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Massachusetts Appealing Microsoft Ruling
linuxwrangler writes "Criticizing the "loophole-filled deal" and saying "We are prepared to go it alone," Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly has announced that Massachusetts is appealing the Microsoft ruling. Seven other states have dropped out and are negotiating enforcement and attorney fees. West Virginia is still undecided on an appeal."
Its got good intentions, they are smart enough to figure out that Microsoft pretty much won and want to correct that error, because buissness is pretty much the usual for Microsoft, back to tormenting little buissnesses, OEMs, EULAs and the such. Its got to stop and finally one state isn't blinded by a ruling and is taking them on, hey they have money, they can battle Microsoft on their own and whose to stop them in this stage of the game.
This just seems like a colossal waste of time and money. If Mass could get other states on-side, maybe the costs would be less...
But this piece-meal approach to dealing with monopolies like MS (or IBM in a previous generation) is bullcrap. If the federal gov't can't come up with a reasonable punishment/settlement that all states sign off, there will never be any truly effective measures put in place. Another case when distributed power to states gives companies (and criminals) silly-ass easy loopholes to jump through...
"Content's a bitch."
Slashdot headline: Massachusetts Appealing Microsoft Ruling
The NYT, WSJ, and McNews seem to agree with Slashdot's perspective, FWIW.
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Regardless of the merits of the case I don't see the Appeals court overturning a settlement. One of the major problems with the case was that attempts at settlement were made impossible by the states who were determined to hold out for electoral reasons.
As for the case itself, it was blown once that nitwit Jackson got involved. It is one thing to be a judge with opinions, if you discuss them with the press during the trial those opinions are very likely to be considered bias. Once the appeals court threw out the penalty phase of the trial there was no prospect of a final judgement against Microsoft for a decade. Microsoft could reasonably expect the Supreme court to be sympathetic to the argument that having found the judge to have been biased they were entitled to a completely new trial.
I also thing that the DoJ could have put up a much better case if they had concentrated on the contractual issues where there were real problems and not getting side tracked into the Web browser issue. Netscape failed for a simple reason, the business model was to sell Web server software and that rapidly became a commodity item, particularly once Apache started to gain traction. There were 10 free Web browsers before Marc had heard of the Web, the idea that Web browsers would be a paid application was wierd. Netscape would not have had the market share it did if it had been really charging for the browser.
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Why are all of theses comments so negative about MA and their efforts?
/. bashes MS for sport. Aside from all of the childish MS bashing, a REAL problem DOES exist. The practices of MS DO threaten other software makers.
I know
Think about how far along MS has come in a short time. Where will it end? If they are not stopped - it won't end. It sounds cliche, but MS is clearly on the path to world domination (ok, that was maybe just added for dramatic effect).
MS will control "digital currency", "digital passports", etc. Mostly because of naive public acceptance.. but nobody else will ever gain a voice with that same public if MS can continue on their path as they have been.
In the end, I think logic and common sense will sweep the masses - but I don't see that end for many years (if not decades). Good for MA if they can impose some restrictions on MS early in the game (or maybe we are about mid-game).
Maybe you can say to yourself "MS can't decide what I can and cannot do" - and you may be right (for the time being). But you are a minority and MS is quickly moving into a position to decide what the general public can and cannot do with PC's, what hardware manufacturers can and cannot do (corporate politics), what software makers can and cannot do (neophyte strangling). Outside of the technology sector, MS has a great deal of pull in the media and even in politics.
Please, don't sluff off the efforts of MA as "wasted" or "useless" - instead, you should show support for their efforts as MA really is looking for a solution in the interest of the public. (and I know, there is always political motives involved)
..mork