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Microsoft Flouting DOJ Settlement?
An anonymous reader writes "According to the Washington Post, Microsoft is not adhering to the terms of its deal with the DOJ. Specifically, there are allegations that it is "trying to license key pieces of its technology at inflated rates" and "thwarting its antitrust settlement with the federal government". They're charging $100,000 just to see technical info about their communication protocols, and you only get $50,000 back if you decide you don't want to license them. Whoda thunk?"
because I don't abide by their EULAs either, so it all settles out.
I am Jack's utter lack of surprise.
oh shock horror, never saw that one coming.....
i mean really, what did you think they were going to do.
S
Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
So, we pay $100k to find out they have no communication protocols, and only get $50k back? I'll charge half that if anyone's interested in seeing my communication protocols.
it's their perogative to charge what they want for information. Supply and Demand may change it eventually but they can start the prices where ever they want.
How can you suggest such a thing? There's absolutely no evidence that Microsoft isn't just as well behaved as every other American corporation, such as Enron, WorldCom, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, etc.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Next on slashdot: The sun is fuckin' HOT
Thats a scandalous acussation! Microsoft are kind and gentle, and they certainly learnt their lesson after the nasty talking to the DOJ gave them after that whole "monopoly abusing" thing. Balmer and Gates are such nice men and they wear such nice suits, how could you even think of making such a slanderous comment?
No, I'm sure they're just misunderstood.
Microsoft is being accused of doing something illegal on slashdot?
What's next? More SCO villification?
They even had to set up a committee internally to make sure they didn't break the rules. Surely the DoJ wouldn't have given them such a limp-wristed settlement if it didn't believe they were honest people.
Oh hang on its only George Bush who lives in a 1950s "Wonderful Life" style world.
Is ANYONE suprised by this move ? M$ have also just bought some AV software, umm will they bundle theirs into the OS to drive other people away, its a shot in the dark, and against the DoJ settlement but it might just be true.
M$ know that with the massively pro-business pro-monopoly president there is right now that they have AT LEAST 5 more years before a President who might go after them. Add 5-10 years of DoJ cases and they might get the next numbskull to let them off.
The only hope for the US Software industry is if the EU crackdown.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
"I'm Shocked! Shocked!"
I bet DOJ used Windows Update. Now, none of their computers work. That would explain their lack of follow-through in this case.
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
If any of you thought for a second that Microsoft would actually abide by the settlement with the DOJ you are on crack. What incentive do they have to abide by it? What is the worst that will happen if they don't abide by it? They'll get taken back to court the DOJ, and I'm sure they'll settle again and continue doing what they are doing. I personally have no problem with Microsoft, but If the DOJ is going to settle with them, they better be prepared to enforce the settlement.
- tom -
No, this is not a big surprise to the very large crowd of people who think MS got off lightly for what they have done.
The significance, though, is that there are still a couple of states (WV, MA, I think) holding out on the DOJ settlement.
Their case could be made stronger if they can show the settlement is not working properly.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
So this is what happens to our best and brightest programmers.....
Whoda thunk?
:-)
I would. Thunking is fun, and a wonderful way of ensuring you keep compatible. Try thunking to another operating system running in a virtual machine, that's cool
What they're doing might be immoral, but illegal? Hardly. If they ask 100k from everyone wanting to use the protocol they're not discriminating against anyone.
Riiiiight.
There are consequences to actions. Unfortunately the American people cannot seem to draw a line between point A and point B.
This should not come as a surprise Judge CK and Justice both bent over backwards to please Billy since Ashcroft and others could only recuse themselves from direct involvement because of the contributions they received. This does not mean they did not have a hand in giving Microsoft the power to act as though there was no settlement, it merely means that the settlement was thus: Microsoft is free to be a monopoly and self-enforcing monopolies never can do anything wrong (or at least they SEE no evil, HEAR no evil, and SPEAK of no evil that they are involved in).
Really, who won the case? Not the people, well they did, but the newly elected administration had that overturned and gave Microsoft everything they ever wanted and then some.
Crash, bang, pow! The sound of companies being crushed, jobs being lost, and consumers losing more and more to the power of a global monopoly that is in fact a de facto government taxing American citizens on a national basis every time our government (once elected - now paid) buys from the Nation of Microsoft.
Do we really want more media consolidation - must be, someone in the government says its cool for one company to own everything and offer us the same crappy meals every day.
To borrow a line we might have to get used to""You will work harder with a gun in your back for a bowl of rice a day."
Thanks to Justice and Judge CK the animal is free to prowl and kill whatever it wants. Nice, real nice.
All Ad hominem replies happily ignored as the sender shall be deemed to lack the faculties to comprehend the equation.
there are allegations that it is "trying to license key pieces of its technology at inflated rates" Doesn't the fact that they are trying to dump other pieces of technology balance this out, though? mmmmmm... $50 windows licenses.....
