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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 $50k back? I'll charge half that if anyone's interested in seeing my communication protocols.
How can you suggest such a thing? There's absolutely no evidence that Microsoft isn't just as well behaved as every other American corporation, such as Enron, WorldCom, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, etc.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
They even had to set up a committee internally to make sure they didn't break the rules. Surely the DoJ wouldn't have given them such a limp-wristed settlement if it didn't believe they were honest people.
Oh hang on its only George Bush who lives in a 1950s "Wonderful Life" style world.
Is ANYONE suprised by this move ? M$ 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.
Except of course that part of their settlement for abusing their monopoly position was a court order that they open all the information on their protocols to the general public.
In a market with actual competition that would work. Unfortunately Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, which puts it out of the supply/demand argument as they supply what they want, to whom they want, under whatever terms they want, to the detriment of an open market.
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.....
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.
Yeah, I'd do the same thing if I were forced to send my engineers to visit Redmond...
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?
----
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!
why the hell would i pay $100,000 to look at freebsd code?
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
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.
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.
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!
I don't think they will ever realize that.. mostly because for the most part I am pretty sure it's not true.
And just look to the Linux distros for proof.. I don't see a lot of them that come as just an OS.. It's OS, X, gcc and friends, web browsers, pims, media players, etc etc etc. And all wrapped up in one nice little bundle that can be installed all at once.
I am guessing most normal (non-geek) users of windows do use IE, why spend the time to download when you have a browser already there.. And I think a lot of geek type may as well, since soo many web sites are designed to work with IE and look like crap in Moz.
Why go out looking for a media player if you have one that works? People new to pcs would not know about winamp unless someone told them it rocked, so why would they go looking in the first place, not to mention winamp doesn't do video..
The long and short is, if they just sold windows without IE, Outlook Express, WMP, etc etc it would be harder to justify the cost, make microsoft apps less obvious, and make it so people had to CHOOSE to get their software instead of someone elses. Why would they want to do that??
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
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