Slashdot Mirror
Massachusetts Probing Microsoft Settlement Gripes
tassii writes "In this article from Reuters, Massachusetts' DA's office told the judge in the Microsoft Anti-trust trial that it was looking into Microsoft settlement complaints. Among complaints being examined by Massachusetts was whether Microsoft had violated portions of the settlement prohibiting pacts requiring exclusive support of Microsoft software. Massachusetts was also examining whether the company had properly offered communications protocols allowing non-Microsoft software to work well with Windows." An Associated Press article covers the same story; the non-Microsoft software mentioned in both stories is Linux, but it's not clear which company's promotion of Linux is drawing the attention.
Ximian is based in Boston IIRC...
You mean there is actually someone out there trying to inforce the MS penalties?!?!?!?! I thought everyone knew they were all just a big joke and it was back to business as usually for Microsoft.
Space for rent, inquire within
Does it really surprise anyone anymore if Microsoft is breaking the law. I mean, obviously the /. population thinks MS sucks, but It always seems as though MS just says it will do things to get the government off their backs, and then not do them. I'm dissapointed, but not surprised by this development.
The anti-trust settlement...
-lacked any monetary payment by Microsoft to those that had been wronged by their greed.
-lacked any understanding about how money in Microsoft's hands means less money in other competitor's hands. Microsoft could then throw huge amounts of money into software development and the competition could not. So - this has resulted in MS having the ability to write so many more lines of code, AND the ability to buy other companies out for the code that someone else created... something that no one else could afford to do!
Instead of having a monetary settlement where every person get a few dollars/money from Microsoft (where only the class action lawyers get the money) it would be better if a revisited settlement included a payment, from Microsoft's 46 Billion dollars in cash (that billy G etc has on hand right now) a payment to be made to a trust fund controlled by Open Source Leaders (Linus, for example) where this money could be evenly spread out to projects (free and commercial software projects for Linux, Apple OS, BSD, etc) that are needed to compete with Microsoft.
This type of settlement would be fair. And a settlement like this would improve the competition to where Microsoft would really have to innovate in order to compete.
Bethanie: Whore...
Fan Whore
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
"whether the company had properly offered communications protocols allowing non-Microsoft software to work well with Windows"
Jeez, give 'em a break they're still trying to make Microsoft software to work well with Windows.
Microsoft promised to change it's brandname to Mikrosoft provided Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled in their favor.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I'm really glad they're following up on this. The penalties were hardly enough to break up a monopoly, and Microsoft gave many indications that they would pretty much ignore the whole thing.
Microsoft bought VirtualPC. They announced that the Mac version of IE would be discontinued. They've continued to offer special deals to sell Windows at little or no profit to (try to) keep Linux out of government and business.
The monopoly power Microsoft was convicted of abusing is still being used, and they are doing everything in their power to expand it.
Now it turns out that they have yet to have the slap on the wrist yet.
They're also in violation of their restraining order against me, they're not supposed to come within 100 yards the judge said. But they're righ here, on my computer. GET AWAY! GET AWAY!
This will be typical of states that are short on cash. They will be attacking compaines to get fines from them so they can get more cash for the social program shortfalls in the budget. They are already giving out more fines in states against citizens and passing more laws to squeeze us for more. To bad many ignorant fools do not understand politics and really believe that they care about Linux. Then again many idoits on /. believe central planning will save us so I should not expect much.
The tobacco money is running out and I am shure the states will try to restart that mess for some extra cash or invent a way that tobacco companies are breaking their agreement.
Source: Massachusetts Attorney General Microsoft Page
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
And needless to say, the Massachusetts Attorney General's website is running Microsoft-IIS/6.0
200 OK
Cache-Control: private
Connection: Keep-Alive
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2003 13:20:00 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
We all knew this would happen. The only question was when and if anybody noticed. Unfortunately, one of MS defences has always been ignorance. They can claim that they are so big that they don't know sometimes what each section of the company is doing. Take for example the iLoo fiasco. Cynics like me think that the negative public reaction forced them to retract their statements. Billy G has always had a firm grasp of his company. Even though publicly he isn't running the company, as the major stockholder, he would be stupid not to be in charge. MS is still doing business as usual, now they are not so blatant about it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It is not illegal to have a monopoly, and the penalties are not designed to break up the monopoly. The court already decided NOT to break up Microsoft.