Wow! Paying someone to steal your intellectual property. Thank you Microsoft. Now I understand all that innovation.
At the urging of the Justice Department, Microsoft will now allow engineers from potential licensees to visit its headquarters to examine more technical data. But the rivals say the company is requiring the engineers to sign such strict confidentiality agreements that their ability to work on related products for their employers would be hampered.
"Basically, I'd have to shoot the engineers when they came back," said one irate company executive.
Wow! Paying Microsoft to make your employees unuseable. Thank you Microsoft. Useful employees were a burden anyway.
Yeah, I'd do the same thing if I were forced to send my engineers to visit Redmond...
Anyone have a list of the protocols under discussion? The article refers to there being 133 protocols in the package, and there are claims (refuted by MS) that some of them are in the public domain (by which I suspect they mistakenly include open source solutions like Samba).
So, what protocols are they? I'm certain that a large number haven't been externally engineered, but I'd be willing to bet that quite a few have, or that they originate from public protocols that MS has since modified.
'"We have made progress with Microsoft," one official said, adding that the department is following up on complaints from other firms. "We have gotten them to make changes."'
This just shows how scared the DOJ is of MS. I mean if I got taken to court for not paying back a loan and the court ordered me to pay £x back per month and I only paid a fraction of it back per month do you think they would say "We have made progress with graspee. We have gotten him to pay back some of the money he owes." ???
graspee
Usually, I'm an anti-MS zealot, but this time I agree with you. It's not a fee, it's a deterrent. I would love to get a copy of MS's protocols so I could write a proper exchange connector for unix. But I don't have a hundred grand to pony up, so it ain't gonna happen.
This isn't unfair competitive practices, this is competitive practices designed to protect their trade secrets. They are essentially showing the holy grail of linux computing, so why shouldn't they charge an admission fee?
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
Ah stuff it, you whiny bastard. They are a *convicted* monopolist. The opening of the protocols is part of the *verdict*. Ponder this quote:
"There is something fundamentally wrong with requiring Novell to pay large sums of money to access information that the court determined Microsoft illegally withheld," said Ryan Richards, a Novell vice president and deputy general counsel. "Microsoft breaks the law and Novell pays for the remedy."
So no, $100.000 is not reasonable, it's extortion.
How does this effect reverse engineering projects such as Samba (smb) and Gaim (MSN)? Is it free if you can figure it out using a packet sniffer?
----
so why shouldn't they charge an admission fee?
Because they are a convicted monopoly?
Right after he appointed all their corporate officers to his cabinet.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
so why shouldn't they charge an admission fee?
Oh I dunno, maybe because the DOJ settlement said they had to? Or is that not a good enough reason for you?
It is mentioned in the article, and in some comments before mine, that the DOJ seems to be scared of Microsoft. Indeed, the behaviour even seems to suggest it - they are behaving very trepidatiously, despite their obvious power within the US.
My question is, why are they scared? What have they to be scared of?
Oh, they manage. They financial statements show that they spend just over $1.1bn per quarter on R&D.
Because people will buy it regardless? The effort is not primarily to make their "stuff" better, but to develop new stuff - think X-box, DRM, etc.
Hi!
⦠or rather same old legal-tech story (SOLTS)
.
How come so many of the tech stories nowadays include the words:
court, settlement, legal
Getting tired of the misbehaviour and squabbling frankly.
All right letâ(TM)s see:
Loophole alert: âoeOne unusual provision, however, allows Microsoft to license some of the code â¦â
So thereâ(TM)s a disagreement on interpreting the scope of a term of the settlement. Just great.
⦠and now the second page of the storyâ(TM)s Slashdotted - prolly donâ(TM)t want to see it anyways â" ah, here it isâ¦
âMicrosoft requires companies that license the protocols to be audited -- at their own expense, by a third-party auditor selected by Microsoftâ
Then it isnâ(TM)t strictly third party, is it? Sort of more 1.3rd party than third party.
⦠and then theyâ(TM)re using a reverse version of SCOâ(TM)s NDA tactic, allowing them to potentially receive more information than they need in spirit. Did they learn this play from the same coach?
Howâ(TM)s the tail of this disagreement ever going to be chopped for good?
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
If the enemy in a war (legal or otherwise) is not defeated on every front, it will come back to fight again in the future. This is an ingrained law in our survival instincts. It's all about obtain resources to ensure survival. It's also a component or the very seat of primate social dynamics and POLITICS. The Borg undefeated, will regroup and launch another attack in a DIFFERENT area. Has Star Trek taught us nothing? Defeating the Borg requires implanting a fractal virus in their neural net, like this hasn't been tried before and would not be difficult to do again with its rampant security holes. People, seriously, to beat M$ is going to require a coordinated strategy on multiple fronts from negative advertising, publishing the truth about its business tactics, translating legalese of the EULA into common laymen's terms, word of mouth, and absolute bias towards other alternatives (Linux, Lindows, Mac OS X, etc...). This requires pushing hard the alternatives showing clear examples (demos) that are more cost efficient than M$ bugware.
why the hell would i pay $100,000 to look at freebsd code?
