dear god let us have a resolution already.
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
I am really getting tired of Microsofts attitude towards this whole trial. Take your lumps and move on.
Microsoft also previously has argued that the states' demands go far beyond addressing the antitrust violations it actually committed and would harm consumers and the entire computer industry.
So, disclosing source would benefit all of Micro$oft's competitors, but harm the entire computer industry??? How can that be, unless Micro$oft considers themselves to be "the entire computer industry"??? What economic textbook teaches them that reining in a monopoly harms consumers?
You've got to give a lot of credit to the M$ lawyers for actually making these claims in court while keeping a straight face, but I suspect the judge is not amused by these insults to our intelligence.
Since they should not have any benefit from any illegal act they have done, and since they were convicted of something, they should probably "dis-intergrate" the connection with the internet, and take anything primarily connected to the internet such as browsers, and MSN, and web server stuff, etc, and spin it all off as a separate company.
things which are not primarily an internet thing (the OS thing, Office, etc) should be retained as another company.
And the two compamnies should not be able to do any business with each other for 5 or 6 years, basically the length of time they have had the benefit of their illegal actions.
nothing much, just my rant.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Okay, I've got the script.
Basically, I've rewriten Bill's uninteresting personal life to be just like Larry Flynt's. Sorry, to be just like the personal life Larry was given in the movie. In Bill's case, we can gloss over the child pornography because it didn't happen.
If someone had asked you before The People vs. Larry Flynt "can Courtney Love act?" you would say "No," but she did. Therefore, Britney Spears will play Mrs. Gates. She will play a heroine addict - she will win an Oscar. If Britney Spears gets an Oscar, it must be God's will. He works in mysterious ways.
Bill Gates, who is every bit as ethical as Larry Flynt, is the hero of the picture. Only one man can make such a part work: Samuel L Jackson. Seth Green ("Scott Evil") spins well among teens - he'll cameo as Ashcroft. We've seen recently that only one man has the radiant malifluousness to play Judge Thomas Penfied Jackson: Christopher Lee. He'll really bring home the senseless brutality of the breakup order. Kevin Costner will produce and direct - he'll also play a fictionalised Gestalt of all of Bill's lawyers. Kevin is the only one who can make this star-bloated, ishtaresque monster expensive enough to actually sink a studio. Running Time: 4 hrs, 11 min.
At the end of the picture, we roll Bill on in a wheelchair and he dedicates the picture to that mousy wife of his. Oh, yeah, she needs to die.
The only question is - how can we convince Bill Gates to go before the court of appeals wearing a diaper?
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
States: Gates is a Poo-Poo Head! And here are thousands of reasons why, though we have neglected to organize and present them a focused and useful manner. Also, Ballmer smells.
BillG + lawyers: Well, I'm rubber and you're glue, your thousands of reasons bounce off of me and stick to you!
States: Uh, uh, uh, wait, that doesn't mean anything! I read in some law book that you actually have to refute our reasons and stuff!
BillG + lawyers: Too late! We already said it! And look, here's our press release declaring that you smell your own farts! Nyah-nyah!
States: Rats! We'd better focus our remaining arguments on declaring that we're not fart-smellers!
Ballmer: Hey! I don't smell my own farts! (dances like a sweaty monkey)
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Seriously, does anyone expect anything genuinely more informative than that from their arguments? the DOJ let MS dictate many of the terms of the debate, and wasted too much effort fighting MS on their own semantic turf, focusing insanely on the conceptually murky(-able) browser issues rather than looking at the "smoking gun" issues (such as OEM licensing and dual-booting, DR-DOS "incompatibility", even Apple and MS-Office). The states haven't done much of anything to expand on the DOJs well-supported, but poorly-executed arguments.
Not that MS has come up with any non-philosphical arguments themselves - most of their objections are based on the idea that the law shouldn't apply in their "special case", which is based on "software is different/MS is too economically vital to mess with/Gates is a lovey-sweetums and everyone should just love him back".
For crying out loud, the debates about post-modernism I attended in art school never achieved the bull-headed, pseudo-articulate, self-important levels of idiocy that this trial has.
And now I've added to it..
Blech.
So if some normal schmoe is convicted of a crime, does this person get to have remedies changed so it's more "acceptable"?
