Slashdot Mirror
Larry Rosen on the Microsoft Penalty Ruling
How do consumers benefit?
No, really! by Enry
Both Bill Gates and John Ashcroft talked about how the decision benefits consumers. But there's nothing really in the decision that changes the way MSFT does business. I can't call IBM and get a discount on a system without Windows installed, if I load XP onto a machine, MSFT can take it over and install software without my permission, and the APIs can be buried in MSDN, forcing OSS software developers to not only subscribe to MSDN, but also follow whatever licensing MSDN forces on users.
For the most part, this is MSFT business as usual.
Where, in this decision, do the consumers benefit? If you could put yourself in CKK's shoes, what would you say?
Larry:
I would have expected Bill Gates and John Ashcroft to say how happy they are with the decision. That fact alone doesn't help me interpret its effects.
I'm also pretty confident that there will soon be important Microsoft business practice changes to solve the problems you suggested, at least partly as a result of this decision but more importantly as a result of inevitable market forces.
The court decision discourages Microsoft from using its market power to coerce OEMs and distributors into exclusive marketing arrangements. That may encourage companies to offer computers without an operating system installed, or with Linux installed. Let's make sure that distributors friendly to open source offer these options, and let's help prove, by offering competitive open source software solutions to customers, that there's a healthy market for such systems. We know from this court decision that distributors need no longer fear retaliatory licensing practices from Microsoft. Now all we need to do is compete on quality and value.
Microsoft's XP software installation and upgrade model seems to be a dud in the marketplace too. The more Microsoft does nasty things like that to its customers, the more those customers turn to Linux and open source. So I don't see that as being a problem that the antitrust judge had to deal with.
As for your point about APIs, that to me is the most interesting part of the court's decision. The judge found it necessary to define an area in which Microsoft must disclose its APIs. While not as broad a definition as most of us would have liked, it does require Microsoft to disclose a lot more than it ever has before. We must be vigilant to prevent Microsoft's movement of APIs from one operating system level to another simply to hide them from us.
You ask, "Where, in this decision, do consumers benefit?" That's hard to see at the moment. Antitrust law does not deal with a static game in which one party says "check mate" at the last move. It merely attempts to prevent certain behaviors that distort the game as it is played. In answering this and other Slashdot questions, I want to look for ways that the court helped to prevent game distortions. I don't want to grouse about the fact that we didn't get everything we wanted, but instead to identify new opportunities in this court decision for the open source community to play this game against Microsoft successfully as an equal.
On Palladium
by forged
With Microsoft pretty much doing what they want [bbc.co.uk] these days, do you have fear that their Palladium project could be a real threat to Linux and other free-software projects, if MS try to force it upon their installed base? What will be the best way to fight Palladium?
Larry:
Great question, but fortunately it wasn't in my charter to answer it.
I can tell you that the court's decision in the remedy phase of the Microsoft antitrust trial said absolutely nothing about Palladium. I doubt it was anywhere in the judge's mind at the time. And I don't see a clear connection between the two issues.
Your real question, I guess, is hidden in your leading comment, that Microsoft is "pretty much doing what they want these days." After this antitrust decision, they're going to be watched intensely for evidence of anticompetitive behavior. I don't think they're going to be doing only what they want, at least for a few years.
There are plenty of interesting comments on Palladium. I just did a quick Google search and found this page at EPIC. Why don't you ask one of the people at EPIC whether they see the antitrust decision as making a difference to the "trusted computing" technology?
Copyright != Antitrust
by HaeMaker
I have heard in various other cases that if a copyright holder uses his copyright to commit antitrust, they lose the ability to defend their copyright.
Clearly, Microsoft has been found guilty of using its copyright on Windows 95 to kill Netscape.
Is is possible for a pirate to successfully defend himself by claiming Microsoft has lost its copyright? (I assume this applies to only that software specifically mentioned in the case. Not all software produced by Microsoft)
Larry:
Copyright law and antitrust law both deal with monopolies. In copyright law, the monopoly is sanctioned -- encouraged -- as a reward for creativity. In antitrust law, the monopoly is restrained to prevent unfair advantage in anticompetitive ways. So as the questioner rightly points out, there may be ways in which these two laws will have contradictory effect.