From the article:
Microsoft requires companies that license the protocols to be audited -- at their own expense, by a third-party auditor selected by Microsoft -- to ensure that they are only using them for appropriate purposes.
What are "appropriate purposes" when it comes to protocols?
Auditor [pointing, exasperated] And what the hell are you using that one for?
Company rep Oh, we keep donuts in that one.
Auditor And that one?
Company rep Oh, that one is forced into the green button on the air-conditioner, otherwise it keeps switching itself off.
Auditor That one?
Company rep Oh. Erm. Sorry. We ran out of cat litter.
Auditor I am truly shocked at your inappropriate use of MS protocols! You'll be hearing from Bill Gates about this!
The fact is that I can browse a few news sources and come up with significantly more fascinating, interesting, and topical stories than this. It is also news that Peoplesoft rejected Oracle's bid. It is actually BIGGER news than this MS junk.
There are a good one hundred technology/business stories a day. Singling out this one is not just politically motivated, it is childish. That is my point. If you really think slashdotters are into business related technology stories, then you need to report on the big stories, not the ones that make your "competition" look bad. This is fundamental editorial ethics.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Has Microsoft realised that most people just want an OS, without all the bundled software that comes with it. The majority of Windows users probably use Winamp over WMP, use Office/OO/SO over Wordpad, Photoshop/PSP over Paint, and more importantly, Mozilla/etc over IE.
If Microsoft removed all these obselete packages from Windows' default installation, maybe we can buy an OS cause it's an OS, not for the stuff that's in it, and maybe cut the costs, not to mention the bugs.
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
From the article.
...One unusual provision, however, allows Microsoft to license some of the code -- known as communication protocols -- to outside companies on "reasonable" and "non-discriminatory" terms.
So no, they're not breaking the DOJ settlement unless you consider 100k fee unreasonable and discriminatory.
Unreasonable? Hardly, in a business world that money is peanuts.
Discriminatory? Nope. As far as we know, they're asking the same price from everyone. And before someone claims that price that high is discriminatory I have few things to ask from you.
Is Ferrari discriminating against me because I'm too poor?
If Discriminatory clause refers to price everyone should be able to get it, why would the reasonable price clause exist?
Actually, It's a Wonderful Life came out in 1946 directly after WWII and though had a happy ending, pretty much dealt with the shaddy side of the business world and one man's despair (and near suicide) because of it.
It is a great movie and stands as one of the classics.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Iraq played with the rules for over 10 years before they got their hands slapped
My guess is, it will be another 10 years before the US Government gets around to making a decapitating strike of "Shock and Awe" against Redmond
Seriously though, I think it's rather obvious that the current Administration and Microsoft have come to some understanding to look the other way regarding Microsoft activities. No one will admit that, but that's what PACs are for
...particularly if the protocol provided an interface for communicating with hosts running a different OS (closed source, with totally incomprehensinle internals), and allowed for better integration than just a handshake. Particular one that would facilitate the transfer of data encoded as deoxyribose nucleic acid.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Is that while MS is flagrantly ignoring the DOJ settlement with our Gov't our tax dollars are also being used to promote MS in global markets. Why wasn't the removal of that support a part of the DOJ settlement?
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
My biggest worry isn't the "Nyah - so we'll show you our stuff as required by law but charge so much for it - nyah", but the way they've gone back to buying/threatening anybody who might compete with them.
Take the whole Virtual PC thing. I switch from Linux to OS X on the desktop, and get all excited about Virtual PC - now for those few Windows Apps I *need* to run (like Sharkport for my PS2, Ultima VII in DOS mode - you know, the important stuff), I can have that.
Then - Microsoft buys Connectix. OK, I say. Then RealPC announces "We're comin' back - and better!" I see light at the end of the tunnel. If RealPC can do its "direct hardware technology" right, I could even play Half-Life I (and hope that HL2 gets ported to OS X) in a Virtual Window (yes, I'm sure I'd have to grab more RAM, but it's the *potential* of the idea).
Nope - MS is sueing them now too.
That's the part that worries me - the buyiing/sueing of companies who even *look* like they might do something that MS wants (remember how they tried to buy Quicken, and at least that one was nixed?). At least during the DOJ trial they *tried* to act nice - but now that it's over, it back to the Bad Old Days of either buying somebody out, locking them out, or sueing them into oblivion.