Microsoft lead attorney John Warden told Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that the states' proposed remedy was punitive...
Yeah, imagine that. Being convicted of a crime and then actually being punished. What a crazy world we live in, huh?
Cheap humor aside, can anyone explain (and IANAL, so I'm asking honestly here) why a company that lost an antitrust suit gets to make arguments about what the punishment should be? If a private citizen is successfully sued, does s/he get to go through another round of hearings arguing that s/he shouldn't be penalized?
Frood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
I am not really trying to Troll here, but I am just thinking of what Microsoft does for me on a day to day basis. Yes, I can see from other posts here, that other OSes would have probably taken the place of Windows if Microsoft had dissapeared in the 90's. I do know that after Win95, alot more people were starting to buy computers, but for some reason the release of OS/2 didn't fly as well, even though it had a few months up on Win95.
What does Windows do for me?
Compatability- let's face it, even all of our beloved OSes like *nix and OS2 dont' support everything that we want. Microsoft is generally up to date a good bit of stuff. If I want a Paralell scanner that I have to work, its easy. Linux, I look online, sorry that's not supported, it needs to be SCSI or USB. OS2, I don't know, but IBM isn't really pushing its updating now are they... Other things also fall into this pit. Alot of hardware is Windows only, while this isn't Microsoft's fault, its certainly nice to have an OS that's 'standard' on most desktops, no it's not the only OS I use, I have 3 linux boxes and 5 windows boxes around the house, all different flavors on all.
Simplcity- While Mac OS offers this as well, which I am grateful for. I know Windows well. I know linux well too. However, there are too few 'standards' around for linux setups and configs. Its hard to troubleshoot. Perhaps thats just me, but it still needs maturing for standard setups, etc...
There are a few other ways that Windows helps me, but I am outta time....
Anyway, sorry if you guys thought I was trolling, but I just didn't see the 'antitrust' suits as being really a big deal, Microsoft didn't ever stop me from using a 3rd party utility or 'confuse' me about their options to install software. I can put Opera, or Mozilla, or Netscape, or AOL, or Realplayer on my system as easy as anything else. It's not stopping me from doing what I need to do. Anyway, there goes my Karma...
Tibbon
tibbon.com
When it dies, they do. Simple, clean and neat.
Verification?
ANY M$ product appear for ANY other platform and Gates and Balmer sleep in the Big House and they better NOT DROP THE SOAP. (Jobs will just have to push OpenOffice for OS X.)
Total cost of verification and enforcement $0.00
That's IT. That's ALL.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Remember when railroad companies used different sized track to eliminate competition? They also eliminated any semblance of travel convenience for the consumer.
The commercial software establishment is largely like these now non-existant railroad franchises. People have discovered that it's just software, and they are happier to enjoy a level of compatibility accross a variety of systems.
Of course, once the railroad industries agreed on standards it became possible for mass production of standards-based railway hardware. This eliminated much of the guesswork, tracks were wide enough to support trains of various sizes and shapes. Without these standards, the golden age of travel would have been unachievable.
Software needs to adopt standards, and the open source community has been vital to that process.
Given Microsoft's track record in this area, I think the best outcome now is for the judge to force MS to abide by standards for all present and future networking protocols. If a networked feature of MS software does not employ a documented RFC, W3C recommendation, etc. it must be fixed.
And there should be a federal committee responsible for reviewing and enforcing this. It is not acceptable that standards can be implemented along with a proprietary MS protocol (eg: MS Exchange).
Ultimately, all commercial software should be made to follow these rules, only the open source community will be allowed to innovate networking protocols. Most of the significant protocols came from open source / public domain anyway, let's mandate that tradition and stop companies like Microsoft from meddling with a good thing.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
It is pretty clear that the states are only representing Sun ('Make MS use Java'), Novell ('Make Windows work with NDS'), Red Hat ('Make MS give us the Office source code'), et al, and don't give one whit about the public interest. The judge has picked up on this and kept telling the states to stop bringing up 'new' transgression and tell her how the states' changes serve the public interest. The states continued to ignore her at their own peril.
Can't wait for the final decision.
Never underestimate the twistiness of a lawyer- and judges are uber-lawyers.