Instead of having a monetary settlement where every person get a few dollars/money from Microsoft (where only the class action lawyers get the money) it would be better if a revisited settlement included a payment, from Microsoft's 46 Billion dollars in cash (that billy G etc has on hand right now) a payment to be made to a trust fund controlled by Open Source Leaders (Linus, for example)
I'm not trolling, this is a legitimate question that will crop up if such an approach were to be seriously considered. Namely, why does open source deserve that "payment" any more than anyone else that competes with Microsoft? For example, Netscape's downfall can be at least partially attributed to Microsoft's various anti-competitive practices, so aren't they just as deserving of compensation? Just food for thought.
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
...thereby replacing donotcall.gov as the hottest new website around.
Sure, a corporation can get XP on a new box from Dell. Because Dell licensed XP from Microsoft. And part of the purchase price goes to MS. But then that corporation has to pay MS for whatever license agreement that that corporation has with Microsoft. And no, the license you just purchased with the new Dell computer cannot be transfered. You have to pay for a new one. So, for one license, Microsoft gets paid twice. Now, suppose you don't upgrade the OS on that computer for 3 years (a very common practice in the business world). You'll have to renew the Microsoft license agreement and pay for that license AGAIN! For the use of ONE license, you have to pay THREE times. And that's just the OS. MS Office falls under the same practice. MS isn't interested in the home market. They don't pay each year and they take up too much time in tech support calls.
Actually, I have banking software that only works in windows (well it's more secure, what would you expect a bank to use?), it crashes 1 out 5 times I use it at a rough guess. But then that would probably be a hardware problem wouldn't it? Funny I don't have any hardware problems with the other dozen identical machines in the department that run another OS.
Actually, I have banking software that only works in windows (well it's more secure, what would you expect a bank to use?), it crashes 1 out 5 times I use it at a rough guess. But then that would probably be a hardware problem wouldn't it?
Um...I hate to tell you, but...if it's just the application that's crashing, it (a) may well be trojaned, and (b) could very well be leaving easily compromised banking information in open files and readable memory, even if it's i/o to other processes is all encrypted. I've seen some awfully insecure banking applications.
It is not necessarily more secure just because it came from a bank! Think about it! If you were a crooked programmer, now what kind of an organisation would you go to work for? A BANK! Why? Like John Dillinger said, "Because that's where the money is!"
Funny I don't have any hardware problems with the other dozen identical machines in the department that run another OS.
YAH! All the more reason to encourage the redevelopment or, if necessary, reverse engineering of that banking application to LIN^h^h^hBSD^h^h^hSOLAR^h^h^h^h^hthat er um "other OS."
AAHH-OOO! Penguins of Laingholm.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
I expect this of MS. Their typical arrogance and conception that they are above the law will eventually be their undoing, but until then we are at their mercy.
However, the final judgement entered on November 12, 2002 clearly says at the start: "AND WHEREAS, this Final Judgment does not constitute any admission by any party regarding any issue of fact or law". That is, the final judgement does not find Microsoft guilty of any so-called "unlawful conduct".
Clearly the issuer of this press release (presumably authorized by the AG) is attempting to make up their own interpretation of the Final Judgement, without regard to the actual contents of it.
Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining
In November 2002, following an appeal and several court hearings, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a judgment in the Massachusetts case prohibiting Microsoft from continuing certain unlawful conduct.
Talk about a meaningless injunction. "You broke the law! Now we have to pass another law saying you can't break the law!" Uhh.. yeah. Sure.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
"whether the company had properly offered communications protocols allowing non-Microsoft software to work well with Windows"
This is a problem. One that made me decide to switch email clients. A while back, my prof. send me my mark back in an attached file. I did not not "get the attachment". I hounded him a couple of times for the mark. He insisted that he sent it to me. He even said that my reply had the file attached. I did some investigation, and found that the attached file was there, but wasn't showing up in the user interface. On further investigation, I found that this is an issue when Outlook XP recieves attachments from Pine. Microsoft was aware of the problem and had no plans to fix it.
I have no idea why Outlook XP would recieve an attachment from Pine and not show it. It would seem like the code would almost have to be made to purposely do that. Who knows, maybe it is a bug.
A few months later, switch over to Linux entirely. I now use evolution. I never looked back.
Uh, no, it would probably be a software problem with your banking software, not the OS.
So what is your point? Did MS write the application, or are you somehow saying that the people that wrote the crashing application would magically become good programmers if they used some other OS?
Crappy and crashing software exists for all platforms. There are lots of other, real arguments to use if you want to convince people to switch. Saying something that they don't recognize, for instance telling people that Windows crashes a lot when it never does that for them will only convince them you are making the rest of your "facts" up as well.
Stick to facts, point out real things (say virus trouble), and you might win. Make things up or twist the truth, and you'll almost certainly lose.
but it's not clear which company's promotion of Linux is drawing the attention
Isn't RMS based in or near MIT?
"Uh, no, it would probably be a software problem with your banking software, not the OS."
How could I tell? It's not open source. I wish the errors where consistent, as I stated in my original post, it must be a hardware problem.
From an old fart, that sounds like what we use to call a timing error.
Set the threads off running and quite often you can get random results.
Just a guess, but I would not be at all surprised if it didn't crash on VMware.
Stick to facts, point out real things (say virus trouble), and you might win. Make things up or twist the truth, and you'll almost certainly lose./
Very dishonourable reply I must say, I question the reliability of software I have to use and you question my integrity, you cad. Unfortunately this isn't a game there no winners. Isn't the proliferation of viruses endemic to certain operating systems, and not to others? I only ask because that doesn't seem to happen on my other machines either, perhaps it's a hardware problem as stated earlier.
Section III.A. of the agreement prevents Microsoft from punishing OEMs if they promote an alternative OS. However according to the government monitor of MS's compliance (http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f201100/201135.htm ) they are allowed to delay this part of the agreement until their sales people are "trained". In other words, they are allowed to punished OEMs for promoting Linux until the training is finished.
This training has been going on for the last two years. The agreement itself only is enforced for 5 years, so only 3 more years left to string out that training....
I'm not sure that it being open source would help much, since I'm guessing by your statements that you aren't a programmer. And of course, it being a hardware problem is not precluded by having other machines that work fine.
Microsoft New England Offices: Waltham, MA
[Microsoft Waltham Facility]
Address: Microsoft Corporation, 201 Jones Road, Waltham, MA 02451
Directions
Send in state troopers and seize the site. If I were on probation and broke the conditions, I'd go to jail. Criminal corporations won't pay attention until you start treating them like criminals.
This sig is not the Zahir. Lucky for you.
Massachusetts Attorney General
This page also has a link to a complaint form where you can send your Microsoft gripes.
I don't live in Massachusetts, but I'm thinking about writing anyway. I think we should take the time to formulate a few good letters to send to the Mass. Attorney General. In particular, we can address some of the following points (of course this is an incomplete list):
- Lack of OEM support for non-Microsoft software. While there are several computer companies offering Linux pre-installed on their systems, the average consumer probably isn't aware of these companies. Even the "Linux aware" crowd has to use a little extra effort to ensure they are getting Linux-friendly systems.
- Why major computer distributors don't offer their systems without Windows at a reduced price. Unless you put forth the (extra) effort to find a Linux OEM, you probably can't get a computer without an operating system (at least from major distributors). The Massachusetts Attorney General should investigate potential strong-arming with OEMs.
- How the Microsoft monopoly perpetuates itself through vendor lock-in and closed, proprietary data formats. If enough people push hard enough, maybe the Mass. Attorney General could actually get Microsoft to publish complete, correct documentation for their data formats. (I'm starting to write letters/articles addressing this issue that I intend to send to editorials.)
I'd almost be willing to send money to support this effort. As another poster pointed out, most states' budgets are all but completely depleted, and I'm sure Massachusetts can't afford to work this too long. But if we generated some funds, or at least made our voice loud enough, we might live to see a leveled playing field.All in all, I think the fundamental problem is lack of information. The average person probably isn't aware that the Microsoft monopoly compromises his rights (and is effectively a tax on computer hardware); most folks don't understand proprietary data formats or vendor lock-in; most people don't realize the scope of Microsoft's questionable business practices...
Get the word out, get the word out, get the word out!
Sorry for sounding paranoid, but the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation announced yesterday that they are donating "$13.6 million to provide high-quality small high schools for 10,000 more students".
Not to say that this is a bad thing, but with the continuing lawsuit between MA and MS, it sure sounds like Gates is using a charitable organization to do the dirty work of the business side.
Are any computer manufacturers offering dual-boot Windows/Linux computers yet? That was supposedly the POINT of the phony Justice Dept. "settlement."
It's amazing how a group of people who claim people like Jose Padilla are having their rights violated, then turn around and support infringement on the basic rights of Bill Gates, etc. They have a right to free trade, like anyone else, without govt. imposed restrictions that make them slaves to the consumer. You're a hypocrite if you complain about the Patriot act and then support antitrust legislation. Those who would give up a little liberty to avoid monopolies deserve communism.
Vote for Pedro
If somebody is telling you it's a hardware problem, alocate yourself a 4Gb partition and load Linux -- then see if it crashes. If it keeps crashing under Linux then it probably is a hardware problem.
I actually ran into that once. Had a desktop that kept crashing and I blamed it on 'stupid windows'. Then I loaded Linux on the box, but Linux kept crashing too --- that told me that it was really a hardware problem. Turned out o be badly seated RAM.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.