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."
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.
... msdn.microsoft.com has all of it. As a former MSDN subscriber, you get software and EXTRA downloads (ability to try new releases, etc), but the documentation is always freely available. FUD Alert!
MSDN's documentation and source examples are free
DrPascal: Not the language, the mathematician.
isn't his evil twin sister
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.
This is definitely a risk to open source programming. If you've seem Microsoft code, you might not be able to work on a similar open source project. All work you've done can be questioned.
But this also applies to companies. A company that has access to Microsoft's code could come under scrutiny in the future. MS could just say they copied the code and start investigating or litigating. Some say that the GPL is a "viral" license, but the MS shared source is just a viral, and even more sneaky because the legal implications aren't written down in black and white. At least with the GPL you know up front what the legal consequences of linking a GPL object into non-GPL code will be.
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
But how likely is it that the Judge will actually exercise this power in anything but the most limited fashion, and if she does that it will not be immediately appealed (possibly by the Justice Department and Microsoft together) and overturned?
Whew
..."
..."
"... from Larry Rosen, an attorney who works heavily on open source licensing matters
I thought I read "Hillary Rosen, an attorney who works heavily against open source licensing matters
That should have been a slashdot poll option:
- I have Nightmares about Hilary Rosen chasing me and trying to delete my MP3s.
Mr. Rosen is coming off as an apologist for the broken legal system. Just my impression maybe, but he seems to be sidestepping questions and trying his darndest not to say anything that offends the legal establishment.
:)
My impression is that this whole trial was a joke, and served only to line the pockets of many, many J.D.'s. Maybe I'm wrong and this decision really will stop Microsoft's efforts to squash any innovations that it doesn't own...
I'm wrong all of the time
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Is it just me or are a lot of his responses half-answers and/or downright evasive...?
This would be much appreciated, and is good editing practice in general. After all, Google thinks this is a real news site. The first appearence of MSDN, OSS, OEM, CKK, API, (ok, MSFT and IBM are probably fine, but it's a maze for non-programmers--set some standards) and on and on and on. I figured out some of them, but I want to get a headache from the gay-porn offtopic posts, not trying to work out what the friggin question is.
blarg.
Larry Rosen wrote:
This is a quasi-reference to the radio show A Prarie Home Companion (with Garrison Keillor), a regular segment of which is indeed titled "News from Lake Wobegon" (Keillor's hometown).
Boy do I feel like an NPR geek for knowning this. Listen it online, or catch it on your local NPR station if you can (in my view, the FM broadcasts sound better, and have much lower bandwidth costs :).
So Microsoft, having been found guilty of having a desktop operating system monopoly, is further digging a hole for itself by selling the XBox at a loss? Or is this too unrelated a business to fall under anti-trust supervision?
MORTAR COMBAT!
But now, with this ruling, FOR THE FIRST TIME, OEMs have the freedom to distribute whatever they want without fearing any kind of retaliation from Microsoft. The point of the trial, as Kollar-Kotelly wrote, was to restore the opportunity for competition in the market. Now we just need to compete. So let's do it. We need to make it compelling to OEMs to distribute Linux, and we need to make sure that there are enough applications available that do enough of the kinds of things users need that home users and business users both find it reasonable to use Linux instead of Windows.
If I rember correctly the "enforcement committee" will be created by, and controlled by,
the Microsoft board of directors. Given that this board has a slightly vested interest in seeing that the actions of Microsoft remain unchecked what are the odds that this committee will be nothing but a toothless lapdog?
Making the "enforcement committee" a part of the company it is supposed to monitor is ludicrous and one of the biggest jokes in the entire settlement.
Don Dugger
"Censeo Toto nos in Kansa esse decisse." - D. Gale
I load up the article, and what do I see?
Screenshot ...
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
I would guess that Microsoft is OK on the XBox for now. Selling consoles at a loss and making money on titles is an established practice in the console arena. I don't see them getting in trouble for that. If they dumped games for less than it cost to make them then I think they would be in trouble. I don't see any evidence they're doing that though.
The other way they could get in trouble is by somehow leveraging the Windows desktop monopoly to bootstrap the XBox. It is not at all clear this is the case. Yes, they are using technology from the NT codebase like the kernel and DirectX but mere use of technology from the desktop won't do it. Where this gets interesting is if Microsoft goes out of their way to make it easy to port games between Windows and the XBox. It would be up to Nintendo or Sony to make something of it.