I'd have done the same thing. It's way more effective than asking them, "Are you going to obey the outcome of this proceeding, or laugh at it and scorn it?" You don't ask them directly, 'are you going to obey the law'. You ask, 'how much of this is reasonable and just'. If they take it as an opportunity to grandstand, you know they're gonna ignore the ruling, because they don't believe in it, or in the law.
FWIW, I burst into incredulous, delighted laughter just seeing the news.com subhead about what Microsoft had done for a reply to the question. Forget foot-shooting: they've blown off their f**king leg here. Spectacularly bad judgement. And Judge Kollar-Kotelly is a smart lady :D
A report in the NYTimes earlier this week said that six former DOJ Antitrust officials chimed in on the proposed remedies. I've looked in several places, but haven't found a copy of the brief. Does anyone know where it can be found?
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Besides which, Logitech has the 'firstmouse' that does exactly the same thing (optical, on any surface), and is the same price. no reason to buy that M$ junk now.
During closing arguments, Microsoft lawyer John Warden refused to give any ground.
"We have been through this. We negotiated. We went as far as we can go," Mr Warden said. "That's the deal."
The judge, who had asked both sides to find middle ground, smiled slightly through Mr Warden's statements.
Interesting, the first indicator of personal attitude from KK that I've heard of (You can draw conclusions whichever way you want). I remember an earlier /. post saying that if you wanted to slam MS with a killer verdict, you'd shut up and keep the appearance of impartiality until the end. I'd like to think that's what she's doing :) Just as long as she keeps it subtle and don't do a Jackson.
I know if I were in her position and hearing that from Warden, I'd be blowing raspberries.
to hell with them
:)
A somewhat mediaeval punishment, but can we send them there now instead of waiting for nature to take its course?
deus does not exist but if he does
I say that if Microsoft didn't have a monopoly, then you would be able to get better driver support for other OSes. Microsoft establishes "standards" not for your benefit, nor for the benefit of hardware makers, but for their own benefit, and they break or "change" them when it suits their business goals. And they use access to these standards as reward or punishment.
As for 3rd party apps, you can expect an unchecked monopoly to stop you from using them in subtle ways. I'm not saying that everything they have done is bad for us, I'm saying that a person who says "there is nothing wrong here" is ignoring the facts. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson is smarter than you or I, and he studied this issue for a very long time and heard the best arguements money could buy, and he came to the conclusion that there is something very wrong here, and that it is bad for you and I, and that drastic measures are warranted.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
..that no computers can be sold with Windows preinstalled or bundled, so that consumers must buy Windows separately at a fixed, non-discountable full retail price (of Microsoft's choosing) and install it themselves. Everyone pays the same price, with no volume discounts.
OEMs may ship computers with any other OS, or with no OS at all. If people truly want Windows, they are welcome to purchase and install it separately, and Microsoft can include anything they want in it, so there's no restriction on "innovation". They would not have to stick to standards, dislose APIs, include Java, whatever. Consumers would just be forced to make the conscious choice to buy and use it.
For existing installations of Windows, Microsoft would be prohibited from selling upgrades to anyone other than consumers who bought retail - OEM installations would require a new retail purchase.
From the CNN article:
[Microsoft attorney John] Warden also took exception to Sullivan's portrayal of Microsoft as some kind of scofflaw. "We haven't failed to get some message. We haven't claimed that we're immune from the law or anything of that kind," he said.
I don't know what planet this fellow just landed from, but Microsoft's behavior speaks far louder than any of their press releases. Statements like this only make me more certain that Microsoft as a company revolves around the legal and marketing divisions, not product development-- since it seems that instead of trying to develop quality software, they push crap out the door (caring nothing for quality or whether patents stand in the way), and just let "the suits"- marketdroids and crack legal teams- sort it out, hypnotizing everyone into buying Windows/Office/WhatHaveYou and then suing into oblivion (or buying out) the meager competition. Furhtermore, it seems the backup plan is dumping product (ala Internet Explorer or Media Player) via the $30b float. In fact, given the above statement and the history of Microsoft Corp., I can now see the rationale behind the vicious statments against GPL'd software they keep publishing: they're jealous. Here are crack programmers worldwide, giving away a quality product, and doing it in a way that Microsoft can't ride on their coattails.