Patience, I tell myself. Someday, maybe 50 years from now when MS is just another fair player in the market, this will all be looked backed upon and laughed, like Standard Oil and AT&T. Patience.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
http://www.lindows.com/lindows_michaelsminutes_arc hives.php?id=66
"Microsoft routinely offers financial inducements to computer companies to not carry LindowsOS computers. With $40 billion in the bank, it's an easy decision for them to use a few million dollars to block Lindows.com from major retailers."
No, the invasion was to *ELIMINATE* WMD. Seems to have worked...
We all know that MS is good at copying, but poor at actually 'innovating'.
Ironically, the reverse is usually true for OSS.
Yes, I know that better tech doesn't always win (Beta vs VHS), but if an OSS solution is found to this problem, MS can follow or get out of the way.
The key is to put the shoe on the other foot - force MS's compatabillity with OSS protocols, rather than the other way around. A tough road indeed, but one that we'd better get used to.
Look at Flash (not too long;), there was tech that was released by one company and went on to become a web standard. Everyone has the flash plugin, and if they don't, they can get it easily.
This was a tough story to write a comment to - it was like pointing up and saying, "The sky is blue! What can we do?"
Mafia just won't stop their illegal activities.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Those of us who worked in companies which competed with Microsoft understand that monopolies are suboptimal for capitalism. Eventually, it would get sorted out by the market; but for those of us who would rather not wait a hundred years, the government is the only available tool for the job.
Like oil and water, Republicans and antitrust don't mix.
I worked in the state AG's office in the antitrust division during 3 AG's tenures. When we went from a Democrat to a Republican, we were told there were certain types of cases we were just not going to bring. Ever.
Now I am all for the American Way and for business making a buck. It ain't Romper Room out there. The Fed is supposed to level the playing field for fair competition. I guess "fair" can be defined several diferent ways, depending on who contributes to your campaign.
Write to those Congressmen, people. They are working on your dime.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
> No, the invasion was to *ELIMINATE* WMD. Seems to have worked...
Yes, and they also got rid of all the aliens, bigfoots, and unicorns in Iraq.
Now they're going to install democracy and ensure everyone an education, a job, and good healthcare, just like here at home.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I don't know what it worse, being such a bald-faced liar to say those things, or to be the complete intellectual moron to believe those statements.
Rick Blaine: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Police Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[A croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Police Captain Renault: [sotto voice] Oh, thank you very much.
The DOJ settlement does allow for this. The problem does not lie in the fact that they are charging for the protocol inspection, but there are further terms which could be considered discriminatory. For instance, the independant audit at the licensee's expense with no assurance that the inspector is not reporting back extra information to Microsoft, or the severely crippling NDA which prompted one executive to say that "Basically, I'd have to shoot the engineers when they came back,". Now those are what the DOJ has to center in on, not some admission ticket price.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
they're not breaking the DOJ settlement unless you consider 100k fee unreasonable and discriminatory.
It is both unreasonable and discriminatory.
Unreasonable? Hardly, in a business world that money is peanuts.
That is irrelevant. They are supposed to disclose the protocols to competitors. The purpose is to level the playing field to competition. Anyone who is a competitor, such as an open source project, should be able to get the protocols.
It is unreasonable because the cost of providing this information is practically zero. They could put it on their web site if they were truly interested in complying with the DOJ settlement.
Discriminatory? Nope. As far as we know, they're asking the same price from everyone.
It is discriminatory. It is intended to discriminate against the biggest possible competitor that MS has ever faced. This is directly against the spirit of the settlement.
If asking the same price for everyone were all that mattered, then why not just ask for $1 Trillion? They would not be discriminating against anyone after all. In your world, this would not be unreasonable.
Is Ferrari discriminating against me because I'm too poor?
Irrelevant. Ferrari has not been ordered to provide you with transportation. Furthermore, the MS communication protocols are not a product you are buying. This is information that a court of law has ordered MS to provide to all competitors. I wouldn't have a problem if MS charged for the cost of media, or some minor cost tied to the production of the information. But again, producing this information, even in a very raw form, would cost very little. It could be widely circulated.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I think that's all. Want your $50k back?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
This isn't unfair competitive practices, this is competitive practices designed to protect their trade secrets.
This is unfair competitive practices. The whole reason they are to disclose the protocols are the remedy the damage done to the competitive landscape caused by their past wrongdoing that they have been convicted of.
The communication protocols are not to be a trade secret. That is the whole point of disclosing them. Because Microsoft has unfairly leveraged a monopoly to create new monopolies they now have to open the landscape to competition.
I would love to get a copy of MS's protocols so I could write a proper exchange connector for unix. But I don't have a hundred grand to pony up, so it ain't gonna happen.
That is exactly why it is unfair. Don't you get it? Competitors are entitled to the protocols. Microsoft is free to compete on the merits of their product, not on the secrecy of their protocols.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The closest I got to punch cards was fortran. I can only imagine. Remembering to put characters on the 7th column was annoying enough.