It is important to remember that the antitrust law doesn't directly prevent a company from gaining a monopoly by legal means. It is the *use* of that monopoly power to gain unfair advantage over competitors that is prevented. A company can't, for example, use its monopoly in one business area to gain a monopoly in another business area. It can't use a monopoly in water softening systems to force its customers to buy the company's own salt. It can't use its monopoly to prevent competitors from selling their products through independent distributors. It can't sell products at a loss to force competitors out of business.
A copyright owner has a legal monopoly. Antitrust law doesn't trump it. The only thing the antitrust law can do is address a situation in which that legal monopoly is used in an anticompetitive manner by a monopolist.
Ordinarily a company would have the right to publish, or not to publish, its copyrightable subject matter, or to license it under any terms it wanted including confidentiality provisions or withholding the right to create derivative works. Almost every proprietary software vendor uses licenses with such provisions. But Microsoft used that power to lock competitors out from the lucrative "middleware" business. (What the court meant by "middleware" is a potential later topic.) Other companies could not create certain types of applications because Microsoft kept secret some of its copyrightable code in Windows. Even though Windows and those other applications were potentially different business areas, Microsoft tied them together (e.g., used its copyrightable and trade secret materials) in ways that enhanced its monopoly. That was a violation of the antitrust law.
So the court fashioned several remedies to prevent that unfair business tactic by Microsoft.
The court requires Microsoft "to disclose certain APIs, along with related technical information, which 'Microsoft Middleware' utilizes to interoperate with the Windows platform." It also mandates the "disclosure and licensing of protocols used by clients running on Microsoft's Windows operating system to interoperate with Microsoft servers." Executive Summary, pp. 14-15.At the same time, the court refused to require the disclosures of Microsoft's intellectual property that describes Windows' internal interfaces:
"Over-broad disclosure, such as that proposed by Plaintiffs, must also be avoided because it will likely enable wholesale copying or cloning of Windows without violating Microsoft's intellectual property rights. The cloning of Microsoft's technology carries the potential to hinder some aspects of competition and discourage innovation. As antitrust law does not exist for the protection of competitors, but for the protection of competition, the Court does not regard this end as a legitimate one."So that's why the court balanced copyright with antitrust.
The court also ordered Microsoft to license its intellectual property for APIs on "reasonable" and "non-discriminatory" terms. Having just lived through a W3C effort to define those words for patent licenses, I expect this part of the court's decree will provide full-time employment to more than a few lawyers. :-)
Valid Business Model
by Mr. Smoove
In the settlement it talks about MS having to disclose information only to companies with a sound business model that meats critera set out by MS. Where does OSS fall? Can MS say OSS is not up to its standards and therefore not release the code?
Additionally what effect will MS's right to charge have on OSS? Can MS only charge for developers to see the code or are they entitled to charge royalties for the implementation of the code? (Can you legally reverse engineer a software having seen the code?)
Larry:
My editor assured me that I would have to answer ten questions, and this one query alone includes five. I'm almost more than half-way done!
The court never once mentioned open source software in its decision. That is not remarkable because judges -- especially district court judges -- are always reluctant to make an issue broader than the case before it. The court was asked to determine a remedy for Microsoft's monopolistic practices. This decision, with all its flaws, does that in a comprehensive way. This means that the court's provisions regarding the disclosure of APIs, the availability of "reasonable and non-discriminatory" licenses from Microsoft, that company's licensing practices with OEMs, and so on, apply equally to competition from open source software as for proprietary software.
To be perfectly clear about this point: Open source software is the most effective competition to Microsoft and they know it. They will not be able to discriminate against our software in monopolistic ways. The court retains the right to step in for the next five (or up to seven!) years if Microsoft doesn't cooperate. We'll be watching.
No, Microsoft can't discriminate against us if they say we're "not up to their standards." That's hogwash any way you look at it! The court did, however, set a one-million-copy-per-year threshold for certain obligations, so that Microsoft isn't forced to "redesign its product to accommodate a particular piece of software with extremely limited use." I'm not sure how this will play out in practice, but I think it is likely to affect smaller proprietary vendors rather than us. After all, we can give away one million copies of open source software to willing customers much easier than a proprietary vendor can sell them.