Of course, I must only wonder if any of that jealousy is directed toward the quality aspect or just solely at the widely touted "viral" aspect of GPL software. Wait a minute, what am I saying? Microsoft couldn't define "quality" with a dictionary. Their copy of Meriam/Webster also seems to be missing "scofflaw"....
Do you like Japanese imports?
I'm from Panamá, and many latin american countries have the same opinion on this issue:
Here, people is convinced that the DOJ is hurting USA's economy by fighting MS. They are convinced that MS is the "good guys" of the movie.
When I try to explain that MS is really an unethical monopoly, no-one understands.... whats worst, is that there is people that doesn't wants to understand the facts.... "No, No, Microsoft is the messiah".
It is sad to live in a third world country. Big companies like Microsoft can convince everyone of their lies.
I have seen all kind of people beleiving MS's lies, in person. High school students, college students, government people in the highest positions (like our president), PhDs (not in computer science, of course).
What could I do to make people open their eyes and see the truth???
I'm no fan of Microsoft (as many will testify) but before we all make a huge noise about how Billy Boy and his sidekicks ought to be hung, drawn and quartered -- should we not look a little more closely at the systems that allowed them to get this far?
It's a brave (or stupid) businessman who doesn't take advantage of an opportunity when it comes along -- and in the case of a listed company, management has a responsibility to stockholders to ensure that they get the maximum return on their investment.
If this means taking full advantage of the capitalist environment and using all of ones abilities to gain a dominant position within a competitive marketplace then so be it.
Gates & co have only done what thousands of other companies would love to have done. We hate M$ but we don't hate the others. The only difference is that Bill got lucky or was better at exploiting the opportunities that came along.
And ultimately -- you've got to apportion some of the blame to stupid consumers. If people are prepared to pay the prices that MS charges for the products they sell then if they find themselves in the merciless grip of a monopolistic tyrant then who do they really have to blame?
Nobody holds a gun to your head and says "You must buy Windows or we'll kill you" do they?
No -- over the past 20 years or so, people have chosen to buy Billy-Boy's products because they thought they were getting a good deal (even if perhaps they weren't).
Every other software vendor has had the same options and opportunities available to them -- but many have simply dropped the ball.
Anyone remember Digital Research? They once owned the OS marketplace with CP/M and had a good slice of the languages marketplace with CBASIC and Pascal/MT+ Both of these products were superior to Bill's pathetic Basic80 and MS Pascal equivalents.
Then Gary Kildall dropped the ball and MS took over the OS marketplace.
And what about Borland? After the demise of Digital Research, they owned the most popular structured programming language in the world -- Turbo Pascal. Now, even though Delphi retains a band of loyal followers, Microsoft has effectively eclipsed Borland as the main vendor of PC-based computer languages (Java not withstanding).
Then there was Ashton Tate and their dBase products. They owned the PC-based database marketplace -- and then they dropped the ball, allowing MS products such as Access and MS-SQL to take up the slack.
Or what about Visicalc? When the IBM PC launched, Visicalc was the number-one spreadsheet. Look who owns that market now -- who dropped the ball?
Word processing? It used to be Micropro's WordStar, then Word Perfect -- now it's... you guessed it, Microsoft Word.
Did Microsoft bully all these other products out of the marketplace or force consumers to buy its versions instead? No, they simply turned out a better product at an acceptable price that was promoted with superior marketing.
If we chose to all flock like lemmings to the abys that is Microsoft then we get what we deserve.
However, there's now some light at the end of the tunnel. OSS such as Linux and its growing number of applications gives us the chance to break free of this self-induced addiction to MS products.
But once again, nobody can force consumers to go the OSS way -- it's a choice they have to be make for themselves. Unfortunately, the consumer has already proven that they're none too bright when it comes to choosing the best long-term option eh?
So, maybe we shouldn't be too quick to blame others for our own stupidity and short-sightedness.
I'm certainly not saying that MS makes the only Optical mouse -- I know of at least two other vendors off the top of my head, and Logitech even makes a chordless version. My point is simply that Microsoft hardware has never been crap in my experience, and compared to many of their software products, the hardware is near perfect. It is well designed and well built.
The problem wasn't just giving the browser away, it was leveraging their OS monopoly to obtain a browser monopoly. Yes, legally, if you have a monopoly there are some things you can't do that everyone else can do.
It's never been 'a Technically Right Choice' in any sense of the word, that's just horseshit. It's been done for one reason and one reason only - to sabotage the consent decree.
They were? Huh? They still use the same tactics today.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Congressman Villanueva's response to MS' letter opposing the law up for a vote in Peru's Congress is telling.
_ to _ms.html
http://www.pimientolinux.com/peru2ms/villanueva
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
When AT&T lost an antitrust case, the whole phone system had to be rearchitected. That was a massive technical effort of enormous complexity. Supporting multiple long distance carriers was a huge job. But, by court order, it was done.
The sanctions proposed for Microsoft are mild by comparison. A comparable remedy for Microsoft would be to force Microsoft to separate into an applications business unit and an OS business unit, with a requirement for published APIs.
Since all the antitrust lawyers and the judge know the history of antitrust law, they know all this, and Microsoft is just grandstanding.
blah blah blah
You should read the findings of fact of jackson's opinion, and tell us why what judge jackson discovered microsoft to have done is ok.
...to get me MY daiy in court, 'cause I is goona use that Microsoft Deeefense:
"I ama truuly sorry yo'onor, but I cain't take me no time in no jail cell for robbin them there store. Iffin I did, then just how do you reckon that I rob me some more stores in the future?"
"I see your point, sir. Based on th eMicrosoft Precident, I find that, while guilty, you simply cannot be given any penalty as that would hamper your ability to commit further crimes. Case dismissed!"
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
The first sentence is true, and it does hint towards some substantial theoretical problems with antitrust law. Just for the record, I'm not in favour of our antitrust laws. But it's ridiculous to think that MS wasn't aware that they had a monopoly which they were leveraging to gain another one - their own emails made that fact incredibly clear. They knew what they were doing was illegal - they didn't know that they would actually be *charged* or *convicted* for it, true, but that's hardly an excuse.
It's a commonly used application. There are plenty others. None of them have any business being "integrated" into an OS for technical reasons - and even if that was not true, it's clear that the actual reasons for the integration were to force usage of IE for business reasons, not technical ones. Do you understand the difference between an OS and an application?
By your logic, should't all common applications be "integrated" with the OS? MSOffice could be a system component too. How many "consumer" computers are used without an internet connection? Maybe MSN should just be integrated into the OS too?
An OS isn't an application program. OSs which work well are designed by those who understand that fact. They provide a critical abstraction layer between applications and the hardware, enabling the users to run the applications they choose with the minimal of unecessary effort. That's ALL they do. "Integrating" applications is bad design, from a technical point of view. But very good design, of course, if you are a monopolist trying to leverage your monopoly to capture new markets...
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Hilarious.
I just noticed, that one part of the non-settling states' demand, boiled down into a small phrase...
if I were to change it just slightly, toThere's a subtle distinction going on that says a lot.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Is there some way of breaking Microsofts delay tactics? If you've read Kafka, you'll recognize the indefinite postponement technique.
Years pass, and Microsoft is left to self-regulate while the trial passes by. We all know how controlled and ethical the Redmond juggernaut is..
On the bright side, their products have admittedly improved quite a bit during the trial, if you look away from the security.
Stop the brainwash
NOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Now youve ruined the whole trial for me, I thought MS was going to pull one of its trademark change of hearts and say please, please break us up. Thanks a lot.
If GM made tires, the only choice for tires on GM vehicles would very quickly be GM tires.
M$ OfficeSuite being bundled in with the OS murdered the competition in their beds.
If Tony Soprano wanted you to sell his brand of cigars and ONLY his brand of cigars at your store, you would quickly have HIS brand and ONLY his brand of cigars at your store. Furthermore HE doesn't pay and he tell you how much you're going to sell his cigars for.
M$ did not sell to consumers, they twisted the arms of OEMs, blatantly and illegally (there's NO dispute about that. Its already been proved in a prior case,) to get their OS forced onto the machines.
Don't make excuses for M$.