I think the earliest recollection I have is some form of BASIC on an Atari800 which predated my programming (out of order) experience on a PET.
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
http://www.microsoft.com/careers/search/details.as px?JobID=b0e72d5b-89f2-41ed-bb86-36928c903514
MS hires bigtime for its legal department. It has a budget bigger than the DOJ and more experienced lawyers. Look at http://www.idg.net/english/crd_gates_888634.html
Bill "Nuke 'Em" Neukom built a 600 lawyer in-house team for MS. There are 9,000 lawyers in the DOJ. According to the 2003 Budget at http://www.usdoj.gov/jmd/2003summary/html/atr.htm
The DOJ spent 100,000,000 on ALL cartel activity, not just MS.
The DOJ is outgunned.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
Just the facts:
All the monopoly-whining in the world won't help. On the contrary, it will help Microsoft by portraing them as invulnerable, always winning and not worth resisting.
What will make a difference is use products and open standards.
For example in southern Germany the tiny town of SchwÃbisch Hall has moved to Linux a few months ago, a few weeks ago Munich was inspired by that and (just a few kilometers away) has decided to do the same and a week later Stuttgart und Oldenburg, 2 other south-German cities are evaluating to join in, others will follow.
The dominos are falling. With all the relevant software being ported to Linux, expect a lot of other european cities to move to KDE/Linux as well within 3 years.
So please:
Stop whining, start doing. Whining will not achieve anything.
Tell your coworkers and your boss about Mozilla and OpenOffice, explain to your boss that Microsoft will give anybody huge discounts who is able to move away from Microsoft, etc.
" Which Enron corporate officers hold a cabinet post?"
Shhhh. Don't dare to say things like this. You never know, when you put out a few facts, the left-wing FUD might crumble. They get really mad when you point out that Bush won the actual counts in Florida too.
Sit down, shut up, and believe that Kenneth Lay is our Secretary of State.
Companies must put up $100,000 just to see the technical information about the 133 protocols, which helps a potential licensee determine if it wants or needs any of them. But if the company chooses not to license, it gets back only $50,000.
Somebody send a correction to the Washington Post. When making fun of an underskilled and overarrogant programmer or group of programmers, the correct derogatory spelling would be, "l33t protocols".
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Microsoft is free to compete on the merits of their product, not on the secrecy of their protocols.
Ahhh, I wish you were the DOJ. Your rational reasoning goes against what all the large comapnies have fought so hard for.
In an ideal world, your statement would be accurate. Unfortunately we no longer live in a world, we live in a giant department store.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
How about we just all agree that both Bush and Clinton are tossers. And for that matter, so was ol'Bush. And Reagan. Hmm...trend appearing...
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Their reasoning was they didn't want corporations to become more powerful than the government, and hence, have influence over it.
BTW, if you think corruption is bad today, read all about Teddy, he started his political career fighting corruption that was taking place basically out in the open.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
This is way offtopic, but the history of this movie fascinates me. "It's a Wonderful Life" was released in '46, received mixed reviews, nominated for some awards, but sank into obscurity. It fell out of copyright and into the public domain in 1974. And because of THAT, TV stations, starting mainly with PBS, picked it up for FREE and started broadcasting it at Christmas. It became one of the most loved, most aired Christmas movies ever. All because it went into the public domain.
r eviews.colossus.net/movies/i/its_won derful.htmlo vies/wonderfu l_life.html
U TF -8&q=%22It%27s+a+wonderful+life%22+public+domain&b tnG=Google+Search
Well, until 1993, when some copyright sleight-of-hand pulled it out of PD.
RIAA? MPAA? DMCA? hello? is this thing on?
references:
http://slate.msn.com/id/1004242/
http://movie-
http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/greatm
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=
" The difference between Bush and Clinton is that Clinton is no danger anymore"
The difference is that clinton lied about his who stuck his cock into, bush lied about why he took us to war and killed tens of thousands of people.
War is necrophilia.
Microsofts Seattlement is a farce.
The way I understand it: the pay penalties
in the form of donating WinPCs to poor schools?
This increases the monopoly, not lessen it.
Bram Stolk http://stolk.org/tlctc/
Generally, in war the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this. To capture the enemy's entire army is better than to destroy it; to take intact a regiment, a company, or a squad is better than to destroy them. For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.
Microsoft's tactics of decimation and delay benefit no one. They are needlessly beligerent, and have managed to make an enemy of almost everyone. In the process they have also earned, EARNED, a reputation for shoddy product at expensive prices.