As I said, Microsoft can charge "reasonable" and "non-discriminatory" royalties. In law school we always used to joke that the word "reasonable" in a statute was a full-employment opportunity for at least two lawyers. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly will be keeping her eyes on that too for at least the next five years. Here's the vague words she used in her decree:
"The Court will prohibit Microsoft from imposing unreasonable or discriminatory license terms, but will permit Microsoft to require a reasonable royalty for the licenses necessary to exercise the rights guaranteed by the final judgment." (Executive Summary pp. 15-16.)One representative from Microsoft personally reassured me several times over the past few year that her company does not intend to charge high royalties for licenses to patents. Perhaps that also means that her company won't attempt to stifle competition by charging higher royalties than the open source community can afford.
Finally, I'm confused by your question "Can you legally reverse engineer a software having seen the code?" If you've seen the code, why do you need to reverse engineer it? I'll assume you mean, having seen the API documentation, can you reverse engineer Microsoft's code to see how they implemented the API? No! Reverse engineering may be done only if Microsoft allows it in their licenses. Consult a lawyer before you reverse engineer something.
You may have meant one other thing: Under Microsoft's Shared Source licenses you may look at their code. But beware of the conditions under which they show it to you. That software can contaminate you and put your own open source software at risk if you -- even inadvertently -- copy their code. This has nothing to do with the antitrust topic so I'll say no more about that here.
Can Microsoft Pull a "Fast One"?
by viperjsw
What is being put into place to insure that Microsoft actually hands over real code? I mean really. We've got legal consul that doesn't know jack about code trying to, possibly, enforce somehting that they know nothing to little about. Microsoft could hand over out of date code, partial code, bugged code, and any number of other variables on the "truth" and legal guys would be none the wiser.
Larry:
I resent this. Most of the lawyers I meet in open source circles know a lot more than "jack" about code. Some of us even wrote lots of code in prior careers. We're just frustrated engineers who wanted to make our parents proud by going to law school.
We have to count on talented experts in the software field to be able to prove that Microsoft is doing any of the things you described. Keep your eyes open for any signs of cheating.
I've handled lots of civil litigation in which a defendant's misrepresentations come out, and then the defendant lost. The discovery rules give us lots of ways to prove bad faith.
The court appointed an "enforcement committee" to protect the plaintiffs' interests. Here's what that committee has the power to do:
"The remedy adopted by the Court will provide Plaintiffs, acting only after consultation with their enforcement committee, reasonable access to Microsoft's source code, books, ledgers, accounts, correspondence, memoranda, and other correspondence, access to Microsoft employees for interview, and the right to request and receive written reports from Microsoft on any matter contained in the Court's remedial decree. Plaintiffs will, of course, be bound to limit any use of information obtained through these means for the purpose of ensuring Microsoft's compliance with the remedial decree, or as otherwise required by law. Similarly, should information and documents provided to Plaintiffs be subject to disclosure to a third party, Microsoft will not be deprived of the opportunity to claim protection pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c)(7)." (Executive Summary, p. 17.)That's pretty strong. Imagine what life would have been like if we'd had that power all along....
APIs
by mrkurt
Just how much of their remaining undisclosed APIs does Microsoft have to make public? I found the judge's references to this issue quite confusing; in one place she said that MS would have to reveal all of its "communications" protocols; in another she ruled that MS wouldn't have to reveal anything that pertained to such topics as "encryption" or "digital rights management". Isn't it possible for MS to claim that existing or future new APIs for Windows would fall into the latter category, and thus allow them to keep much of it in the dark? My followup question is: what mechanism did the judge set up for determining whether an API should be public or not?
Larry:
Judge Kollar-Kotelly's ruling in the Microsoft antitrust trial was not good news but neither was it a doomsday ruling. Microsoft had already been found liable for monopolistic practices, and the court was just deciding the remedy phase for those plaintiffs who hadn't settled along with the Justice Department quite a while ago.
It is interesting to me to see how such cases are won and lost. Microsoft controlled the definitions that the court accepted and by doing so it won this battle over its future. The court said clearly that the definitions were of paramount importance:
"Integral to understanding the two remedies proposed in this case is a preliminary understanding of the manner in which the two remedies treat middleware." (Executive Summary, p. 5)The court found that Microsoft's definition of middleware was more consonant with the treatment of the term during the liability phase of the trial.