They need to get LOCKED onto the X86 architecture under pain of imprisonment for Gates & Balmer.
And then we let history resume its proper course.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
As is documented at the end of today's article here.
thats their problem. If they don't want to reveal internal design (ie what the data structure look like) then they should have designed a save file protocol and stuck to that instead.
Get your Unix fortune now!
It's actually quite routine. After a Criminal trial, there is a sentancing hearing at which the prosecution can recommend a sentance (say, the maximum or perhaps something less) and the defense can offer reasons why a lesser sentance should be imposed. Usually regret or extenuating circumstances are shown that might convince a judge to issue a lighter sentance. But the judge still chooses the appropriate sentance and may impose a higher sentance than the prosecution asks for (but not greater than the maximum under the sentancing guidelines.)
In this case, like most antitrust cases, the penalty is a complicated one as it is supposed to restore competition in the affected markets and it is not a matter of a fine or jail time. MS and the DOJ agreed on a penalty, but that does not remove the role of the judge to impose a greater penalty. That the remaining states pushed for a specific proposal just makes her job easier in that regard.
Look for MS to get a severe spanking.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
What if there are people who have bothered to learn the details of the case and still disagree with you?
Are you going to call them names and stamp your feet?
Um. They were already found guilty. This is about the remedy. Or are you suggesting re-trying the case over again?
It is a good thing. But OS X doesn't try and prevent you from removing those tools and replacing them.
No, silly, of course not. I'm suggesting that users should be able to cleanly replace the implementations shipped in favour of their chosen implementations if they so choose.
You can remove notepad and wordpad and replace them with, for instance, NTEmacs. Make the proper registry entries and everything works fine. That's a totally different case from IE, where a great deal of time has obviously been spent pulling all kinds of bullshit to make it as difficult as possible to remove it and replace it with Mozilla. There is no technical reason it should be difficult, it's simply a matter of MS making technical decisions for political reasons. If you want to add things like global spellcheckers, btw, that's not something all that hard to write. You don't need to have a monstrosity like Office around to do it, and you certainly don't need to *integrate* Office like IE to do that.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
and their intellectual property placed firmly into the public domain
all source code for Windows should be destroyed
And the difference is?
One advantage of open source. The coders have some incentive to not embarass themselves.
*complete* specs for .xls, .doc, .ppt et al. .xls .doc .ppt et al
_Microsoft_ doesn't have complete specs for
I don't doubt you, but imagine the fun if Microsoft is liable for consequential damages like lost profits due to incomplete specs.
It has been obvious ever since the first consent decree that Microsoft cannot be trusted to follow any agreement that isn't self-enforcing. The only remedy that has a chance of working is a structural one.
Our only hope is that the judge has the courage to propose a breakup, and the legal skills to write an opinion that convinces the Supreme Court (because that's the next stop from here if a breakup is decreed).
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
I saw a story a while ago(can't fine the link now)
where a drug peddler was found guilty, and the judge asked him to chouse his own sentance (2 years i think), The judge thought it was about right, and there you have it.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
If you don't understand the value of being able to choose your apps then I've got to wonder why I'm bothering to talk to you at all.
On earlier versions you can remove it, with some difficulty, so MS has tied it into even more subsystems. I'm sure they'll eventually be able to figure out a way to make the whole OS break without it no matter what you do. That doesn't say anything about any need for it in a technical sense - it just means they've figured out how to make stuff break if you do something they don't want you to. As I say, I remove this junk immediately on boxes running earlier versions, all the way up to Win2k boxes, I am quite familiar with the technical details. And no, windows update doesn't 'break' - I have all critical updates installed just fine thanks. What 'breaks' is largely cosmetic features that appear to have been invented simply to provide a rationale to tell the court they couldn't remove IE. No other OS has such 'features' and there are several that are easily as capable as XP.
For several reasons. Removing IE entirely improves the OS in numerous ways. The system cycles faster, it runs faster in less memory, it takes less storage space and it has FAR fewer security holes without IE. This is not speculation, this is experience.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
...Charter.
Or at least give them the choice Open your code, or get your Corporate Charter pulled under the RICO(sp?) act.
IF the appeal, force them to follow there choice while they appeal.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on