This is no "brilliant" plan. It is the work of a thug who thinks that he can bully the entire world. News flash: the world at some point gets tired of this shit.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Once upon a time, President Clinton had to deal with a problem. That problem was that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC, which is pronounced "the ferk") had someone up and quit. Aw shucks. Who to get? Well, our fair President, against his better judgment, got a right wing fanatic from down south to sit in the FERC. Bummer. The poor guy was right in the middle of a good job with a kewl company--trying to get rid of all that public sector crap that carries high voltage power from place to place in Dixieland. Oh well. Duty calls.
Fast forward to May 1999. The California agency for dealing with the physical consequences of the absurd right wing fantasy of "AB 1280", circa 1998 had to route the willy-nilly purchased and sold electric power in California. However, just as forecast an uncharacteristic heat wave swept northern California. It was beyond miserable. Oh my. Why were so many power plants down for maintenance? Why all at once? Why was the schedule for downtime changed? (Psssst. Hindsight informs us that the weather forecast was "beamed in" to the decision making headquarters at Enron down there where the heavenly Governor Bush promised always to look the other way.) The price of a megawatt-hour suddenly went to $400 with no ceiling in sight, and I suppose Ken Lay came in his $700 pants that day. Immediately, the California government commissioned a study. Strangely, a thorough report came through raht quick. There was a murmer about someone gaming the system. With a few more highest level power crises short term, everyone survived in California in 1999. In 2000, the evil science was refined. By 2001, the racket was licensed extortion as is common knowledge. The President of the California Public Utilities Commission (Loretta Lynch) told her top lawyer to dig in and sue the lazy bastards at the FERC, whose notions of laissez-faire included sleeping at the switch while your best friends down south print money through electric wires, choke natural gas lines, game the market, gouge customers, and bankrupt decently managed retail power companies without recourse. Why? Because Bill Clinton wanted to be "nice" to those on his right. The FERC was perverted. Yes. It happened while Clinton held ultimate responsibility. Yes. You can hang this on Clinton. However, when Bush's friends on the FERC kept assisting the milking of the California electric rate payers, after a while the conscience got a little stronger (along with the public outcry that leaked beyond the "lost-to-the-Republicans-anyway" i.e., negligible-to-W.-anyway state of California). When that racket stopped screwing California on schedule, the bets placed at the Enron power/futures/weather casinos in Houston started to lose money for their customers--typically the house itself. Just then there was a Frontline piece on public TV. I watched it. Why was it that all Ken Lay would do was laugh?
Then came August of 2001, when Ken Lay was kind enough to free up the CEO chair for Jeffry Skilling. What a guy!
You know the rest of the story, but now you know the part that we should blame on Clinton. Let the egg drip slowly down your right wing face now. You asked for it.
If you are an American, a USian, you are (it appearts anyway) woefully uneducated about our own history. A prime example, probably everyone has heard of it, the boston tea party. That was a significant active protest in the middle of a boycott against the monopoly corporation called the british east indies company, that used the "government" at the time as it's muscle. Of course nowadays the regimists and the apologists would call that "terrorism", even though they claim to be proud of it, if the exact same tactics are used today they somehow become magically wrong, no matter the issue, or the importance of an issue, or the ramifictions of ignoring an issue. Well, yes, yes it was, that's why the entire deal was called the "revolutionary + war", when it finally became necessary to remove ourselves from from being FIRST warred upon "legally" by that feudal/corporate/governmental melded structure known as great britain, an imperial power known for it's blackmail and extortion rackets, simply because they thought they were big enough to always do it by force. And the reason why that happened was because the corporations back then subverted that government, and (re)created what we know call corportism, or fascism. Enough people who were being abused and extorted against finally saw it, and in nation after nation,using various techniques of protest, from extreme pacifism to extreme violence the british got kicked out, and rightly so. Took awhile but it happened, and it took all those techniques to accomplish.
Flash forward a few centuries, it's the same deal all over again, just this time the global corporate extortioners and their mercenary muscle are more sophisticated, have a lot more technology, and use more psychological manipulative efforts to keep people literally brainwashed into being perpetual victims. It's a forced "stockholme syndrome" propaganda effort that is amazingly successful, that I will give them, they suceeded.
There is a lot of hype about the McDonalds' scalding coffee case. No
one is in favor of frivolous cases of outlandish results; however, it is
important to understand some points that were not reported in most of
the stories about the case. McDonalds coffee was not only hot, it was
scalding -- capable of almost instantaneous destruction of skin, flesh
and muscle. Here's the whole story.
Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was in the passenger seat of
her grandson's car when she was severely burned by McDonalds' coffee in
February 1992. Liebeck, 79 at the time, ordered coffee that was served
in a styrofoam cup at the drivethrough window of a local McDonalds.
After receiving the order, the grandson pulled his car forward and
stopped momentarily so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her
coffee. (Critics of civil justice, who have pounced on this case, often
charge that Liebeck was driving the car or that the vehicle was in
motion when she spilled the coffee; neither is true.) Liebeck placed
the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid from
the cup. As she removed the lid, the entire contents of the cup spilled
into her lap.