Middleware is software that resides in the middle between the operating system and something else. "It relies on the interfaces provided by the underlying operating system while simultaneously exposing its own APIs to developers." If defined broadly, such middleware would include almost any software product. If defined narrowly, it would encompass software that provides the functionality of Internet browsers, email client software, networked audio/video client software, and instant messaging software.
The court decided to accept Microsoft's narrow definition of middleware.
Microsoft now has the obligation to expose operating system APIs that are necessary to implement middleware as that term is defined by the court. To avoid confusion, the court specifically required disclosure of APIs for network and server-based applications. The court specifically excluded from disclosure APIs for interactive television software, handheld devices, and Web services.
It seems that, if you can get a court to accept your definitions of terms, you can watch your opponent's proposed remedies disappear in the wind.
The open source community should make sure that Microsoft publishes all the APIs it is required to by this decision. We want to provide valuable open source software that can compete, on Microsoft's own platform and on Linux computers, against all of Microsoft's middleware products.
So experts in open source software should read the court's definitions of middleware carefully, and understand each of the exceptions to the disclosure requirements precisely. I could spend a lifetime analyzing hypotheticals about "communications" protocols, or about "encryption" or "digital rights management." Or I could wait until an important real issue arises. Guess which alternative Judge Kollar-Kotelly chose?
Microsoft is going to have to tread very carefully in this area. If they refuse to disclose certain APIs that their customers, distributors, OEMs and competitors want to have disclosed, they will have to have an intelligent reason. The judge will be listening, and so will we.
Sua Sponte?
by fava
What about the sua sponte provision.
"Jurisdiction is retained by this Court over this action such that the Court may act sua sponte to issue further orders or directions, including but not limited to orders or directions relating to the construction or carrying out of this Final Judgment, the enforcement of compliance therewith, the modification thereof, and the punishment of any violation thereof. Jurisdiction is retained by this Court over this action and the parties thereto for the purpose of enabling the parties to this action to apply to this Court at any time for further orders and directions as may be necessary or appropriate to carry out or construe this Final Judgment, to modify or terminate any of its provisions, to enforce compliance, and to punish violations of its provisions."It sounds a very open ended authority that grants the judge broad powers over all aspects of the settlement.
Can the judge use this provision to broaden the scope of the agreement or to force Microsoft to use a particular intrepretation of some clause, for example the security exemption or the viability clause?
Or am I just a geek grasping for straws?
Larry:
What's wrong with being a geek grasping for straws?
That's exactly the straw this geek grasped at when I first read the court's decision.
Was the judge's ruling based on the case....
by wowbagger
Many folks are whipping themselves into a frenzy blaming the judge for this decision - but a judge can only (and SHOULD only) judge the case they're brought.
Do you feel the judge was judging within the context of the case she was brought (in other words, that the DOJ fell down on the job of bringing the appeal), or do you feel that the judge's decision was in error based on the case that was brought to her?
Larry:
I am sure that Judge Kollar-Kotelly did not ask for the privilege of handling this case. Yet her decision -- agree or disagree -- demonstrated careful reasoning, an appreciation of computer software beyond that of the typical lawyer or judge, and a good understanding of the limitations of her role.
Here's how she got the case:
"On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit deferred to Judge Jackson's factual findings, altered his findings of liability-affirming in part and reversing in part, and vacated the remedy decree. The appellate court affirmed only limited violations based on 2 of the Sherman Act for illegal monopoly maintenance; all other grounds were reversed. Soon thereafter, the case was randomly reassigned to this Court for the imposition of a remedy." (Executive Summary, p. 3.)Here's how errors are corrected in such situations. The plaintiffs may appeal this decision. Assuming that the appeals court upholds the district court's decision, the plaintiffs can then appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. That Court may elect not to hear the appeal. Or it can turn this into an important case to be argued by the best lawyers we can find.
At none of those appeals steps will any court care what Larry Rosen feels.
From a Different Point of View
by Bilbo
Most Slashdot readers are, of course, looking at this decision from a strong technical point of view. It is clear that this decision is going to hurt our favorite technology, and is a bad thing for the Technology sector. We tend to draw parallels from other technology cases, such as the breakup of AT&T, and the outcome of that case.
My question however, is, if you look at this decision from a Business perspective, how does it fall? Is this decision in line with existing case law when it comes to dealing with individuals and corporations who have come to exercise huge amounts of power over their various sectors of the economy? Was this decision made with the intent of strengthening the overall business climate of the US, especially given the current state of the world economy? Will it make perfect sense to the average CEO?
Larry:
You're looking at this decision from the right perspective. Antitrust law deals with business practices, not technology. But this case was brought because of a technology monopoly, so the court fashioned a remedy that it felt addressed the business of technology in which Microsoft's monopolistic practices were most obvious.
The previous court found that Microsoft abused its monopoly power to gain new (related) monopolies and to strengthen its market dominance. When that happens, the court must fashion a remedy. Here's how Judge Kollar-Kotelly, at pages 3-4 of her Executive Summary, described the law of antitrust remedies:
1. Since the appeals court already reduced the scope of Microsoft's liability, that higher court ordered the district court to "determine the propriety of a specific remedy for the *limited* ground of liability we have upheld."
2. Microsoft had not been found to have acquired its monopoly unfairly, but merely to have maintained it by illegal means. Therefore, "rather than termination of the monopoly, the proper objective of the remedy in this case is termination of the exclusionary acts and practices related thereto which served to illegally maintain the monopoly."
3. The goal of antitrust remedies is not to punish a past transgression, nor merely to end specific illegal practices. A remedy should "effectively pry open to competition a market that has been closed by [a] defendant['s] illegal restraints." Equitable relief in an antitrust case, the court wrote,
"should not 'embody harsh measures when less severe ones will do,' nor should it adopt overly regulatory requirements which involve the judiciary in the intricacies of business management. In crafting a remedy specific to the violations, the Court 'is not limited to prohibition of the proven means by which the evil was accomplished, but may range broadly through practices connected with acts actually found to be illegal."4. Finally, the plaintiffs did not request a structural remedy of dissolution ("a break-up of Microsoft") and instead proposed a remedy which focuses on regulating Microsoft's behavior.
Within those constraints, the district court could range rather widely in crafting specific remedies in this case. That remedy must be tailored to fit the situation before it.
The plaintiffs in this case obviously felt that the court did not go far enough in fashioning a remedy. They may appeal. But we've got a remedy that we're all -- including Microsoft -- going to have to live with at least for now.
You ask whether this decision was made "with the intent of strengthening the overall business climate of the US, especially given the current state of the world economy?" I gather from Judge Kollar-Kotelly's written decision that this wasn't one of the considerations for her. Will it accomplish that goal anyway? Perhaps it will be a modest step forward if we're diligent in our efforts to ensure compliance by Microsoft in every way that is important to us.
Finally, you ask whether the decision will "make perfect sense to the average CEO?" There are no average CEOs. Just like in Garson Keillor's hometown of Lake Wobegon, everyone in such positions is above average. But I can bet you that CEOs of software companies are reading this decision with great interest.
The real question for me: microsoft laptop tax
by sanermind
Does the wording on non-discriminatory licensing to OEMS mean that I will finally be able to purchase most laptops without having to pay a microsoft tax for software I delete as soon as I get it?
Larry:
I sure hope so. The court's decision doesn't require distributors or OEMs to offer that option, but it does prevent Microsoft from entering into exclusive contracts that force distributors or OEM's to impose a "laptop tax."
Water, Water, Water!
pist frost!
...is completely useless
its obious theres no "On topic" posts because THE ARTICLE IS SO FUCKING LONG
Please refrain from posting gay porn. It's like you're flooding the forum with crap.
Seriously, stick to straight porn or lesbian gang-bang action.
I alternate between posting +5 and -1 Comments. Karma: +53 -47 = 6
I'm not too sure what to eat for lunch, maybe I should go to McDonalds and get a quarter pounder meal like I do every day.
Or...
prepare youself to be moderated into oblivion.
For this is slashdot, and there is no room here for intelligent comments, no matter how factual.
In the future however, I would like to caution you against using too much profanity in your communication. The only possible response on the part of your audience is to tune you out completely.
Take care,
Teh Grammar Patroll
The sun beat down fiercely on the hard surfaces of the apartment
courtyard. My body was bathed in sweat. I kept my eyes closed
against the sunlight, telling myself for the thousandth time I would
not open them to look across the 30 feet of garish blue swimming pool
to where TJ Cox lay sprawled on a chaise lounge. The only others
about were Mrs. Finch, the frumpy manager, and two of her cronies in
deck chairs down at the shady end, aborbed in their beer and their
gossip.
I had seen him cross the concrete deck 20 minutes ago. He wore
mirrored sunglasses. A tiny black bikini clung to his slim hips. A
strip of material hid only the crack between his magnificent buttocks
and provided a small pouch to hold his ample genitals. One of the
threadbare towels provided by the management was slung around TJ's
slender but sinewy neck.
I had quickly shut my eyes as TJ had passed, although I was sure he
had not deigned to look in my direction. In fact he had given no
sign that he was aware of my presence during the three months I had
lived in the building. I told myself I had chosen the place because
it was cheap and convenient to the university campus, where I was a
graduate student in the music department, but I knew that spotting TJ
Cox emerging from the entrance, with its `vacancy' sign, and climbing
into his battered red Mustang had been the deciding factor.
I had seen TJ, a freshman, around the campus a number of times over
the preceeding year. Each time was like a revelation. He was
beautiful in that sun-goldened way that only seems to grace blond
young men from California. His height was average, or perhaps a
little less, but his body was extraordinary--slim but muscular and,
as I had been able to observe when I could catch him poolside, smooth
and honey-colored.
His place was three doors from mine along the rather rickety balcony
that gave access to the second floor apartments. A number of times,
passing his window after dark, I had attempted to peek through the
crack between curtain and frame, hoping for a more complete view of
the fabulous TJ. Once, only once, I had caught him naked, bent over
as he retreived a book from the floor. I managed a full inspection
of his long, lithe legs and, best of all, of his perfect little buns.
In the onrush of my excitement, I had fallen against the window,
making a racket. I fled around the corner of the building and looked
back to see the drape being roughly yanked back into position,
extinguishing the strip of light from TJ's room.
For days I had avoided crossing in front of his apartment, taking the
longer way down another staircase. I was terrified that he knew it
was me out there, peeping at him like some pervert. And I tried to
make my expression more neutral, to hide the mute longing that would
otherwise betray me, when we passed in the courtyard or on campus. I
veered wildly back and forth between a conviction that the blond
youth knew I was smitten, and had dismissed me as a contemptible
faggot, and and the certainty that he was completely ignorant of my
existence. I couldn't decide which would be worse.
There must have been five years difference in our ages and, of
course, we shared no classes. I had never seen him at any of the
functions--meetings, parties--organized by the university's gay
community. But neither had I ever seen him with a girl. Did he have
a sex life, I wondered? Who were his friends? Would we ever speak?
How big was his cock? (I spent the most time pondering this last
question, I'll admit.)
I could hold out no longer. I opened my eyes to slits to hide my
perusal of him and stared across the pool at TJ. He lay on his back,
hands clasped behind his head. The position emphasized the sizeable
muscles in his upper arms and the sharply defined planes of his
pectorals and hard belly. His legs were splayed. The bulge of his
basket seemed enormous. He turned his head and looked directly
toward me. Did he gesture with his chin, inviting me to approach? It
didn't seem likely. I continued to lie still, but began to breath
harder.
There was no mistaking his intention as he freed his hand from behind
his neck and signaled me with his finger. I was being summoned. As
I stood to make my way toward him, I was aware of the sudden
hardening at my loin, of the obscene bulge in the front of my trunks.
I quickly hung my towel around my neck, carefully draping it to hide
the evidence of my arousal, and hurried toward him.
I stood before him as he looked me up and down. His light colored,
grey eyes were piercing in their intensity. When he spoke his voice
was deep and musical. A faint smile played on his thin, well-shaped
lips. "You got the time?" he asked.
For a moment, the question perplexed me. I stood there mute and
confused. "What time is it, man?" he asked again, with some
exasperation.
"Oh, the time," I answered, almost stammering. "I'm not wearing my
watch, it's there with my stuff." I gestured back toward my own
lounge.
TJ continued to stare up at me, waiting for me to do the obvious.
I returned to my place and scrabbled anxiously through books, jars of
lotion, a tee shirt, seaching for the watch. Finding it, I returned
to where he lay and managed to blurt, "It's almost four. Twenty
til."
Once more I was caught in the grey intensity of his gaze. "Be up at
my apartment at four o'clock," he said, finally. "I'll let you lick
my asshole." His hand moved to his taut belly where he scratched
lazily before reclasping it behind his head. He closed his eyes.
Although dismissed, I continued to stand there shakily. I couldn't
credit what I had just heard, what he had just said. It was so
unbelievably crude, so incredibly arrogant.
I looked over at Mrs. Finch and her harpies. They had heard nothing.
Back on my own lounge, I began to fume. Who the fuck did TJ Cox
think he was, I asked myself? Even looking as he did, there were
limits. Fuck him. Let him lick his own asshole. Jesus. What a
thing to say. He could have said, "We can get it on," or even, "You
can go down on me." Well, if he thought I was going to show up at
four for that kind of scene, he was crazy as well as arrogant.
I heard the creak of springs from TJ's lounge and, without willing
it, looked over toward him. He had flipped over onto his front. The
spherical contours of his trim little butt were on display in the
afternoon sunlight. I could see the little creases where buttock met
thigh, the dimples at the top of the smooth globes. His legs were
spread again so that only the scanty strip of black material
prevented me from seeing right into his crack. I wondered if he was
as hairless there as were his chest and buns. I wondered whether his
anus was pink and puckered. I wondered how big the hole was. My
erection returned with such intensity that I had to flip over myself
to hide it.
Ten minutes later I opened one eye to watch TJ pass on his way to his
room. He did not look down at me.
At five minutes to four, I rose and jumped into the pool and swam
three lengths. By one minute to four I was climbing the stairs. By
four o'clock I was pressing his door bell.
As I stood on the balcony outside TJ's apartment, I heard a shower
splashing and then ceasing. A few moments later, he pulled the door
open and looked out at me. I slipped inside. He now wore only a
clean towel around his waist. His tousled blond hair was still wet
from his shower. He was breathtaking. I hated him. I loved him.
He sauntered into the kitchen and I heard the door of a refrigerator
open and then shut. He returned carrying two cans of beer and handed
one to me. He flopped onto the couch. I remained standing. His
towel had ridden up so that I could see the head of his dick, rosy,
bulbous, and the beginning of what I judged must be a long cylinder
of shaft. I longed to touch it, taste it, make love to it. I could
also make out a portion of his scrotum in the shadowy area between
his legs. He noted where my gaze was riveted.
"So. You made it," he said. For the first time, he smiled.
"I had decided I wouldn't come," I said. "But here I am. Your
graceful invitation, I guess. You've really got a way with words,
you know?"
He patted the couch and I sat down.
"I don't believe it bullshitting around, man."
"My name is Cory," I said. "You're TJ, right?"
"Yeah. Look. Cory. Let's be honest. I get hit on a lot. People
seem to like the way I look. So I want to be straight about what's
going down." He smiled again. "Who's going down," he ammended.
"Strictly top, huh? Strictly trade. Is that it?"
"I don't know the terms you people use, but I know what I dig, man.
Cory. I like getting my dick sucked. I love getting rimmed. I might
even fuck you. But I got no interest in your dick, man. Shit, I
don't even eat pussy."
"Well," I answered, "it's a long time since I've made it with anyone
where there's no reciprocity. But your hard to resist, TJ. I guess
we'll both have to dedicate ourselves to taking care of your cock." I
reached forward toward him. My hand slipped beneath the towel. I
grasped the warm, pliant flesh of his penis and began to squeeze it
gently. Immediately, it began to lengthen and grow hard. It was as
big as I had hoped it would be.
He untied the towel, pulled it from under his rump and tossed it on
the floor. As I moved closer to him and began to lower my head
toward his crotch, he stopped me.
"Like, I said. I want you to eat out my ass, first. Lie down. I'll
sit on your face."
I did as TJ instructed. He squatted over me, facing toward my feet.
As he lowered his ass toward my mouth, he pulled his cheeks apart,
exposing what lay in the tight crack between them. There was no
hair. His asshole was pink and puckered, like a rosebud. I smelled
only his sunwarmed flesh and the soap from his recent shower.
The clenched hole was small until I began working on it with my lips
and tongue. TJ's sphincter dilated and my tongue slipped inside him.
I forced it upward and began exploring the satiny, slimy walls of his
rectal tube. I alternated vigorous probes with my tongue with
attempts to suck as hard as I could on his hole. A few moments of
these ministrations and I began to taste his shit. The flavor was
nutty, delicious. I grew delerious with the flavor of him.