Of course his answers are half answers or evasive! Lawyers, when talking on broad ground (which this decision is) will give half/evasive answers, because there are SO many exceptions to everything.
Ask him a SPECIFIC question, and you'll get (if you PAY him for it) as specific answer.
That's the way the law works - it's not really there to answer broad questions, but very specific ones
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
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.
<vader>I find your proliferation of faith disturbing...</vader>
I don't think I'm being too paranoid when I say that I agree with the questioner. Microsoft has already had its warnings in previous suits. In the media, the winning and losing parties always have some one-liner to say about trial results that goes something along the lines of "This case demonstrates that ___".
I think we can easily say that "This case demonstrates that even the government is too dependent upon Microsoft (technologically, likely contractually, and *definitely* economically) to put a stop to their offenses committed against businesses and consumers."
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
I know what you mean. I don't use MSDN much, but when I have it wasn't fun.
I think one of MS's problems in general is that it is simply trying to bundle too much together. For instance, Word, Excell, PowerPoint etc.. many years ago were all seperate applications completely. Then MS went and tried to make them all integrated, which was fine, but it seemed like they went beyond that and tried to make them the same program almost, and that didn't work out too well. Additionally, it seems that if MSN were broken down into smaller pieces it might be more usable.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
Where do filesystem formats fall in this settlement. Is a filesystem considered an API with respect to this ruling or is it completely ignored. And if it's included does it fall under the required to release category or can Microsoft still hide it claiming security concerns (or some such nonsense).
I've been eagerly anticipating a stable (and safe) NTFS writable module fr linux but it won't happen until MS is forced to release the specs.
Lawyers need not apologize for the legal system we have.
Yes, it is slow. Very slow in fact. But, in time the legal system will get it all sorted out.
What does that mean?
It means that you can not wrap up Microsoft's antitrust problems by looking solely at the silly judgment handed down by CKK. That is a horrible decision for the technology industry and the entire field of antitrust law.
It is true that two key issues (attempted monopolization and product tying) were not being resolved by the remedy decision offered by CKK. And, the States may yet still appeal that ruling. For the benefit of the antitrust laws it clearly should be appealed. Simply put, the remedy does not correct illegal acts found by the appellate court giving the district court its instructions. That is pure and simple. The fake settlement now approved by the district judge fails to even attempt to eliminate commingling of code found to be illegal by the appellate court. I can not imagine the appellate court thinking their decision should just be ignored as the district judge has done. She did not and does not have the authority to pick and choose which parts of the appellate decision fit into the settlement and simply ignore the violations of law that do not.
That having been said however, perhaps it is good that CKK was not given the ability to decide either the attempted monopolization issue or the tying issue. No doubt she would have screw those issues up royal.
The AOL (Netscape) and SUN private antitrust law suits will take up the attempted monopolization issue (AOL) and product tying (SUN and AOL). And, since the CKK decision does not address those issues at all, Microsoft lost any argument that the AOL and SUN cases should hold off because all illegal acts were corrected in the DOJ/States case. They simply have not been. They were remanded for further litigation and neither party brought them before the district court for further litigation. That simply means they are undecided. Except for one important point.
The appellate court did lay out the factual findings it wants to see to find attempted monopolization and product tying. And, you can bet the AOL and SUN lawyers are boning up on the facts they need to prove to support such a conclusion. But, keep in mind that both the AOL and SUN law suits go before juries. That means that a jury will decide the facts regarding attempted monopolization (can anyone really think that Microsoft was not trying to monopolize browsers and in turn the internet?) and product tying (again can anyone really think products are not tied if it is impossible not to buy one without also buying the other?).
Microsoft has lied for years claiming they are not doing when every single person knows they are in fact doing. They lied simply in their effort to avoid legal liability for violating the federal antitrust laws. And, those chickens are highly likely to come home to roost.
It is too bad that the CKK decision is as meaningless as it is. It does nothing to permit competition in browsers, media players or any other application bundled by Microsoft to preclude competition. Absolutely nothing.
Worse yet the benefit that others may get from the exposure of APIs benefits Microsoft more than it does OS competitors. Completely opening the source code for XP would benefit Microsoft just as open source benefits Linux now. That is why they try to open the code a bit. But, with the exception of interoperability (which is important) gaining greater access to Microsoft code is of little value for an application developer focused upon the Linux desktop market. It helps those writing for Microsoft platforms. And, that is why the API issue is a non-issue as far as OS competition in concerned. Opening the APIs might help some application markets provided there have not been picked by Microsoft for illegal bundling (i.e. browsers, media players, instant messaging, video players, etc). Having the entire source code for XP is of no value if Microsoft screws all consumers you might want to sell to by first requiring them to buy, install, support and use the Microsoft brand.