The sweatpants Liebeck was wearing absorbed the coffee and held it next
to her skin. A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full
thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body,
including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin
areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she
underwent skin grafting. Liebeck, who also underwent debridement
treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds
refused.
During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700
claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims
involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks. This
history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and nature of
this hazard.
McDonalds also said during discovery that, based on a consultants
advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit to
maintain optimum taste. He admitted that he had not evaluated the
safety ramifications at this temperature. Other establishments sell
coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is
generally 135 to 140 degrees.
Further, McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the company
actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185
degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn
hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above,
and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured
into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn
the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns
would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing
the "holding temperature" of its coffee.
Plaintiffs' expert, a scholar in thermodynamics applied to human skin
burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full
thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony
showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent
of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus,
if Liebeck's spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would
have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn.
McDonalds asserted that customers buy coffee on their way to work or
home, intending to consume it there. However, the companys own research
showed that customers intend to consume the coffee immediately while
driving.
McDonalds also argued that consumers know coffee is hot and that its
customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were
unaware that they could suffer thirddegree burns from the coffee and
that a statement on the
When you have enough money to discard any fine?
When you have enough power to force any business entity to do almost anything you need?
When the authorities of the law are so weak and limited in their power?
The only way to get Microsoft, as well as many other unethical, illegal and otherwise misbehaving companies to obey the law is to gradually increase the punishments given when they are found guilty.
The "corporate death penalty" (the destruction of a corporation and the auctioning of all of its assets) was and still is a possible punishment that can threaten those corporations who show contempt for the law and repeatedly defy it.
The "corporate death penalty" brought, and could bring today - respect of the law.
Call to restore the "corporate death penalty" today!
this being the same "time" that would not be given to the inspectors to complete the inspections to find the damn stuff...
MLT - simple and robust open source multimedia framework for Linux
I work for a company that develops a product that uses the http protocol to move data between the client and the server. The app is written in Java and works well on Mac, Windows, Linux, and Solaris.
We have to take firewalls into consideration of our customers' demands. Currently, we use the internal Java support for firewalls, which is http proxy, SOCKS4, and SOCKS5.
Some of our customers have been requesting support for Microsoft's proxy server, and feel that it's unreasonable of us to not support their environment. This results in lost sales, plain and simple. The fact that Microsoft wants to charge us $100k for this information is not relevant to these people. They just want it to work with their network.
Telling IT managers that they have to change to accomodate a piece of software is unreasonable, no matter what the underlying reasons are. THEY are the CUSTOMER. It's their money and they get to choose how to spend it.
The $100k plus r&d time to implement a new java class would have a crippling effect on our price point, and would cause a number of our customers to turn from us.
This decision has a serious trickle down effect that can't be ignored. It is not only stifling competition, but stifling development of new software and the marketplace.
a profit center.
Some insurance companies did that years ago with a billion dollar settlement against them and they used the opportunity to charge off a lot of hardware and document scanning software and the people and procedure development against it.
End result, they got lots of new toys which they used to develop in-house technology and processing and they had bugger all left to share between the poor fools who applied for their redress.
Specially since most of the process was to make the poor schmucks provide information (that's why the scanning,) that was then checked against the companies' own records. If there was a discrepancy, they got squat. Like there was a chance an outsider has access to that data.
End result, insurance companies win, their customers lose, again, and the law was flouted once again.
No surprise there either.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
This created a whole independent industry, where before, only Western Electric made most of that stuff. Today you can buy everything from a phone from a central office switch from multiple vendors, and they all interoperate properly.
The same thing happened over a decade previously with IBM. At one time, you could only buy IBM peripherals from IBM. IBM lost an antitrust case, had to disclose their interfaces six months before they shipped a product that used them. The third-party disk drive industry was born. This forced price competition in disk drives, and started the fiercely competitive disk industry that we know today.
That's what was supposed to happen with Microsoft. That's what antitrust law is supposed to do.
One option at this point is for the Justice Department to go back to the court and say "well, disclosure didn't work, we're going to have to go back to breaking up Microsoft". That's an option, probably for the next post-Bush administration.
No, the DMCA allows reverse-engineering for the purpose of interoperability. I think it would be pretty easy to claim this for a file sharing protocol. After all, music/movies will be protected by their DRM separately.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
And also the same "time" not being given to Saddam to imprison and kill children, rape women, and terrorize his own people.
A few years ago, a Scientology critic joked about hitting one of their compounds with a Tom Cruise Missle.
I believe he's still trying to get political asylum in Canada. No joke. Haven't heard much lately about the poor bugger.
You used paragraph after paragraph of irrelevant detail in an attempt to get past the fact of the case: she spilled coffee on herself.