With one hand I reached around stroked the hard nine inches of his
erect cock. With the other I fondled his big balls, hanging down
over my chin.
He squirmed, mashing his hard buns all over my face, delighted with
what I was doing to him. But he kept his asshole positioned directly
over my mouth so that I could continue to suck on it and lick up
inside his rectum. "Oh, that's bithchin', man," he grunted. "I love
the way you eat my ass. Get your tongue in really deep. Clean it
for me, Cory."
I did as he told me, loving it as much as he did.
He lifted his foot and placed his heel on my belly, just above my
cock. He began to poke my cock with his foot, batting it back and
forth.
"Your dick is like a rock, man. You really dig eating my shit hole,
don't you?"
I could only answer by thrusting my tongue even further up his chute.
My tongue encountered the soft, crumbly texture of a turd lodged in
his gut. Still, I didn't stop. I had never done anything so dirty,
so abasing before. I wanted never to stop.
TJ, too, grew more and more excited. I was startled to feel the turd
begin to descend. Now I was frightened, but I was trapped beneath
him. He could do as he wanted. I couldn't believe he would actually
try to shit in my mouth. People didn`t do that to each other, did
they? Why would TJ want to subject me to that? Why would I let him do
it?
"Now your'e going to eat my shit, man," TJ told me. "I'm going to
dump a turd right in your mouth. You ready?"
His sphincter opened even more widely and he grunted slightly as he
strained to force the stool into my mouth. It slid past my lips and
over my tongue. It felt long and slippery now as it moved toward the
back of my mouth.
"Suck it," he commanded. "Suck the turd out of my asshole, Cory. Oh
yeah. Oh, yeah. Your'e doing fine, piggy."
Before we were finished, TJ ejected three large turds into my mouth.
I chewed and swallowed them, wallowing in the filth he forced into
me.
When he had no more shit to expel, I licked him clean, making sure no
trace of feces remained to stain the perfection of his rectum, his
anus, the warm cleft of his buttocks. Only when I had finished
cleaning him with my lips and tongue did he let me up.
As I rushed into the bathroom to vomit up the mess he had filled me
with, I heard him say, "Now clean yourself up, man. When you get
back, you can suck my dick until I come. If you do a good job, I'll
let you drink my piss, afterwards. You think you'll like that?"
I couldn't wait to get back to TJ.
I sunk to me my knees in the steamy shower stall. TJ stood before
me, legs slightly parted, fingering the limber length of his now
flaccid cock. He aimed it at the middle of my chest. I waited.
Now I could see the urethra dilate. The lips of his piss hole
actually curled back. The orifice gaped open and I could see the
shiny pink of the membrane that lined it. Suddenly a pencil-thick
stream of bright yellow urine gushed out, hitting me squarely between
my nipples. The smell was sharp, acrid.
TJ played the stream of piss all over me, taking care to wet me
everywhere. My own cock was rock-hard as he pissed on my crotch.
The stream moved back up my body and did not stop as it reached my
throat. It continued up past my chin and sprayed all over my face
and head, drenching my hair. Now TJ stepped closer to me so he could
improve his aim. As I opened my eyes, I could see that he had
stopped pissing for a moment but that his cock was pointed directly
at my mouth.
"Open up, you slut," he said. "I want to piss in your Goddamn
mouth."
I did what he told me. He began to piss again. The frothy golden
urine splashed into my mouth and, because I couldn`t hold it all,
dribbled down my chin.
TJ yanked on my urine-drenched hair, pulling my face closer to his
pungent, dripping genitals.
"Your'e wasting my piss, fucker," he told me. "Pigs are supposed to
swallow all the piss their masters give them. Close your lips around
my dick. But don't suck on it. If you get me hard, I won't be able
to piss."
He must have been carrying a huge bladderful because what he now
commenced to piss down my throat completely filled my belly. When he
was through, I could feel his still warm urine sloshing inside me.
What an incredible half hour I had been through.
ESR posts unattributed documents on his own site. This guy offers his "expert" opinion on a case to which he was not a party. And the ABM camp posts it like these are authoritative sources.
You need to stop these straw man arguments, and inventing your own news and then publishing it. Just because the mainstream computer press is too dumb to realize you're making up the agenda and then reporting on it, doesn't mean the rest of us don't see through it.
Now, before y'all get out that flamebait thing, tell me how I'm wrong.