If the market for your product is not "open and fair" not much else matters at all.
It will take the AOL case to force browsers to be sold separately. And, until that time Microsoft will have succeeded in illegally gaining a new monopoly right under the noses of the stupid DOJ and shortsighted judge.
And, it will take the SUN law suit to stop Microsoft from tying its desktop systems to Microsoft servers. Yes, that is what the SUN suit is largely up to.
Let's just hope that neither AOL or SUN settle for money and fail to put into place the necessary adjustments to Microsoft's conduct that will permit fair and open markets for the entire industry. Otherwise, we have the stupid DOJ to credit for all but ruining the computer software industry simply by refusing to enforce the federal antitrust laws (after it wins the case and the appellate court hands it a victory).
NexuSys - Linux support by the best
Is this true? Since reverse engineering has been deemed legal in the U.S. in at least some circumstances (Phoenix BIOS, for instance) and it's unlikely that anyone granted a right to reverse engineer in their licenses, it seems strange to state that a license is required to reverse engineer. Is this some new legal doctrine, or just a confusing answer?
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
It can't sell products at a loss to force competitors out of business.
What does this mean for X-Box?
Or perhaps even Internet Explorer?
But as any lawyer will point out, these aren't answers, but opinions. Learn the difference.
The trial Microsoft is facing in Europe is far from over, and it could potentialy be far more serious than the one in the US; the EU has a tradition of harsher antitrust measures. And in any case, Microsoft's legal victory does not necessarily mean much... Remember IBM, they won their trial, were declared unstoppable by most industry analists, and in the end lost out to Microsoft. The Economist's paper makes a convincing case for the IBM/MS comparison.
What do you know about World Politic? Find out in this quiz
They just think they are too dependent upon Microsoft.
And, that is why the DOJ looks so stupid in what they did.
In their effort to avoid enforcing the antitrust laws (by agreeing to a settlement that fails to stop acts found illegal by the appellate court), they have rendered enormous harm to all consumers and the computer software industry itself. That is pure stupidity at work on the part of our government.
And, unless the AOL and SUN law suits are successful in forcing Microsoft to sell separate products separately, fairly and in full competition with others; the harm will remain for a long time. Or, at least until the desktop Linux market becomes dominant or at least highly significant (30% or more of the desktop PC marketplace).
The Linux desktop market is likely to get to 30% or so before too long and it will not stop there. It is just too bad that the DOJ is so ignorant as to make that time stretch out simply because a convicted monopolists wants it to.
NexuSys - Linux support by the best
First off I think OEM's pay something like $15 per liscense for windows. That means if there were any discount it would only be $15 at most.
Then why am I charged closer to 100 for it?
Second you need to look at the fact it costs far more to make a computer to different specs. That means a computer with no OS costs MORE to make, that means that you actually get a discount for ordering your computer the same way that a billion other users ordered it.
Not my concern if your manufacturing methods are not optimal. Seems to me the last step in manufacturing a computer is to copy the software on. If it costs you more to not put software on a computer, there is something wrong with your company!
Last you should examine the price, how many $999 or $1199 or $1399 computers have you see on the market? You think that is a direct refelection of the cost of goods? No not really, computer companies pick numbers that look good from a marketing stanpoint when they set retail prices. So if computers all came OS free then you would see computers for the same price as when you buy windows.
Apparently not!
It'a the newest funnest open source craze around.
It's Happy Fun Code!!!
Caution: Happy Fun Code may suddenly contaminate your open source project.
Do not stare directly at Happy Fun Code.
Happy Fun Code has been known to change your long distance carrier and may install software on your somputer.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Code.
Happy Fun Code was written by radioactive Hungarian programmers who fell from the sky in Redmond, WA
When not in use, all knowledge of Happy Fun Code must be removed from your mind through the medical miracle of blunt trauma.
Happy Fun Code may adhere to your project. Do not attempt to remove Happy Fun Code without legal cousel.
Happy Fun Code should not be exposed to a functioning judicial system.
It sounds to me like the bulk of the work to be done is implementation. I think they have the specs pretty well figured out.
Larry, in your answers, you repeatedly assert that
"we" should watch Microsoft carefully for settlement
violations, presumably because we can do something
about it if we catch any.