Yeah because when a customer does something that shouldn't be dangerous and gets hurt they should be considered solely at fault. But when a corporation does something that they already know is dangerous they should never be held accountable.
Why do so many people that spout about taking responsibility for your actions never want to apply that standard to corporations?
Bush is evil because he chose the most expensive and damaging possible solution to the problem of Saddam Hussein. He justified taking this step rather than looking for a better solution because he claimed Iraq was a clear and immediate danger, about the only legal justification for an unprovoked attack. It turns out, as most critics claimed, that Iraq was not an immediate danger; and the latest news is that it is likely that Bush knew it at the time. Bush didn't qualify his statements then, didnâ(TM)t allow anyone independent to see his evidence and make an independent judgment (supposedly for national security reasons), and even now he is claiming the WMD are sure to be found. He asked us to believe his unsupported accusations, and months later, the evidence that was so clear then is not good enough to help find the WMD now.
Clinton supposedly got impeached for lying, not for what he did. Why shouldn't Bush pay the same price for lying, even if you approve of the outcome? I'd certainly say the stakes were higher in Bush's case.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
The Clinton situation was not as cut-and-dried as you make it out here. Clinton gave a clever answer to a question that may have been technically true, but gave a mistaken impression.
Bush made all sorts of claims about a link between bin Laden and Iraq, about Iraqi development of nuclear weapons, and about how Iraq was an immediate danger to the United States. None of these claims has been proven, despite 2 months of unfettered access to Iraq, and all indications are that Bush knew his claims were doubtful at the time he was making them.
I think both of these men have played fast and loose with the truth, whether or not they technically lied. Whether you approve or disapprove of the actions justified by the lies shouldn't matter; if you can't trust the word of the president, the country is in big trouble. Maybe the next action Bush justifies with lies will be something you disapprove of.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
The inspectors had 10 years. They *WERE NOT* going to find anything. They were crippled by having to play Saddams game.
I would go into various conspiracy theories about the inspectors not wanting to find WMD, but they are theories only, with no real proof.
I think that you may be right that war was the only solution to get rid of Saddam, I just don't agree that the time to do it was necessarily now. Saddam was bad, but while the world is distracted by Iraq, there are worse disasters going on in Zimbabwe and Congo. Was it really necessary to go after Saddam right now? Wasn't he being contained by sanctions and weapons inspectors? It looks like the inspectors did just as good a job as the military is now, and there are absolutely no restrictions on the current inspections.
That is the crux of the matter for me, and you can judge for yourself whether it matters. I think Bush had his priorities screwed up by going after Saddam first. His justification for going after Saddam appears to be much less compelling than he claimed. I think he was lying to influence opinion about the decision of when to go to war; and also exaggerated the necessity.
And incidentally, Iraqi refugees are going to be a lot less concerned about the destruction of Iraq than its inhabitants, and might just judge the costs of the war differently than someone who had to live through it.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
with the current administration in place the DOJ might not go after M$.
It makes more sense to dictate how I should redistribute a software (in MS case, I usually cannot at all...) than how to USE it... don't you think?
And if you read a MS EULA and then the GPL... you would probably notice that one grants you rights while one removes rights... Guess which does which...
We've always been at war with Eurasia.
It hasn't. Corporations are still overtaxed and over-regulated.
...since those who are anti-Bush are typically so because they hate the country and its people.
By what standard?
In 2000, the United States payed US corporations over $250 billion in corporate subsidies (or "welfare," as it is known if provided to individuals). Meanwhile, neither GE nor Microsoft payed *any* taxes in 1999, and very little in subsequent years.
Yes, I know that 10% of the US population payed 30% of the taxes collected; but that 10% accounted for over 40% of the income! Now, with Bush's new tax breaks, the rich pay even *less* in taxes. By casting the deciding vote, Cheney earned $80k in reduced taxes this year. That's more than 90% of the population makes in regular income!
Huh? What kind of rhetorical idiocy is this? I am definitely anti-Bush, as his imperialistic agenda has made the United States look like a lieing bully to the rest of the world. He has lied to the world, he has lied to the citizens of his own country, and he is quite likely leading the US into the worst recession since the great depression. His only redeeming quality is that he seems hell-bent on destroying the rest of the world, too.
The harm he is causing the country and the world will take years to repair. The lies he has propogated for his agenda have already destroyed US credibility. (Which lies, you ask? Most of the documents presented as "proof" of Iraq's guilt have been shown to be crude forgeries, or misrepresentation of the facts.)
Dude, face it: GW Bush is raping his own country with a large-bore artillery cleaning brush, and almost half the country is saying, "Give me more! It's not big enough!"
I love the US. We are truly a great country, with all our flaws. And I consider it my patriotic duty to question every action of the president (and the other representatives); otherwise, how can we be sure he is not squandering that greatness on evil?
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.