It's the latter that I'm dubious about. Don't
violations have to be pursued by the Justice
Department? In the current political climate,
what are the chances of that ever happening?
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
NPR
PRI
DMCA - Chilling free speech since 1998.
Microsoft hasn't released any documentation for NTFS. These documents have been pieced together partly by carefully reading all the SDKs and Windows help but mostly by reverse-engineering the filesystem.
We're confident that the information is correct. We think we know where there are gaps in our knowledge. We may be wrong. Beware.
Emphasis mine, but this is why the write option for NTFS in the linux kernel is still marked as dangerous.
For specific problems look here at their unknown list. Some of these questions could prove catastrophic if they guess the wrong answer.
Microsoft has not released the specs and until they do its all pretty much guesswork, something I don't want happening with my filesystems.
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.
"Reasonable royalties" are not acceptable and are, in fact, incompatible with Free Software to begin with. Software patents need eliminated altogether. They are 100% anti-innovation and anti-free-market. I will not pay one dime to M$ for their supposed software patents and neither should ANY other members of the Open Source community, even if it comes to outright civil disobedience. It's a shame the US patent office was stupid enough to start accepting them in the first place. Time for some reform I think.
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.
- - -
Let's change the definition of "murder" then:
abortion
euthanasia
execution
self defense
"needed killin'"
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I rejoiced when Judge Jackson's Findings of Facts were handed down. I had been convinced that no judge, no lawyer could possibly understand the technical and business issues related to M$'s misconduct, and the Judge slam-dunked me.
But by now, the Court of Appeals, Judge CKK and now Larry Rosen have convinced me that I was right all along, and Thomas Penfield Jackson was a rare anomaly (who sadly shot his mouth off too much). However much you may resent it, Larry, the fact is that judges and lawyers just don't know jack about software -- the technology, the business or even the law.
Here's the problem: Again and again, Larry Rosen says that we will have to be "vigilant" and so on about enforcing the terms of this behavioral remedy. But all the vigilance in the world is doomed to fail because Microsoft is an incorrigible scofflaw. And this was well-known when the anti-trust case began.
The case concerning the Netscape and Explorer browsers began because M$ was violating a consent decree of 1995. Then, as now, a judge told them to stop doing what they were doing. They went ahead and did it anyway, and after seven years, and after the nearly total elimination of Netscape from the browser market, the court system is still
struggling to decide what to do about it, still telling them to never never, by golly never ever ever do that stuff again.
Here's a vision of the future: M$ exploits Palladium to completely destroy Linux and all GPL'd software. I'm not talking about thwarting growth and limiting market share; I'm talking about "cutting off the air supply" and achieving nearly total destruction, as they did with Netscape. And if need be, they will violate the terms of Judge CKK's ruling to make it happen. What the hell?, cackle Bill & Steve! Back in the day we didn't let that consent decree stop us either, now did we?
"Zounds!", cries Larry Rosen! "Why, don't you dare!", bellows Judge CKK! "But we're innocent!", retorts Bill Gates, while rocking back & forth in his chair! And back we go to the courtroom.
Fast forward 10 years. Linux has been dead for five years, now a curiosity that is only used by about five die-hards. (Linus Torvalds is slinging Windows code for Loudcloud.) Slashdot apologists for M$ are insisting that only Linux was to blame ("That stuff was so hard to install!"). The case has been up to the Supreme Court and back, and wouldn't you know, M$ is eventually found guilty of violating Judge CKK's rules -- just like they violated that pesky old consent decree of 1995. But hey, tech markets move so fast, don't ya know, and Linux is already dead, after all (just like Netscape was way back in 2002). So look, let's not do anything drastic, let's just give M$ a behavioral remedy, and by God, we will enforce it vigilantly this time.
Larry Rosen argues for behavioral remedies as the proper means of restoring benefits to consumers, and I can see the sense of doing this after a company has been found guilty the first time. But we are looking at a recidivist, a crook that is guaranteed to look for loopholes in behavioral remedies wherever they can be found. They ignored the 1995 ruling; isn't that enough?
Seriously, is there any doubt in anyone's mind that M$ will circumvent, cut corners, and if possible violate the terms of CKK's judgment, no matter how "vigilant" anyone professes to be? Come on, Larry, who are you kidding?
Behavioral restrictions and "vigilance" are useless against a proven incorrigible such as M$. The only solution can be a destructive, structural remedy that simply eliminates the recidivist altogether: Breakup.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind