Judge Examines Microsoft Settlement Progress

Infonaut writes "The judge who presided over the settlement between Microsoft and the federal government may be starting to realize what a lot of people already know about Microsoft. The settlement was predicated on the belief that competitors would be able to license technology from Microsoft in order to get some relief from Microsoft's desktop OS monopoly. As Kollar-Kelly admitted, 'I think all of us had hoped for more agreements.' Now the judge is asking federal prosecutors to examine specifically why more licensing agreements have not been reached. I'm truly shocked that the settlement isn't turning out as planned, after the Justice Department so shrewdly rolled over when they had Microsoft over a barrel."

Comments

Monopolizing the first post!

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't make any agreements to license this baby!

pardon list?

[sl0ppy]

who will be on bush's pardon list (provided he gets booted from office)?

i'm betting kenny-boy, and microsoft.

Re:pardon list?

[donutello]

I hope you're kidding because the thought of someone being so stupid that they don't understand that pardons only apply to criminals and that antitrust violations are not considered a criminal act is unfathomable to me.

Re:pardon list?

[sl0ppy]

not to mention that corporations can't be pardoned, only individuals :)

it is too bad that the CEO of the company that's been found guilty of anti-trust violations isn't somehow on the hook. they would obviously have to know what they're doing, and even if they claim ignorance, it's still at least negligence.

Re:pardon list?

[donutello]

it is too bad that the CEO of the company that's been found guilty of anti-trust violations isn't somehow on the hook. they would obviously have to know what they're doing, and even if they claim ignorance, it's still at least negligence.

That's because antitrust violations are NOT considered criminal violations. Criminal violations include theft, fraud, assault, contempt of court, etc. If a company committed one of those violations, the CEO would be held personally responsible for it.

The lawmakers expressly decided that antitrust violations are not in the same ballpark for various reasons.

Re:pardon list?

[oDDmON oUT]

Criminal violations include theft, fraud, assault, contempt of court, etc. If a company committed one of those violations, the CEO would be held personally responsible for it.

There are those who would contend M$'s assertions that windoze is a stable, secure, operating system constitute fraud.

As for theft, how about the large amounts of lost time spent patching, blue screening, recovering from patching, blue screening...?

I think we need to try and interest Jack Thompson in a class action suit.

Re:pardon list?

[hdparm]

Since you seem to know what you're talking about, I've got a question: can their behaviour (as a company) be treated as an assault, then? To me that seems the best description of Microsoft's business practices.

Not to mention assault on users by crapy software.

Re:pardon list?

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you come up with a question that stupid?

Clearly, criminal assault deals with physical attacks. Otherwise, there'd be millions of stupid court cases ranging from clothing styles ("he assaulted my sense of decency") to making people sad ("he assaulted my emotions"). Now ask yourself again, do you think the term "assault" applies to business practices?

I'm hoping you were just making a really bad joke. Otherwise, please stop posting.

Re:pardon list?

[welshsocialist]

Did you sleep through civics? The President can't grant pardons to companies (they aren't people) or to people who haven't been convicted of crimes, like Ken Lay. Article 2, Section 2 of the Consitiution says:

...and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

Re:pardon list?

[StenD]

Pardons can be granted to people before they are convicted of crimes. For example, Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon.

Re:pardon list?

[hdparm]

I wasn't making a joke, I've asked a question. By definition, assault does not necessary mean physical attack only. Verbal assault comes to mind as one of legal categories. Perhaps there are others as well.

Now read my original question again - can their behaviour (as a company) be treated as an assault, then?

If you were able to provide meaningful answer to it, I wouldn't mind you answering the question even if not being asked. I asked the person who, by the looks of it, knows something about US laws. You clearly don't. So please, shut up.

Re:pardon list?

[cicho]

So Bush can't grant pardon to Ken Lay, good. So Ken Lay has not been convicted of fraud, goo--Wait a minute! The guy who screwed up a huge corporation, got rid of his stock knowing it would tank while advising his employees to hold, the guy who nulled the pension funds of the whole Enron workforce and who inflated energy prices in CA by creating artificial scarcity where there was none - he's not about to be convicted of fraud, is he.

Re:pardon list?

[Adam_Weishaupt]

George Bush Sr Pardoned Casper Weinberger for his involvment in the Iran-Contra scandal prior to his trial or conviction.

Re:pardon list?

[donutello]

can their behaviour (as a company) be treated as an assault, then?

No. I used the word "assault" as shorthand for the technical definition of the word. The actual laws have a much more specific definition of the term essentially to imply physical assault only.

Re:pardon list?

[hdparm]

Thanks. I guess somebody would have thought of it already if that was the possibility.

Re:pardon list?

[Gary Destruction]

The 14th Ammendment made corporations natural individuals.

*gasp* no way!

[EvilStein]

Microsoft? Not allowing agreements that would let 3rd party stuff onto the desktop?

Well, paint me shocked!

At least the judge is finally starting to see what the rest of us saw years ago.

Re:*gasp* no way!

[Anonymous Coward]

The judge said it was unclear whether Microsoft's competitors were unhappy with terms of the offers or simply not interested

I'm going with the opinion that competitors just don't give a shit any more. They've played this game with Microsoft so long that it' sbetter just to move on and find the next best thing. Obviously Microsoft will be trying to find it for a while. Hopefully someone else will now have a chance.

Re:*gasp* no way!

[Anonymous Coward]

That or they are just waiting for someone else to come up with something new so they can get their grubby little thieving hands on it...oh I mean release their new thing they just invented.

Re:*gasp* no way!

[BroncoInCalifornia]

At least the judge is finally starting to see what the rest of us saw years ago.

Time to get a new judge!

Abolish copyright, and this isn't problem.

[Thinkit3]

Without copyright, Microsoft would not be the monopoly that it is. They depend on copyright for nearly everything they do.

Re:Abolish copyright, and this isn't problem.

[jared_hanson]

Seems funny. I kinda thought it was a good marketing department and a better legal department. Shit, most of the open source world spends their time coming up with alternatives that are almost exact clones of what Microsoft does. Seems like they could make a good copyright case if they really wanted to. Even if they didn't have a case, they have the money to suffocate any open source project that they set their eyes upon.

In case you have not realized, you get modded troll because you have no real opinion. Back up your retorhic with a pursuasive argument and you may finally be taken seriously. The next time I get mod points, I'm using them all to mod you down. Unless you change your ways and make a real statement. I respect your opinion, and admire it in some cases, but you make an ass out of yourself and the rest of the people who share your beliefs by being a complete fool

Re:Abolish copyright, and this isn't problem.

[dipipanone]

I kinda thought it was a good marketing department and a better legal department.

Then your understanding is as flawed as any I've seen. Umpteen judges certainly didn't seem to buy the notion that Microsoft owed it's monopoly to it's marketing skill.

Shit, most of the open source world spends their time coming up with alternatives that are almost exact clones of what Microsoft does.

Yeah, right. Like Linux, Apache, Gnome, Gimp, MySql, vi, emacs, GCC and all those other office-style products. Talk about the clueless pot calling the kettle... sheesh.

In case you have not realized, you get modded troll because you have no real opinion.

Of course he has a real opinion. You may not agree with him, but his opinion is stated clearly in his post. He disagrees with the notion of copyright and doesn't think it's a useful idea. That's a perfectly respectable opinion, whether you agree with him or not.

Back up your retorhic with a pursuasive argument and you may finally be taken seriously

Learn to spell and people might begin to assume that you're something other than a 14 year old schoolboy living in his mother's basement.

Re:Abolish copyright, and this isn't problem.

[dipipanone]

Oh, bollocks. A single misplaced tag and a perfectly elegant flame is completely fucked.

I wouldn't mind, but it happened *after* I'd previewed it.

Re:Abolish copyright, and this isn't problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that works, but I think it's better to lock Gates and Ballmer in a small room naked.

Re:Abolish copyright, and this isn't problem.

[Daengbo]

The next time I get mod points, I'm using them all to mod you down.
For a statement like this, you should be permanently banned from moderation. (Kind of like the jerk/enemy that routinely hits me with five Overrated mods on unmodded posts -- at least have some balls and don't hide from metamods) Moderation should be done on a post by post basis.

Re:Abolish copyright, and this isn't problem.

[Audacious]

My take on copyrights is:

1. That I believed that Congress was mandated not to establish kingdoms, monarchies, or any other set up where one person, group, or organization could control things for long periods of time unless it was a government run entity. 275 years is a long time. I know I will be dead, my sons dead, their sons dead, and so on for up to fifteen generations.

2. That each generation (ie: 20 years) is supposed to be given the chance to build upon the work of the previous generation without having to worry about owing the previous generation anything (like royalties). See the rules about The Patent Office for more information. Current copyright rules have destroyed this balance.

3. I am in favor of:
3a. Copyrights.
3b. Of the author being paid for their works.
3c. Of extending copyrights to the life of the author so long as the author is being paid for his/her work.
3d. Of the author being able to lease his copyrights.

4. I am not in favor of copyrights being bought or sold but that is just because I believe it muddies the water over how long a copyright should last. The person or entity who buys the copyright wants to make as much money as they can on what they paid out money for. As such, they have a vested interest in extending the copyright.

5. I am also in favor of having a group of small businesses get together,reviewing, and rewriting the copyright laws from the standpoint of those who are most affected by the changes in the DMCA. It would be interesting to have non-multibillion dollar companies present their views on what Congress did.

As as side note: I have heard (and someone please correct me if I am wrong) that one of the reasons for the extension was because people were living longer. My rebuttal to this is that whomever said this was not lying but they were not speaking the truth either. That is because the length of time people are living to be is still the same but the number of people living to that age is increasing. So the number is only increasing because there are more people living in the world and not because they are living a greater number of years.

To back the above up I refer people to Plato's "The Republic". In the section on when should men and women be allowed to procreate, Socrates replies that men between the ages of 25 and 55 may have children and women between 20 and 40. Now, ask yourself - if men lived to be 55 (and older) centuries before Christ came along, how can someone say we are living longer in terms of years?

Re:Abolish copyright, and this isn't problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

i'll bet they already do that ALL the time, it wouldn't be *punishment* would it?

Re:Abolish copyright, and this isn't problem.

[jared_hanson]

Even in the presence of messed up italic tags, I can understand what you mean.

I kinda thought it was a good marketing department and a better legal department.

Then your understanding is as flawed as any I've seen. Umpteen judges certainly didn't seem to buy the notion that Microsoft owed it's monopoly to it's marketing skill.

No, they didn't understand marketing at all, but they did understand their legal department which I said was better. In any case, the guy I was replying was against copyright, and that is perfectly legal so their is no misunderstanding in the courtroom about that. The case was monopolistic practices of forcing their OS and software onto computers or none at all, plus some other side issues such as pricing, etc. I hate Microsoft as much as anyone. My understanding of the case is most certainly not flawed.

Shit, most of the open source world spends their time coming up with alternatives that are almost exact clones of what Microsoft does.

Yeah, right. Like Linux, Apache, Gnome, Gimp, MySql, vi, emacs, GCC and all those other office-style products. Talk about the clueless pot calling the kettle... sheesh.

OK, most is probably exagerated. I'm the biggest fan of open source you will ever find. I've quit using Microsoft completely. Gnome is, however, an attempt to come up with a decent desktop environment. This is needed to compete with microsoft. The interface is different, of course. My point is open source is trying to rectify its average user inadequacies that microsft has had for over seven years. It is we how are behind in this. vi, emacs, and gcc are not office-style products, period. Geeks can use geek products, end users cant. You're mom would die trying to use vi, unless she has some sort of technical degree. OOo is an office style product, again trying to come up with an alternative to MS. Linux, Apache, MySQL, all beat hands down MS's products. Open source and unix are far supierior in the server room. They are not easy enough for the front office though.

In case you have not realized, you get modded troll because you have no real opinion.

Of course he has a real opinion. You may not agree with him, but his opinion is stated clearly in his post. He disagrees with the notion of copyright and doesn't think it's a useful idea. That's a perfectly respectable opinion, whether you agree with him or not.

You are right here. He has a strong opinion. I see it as more akin to a religion, however. He has no (or at least presents no) real ground on which to base his opinion. He mindlessly just states what he thinks, real drone-like. Go back and look at his post history. One or two sentances, copyright = bad, no justification. To me, if someone is going to have an opinion, they better be able to justify it. You can go to my post history to see my justifactions against this guy. I've asked him to justify his position, but he hasn't, and I beleive he is incabable of doing so.

Back up your retorhic with a pursuasive argument and you may finally be taken seriously

Learn to spell and people might begin to assume that you're something other than a 14 year old schoolboy living in his mother's basement.

Jeez, man, that is harsh. Check out the time on that post. I just got back from having a fun night out, and my spelling is no good in the first place, and the night's activities certainly didn't help.

I'm sure you can find errors in this post. If you like to use spelling to discredit logical arguments, that's fine with me. I judge them on the actual statements, however. This is Slashdot, you should be used to the misspellings by now. If I were typing a formal report, I'd try harder on the spelling issue, with the help of a spell checker. Here, I just don't care enough. (I will always get my tags right though).

Re:Abolish copyright, and this isn't problem.

[jared_hanson]

I agree with you here. I'm not actually going to blow them all on this guy. There are people who can justify their position who need to be modded up. However, evaluating on a post by post basis, this guys posts come up trollish a good portion of the time. If I find they lack the appropriate moderation, I will waste no time doing the job myself.

Re:Abolish copyright, and this isn't problem.

[Daengbo]

If the posts are trolls, please mod them so.

Re:Abolish copyright, and this isn't problem.

[yourmom16]

5. I am also in favor of having a group of small businesses get together,reviewing, and rewriting the copyright laws from the standpoint of those who are most affected by the changes in the DMCA.

Letting corporations write the laws is why things are so screwed up. The cause of the problem is rarely, if ever, the solution.

I have heard (and someone please correct me if I am wrong) that one of the reasons for the extension was because people were living longer.

Many people of that era lived longer than 28 years. Nobody today lives longer than life + 90 years(by definition). Whoever said that was an idiot.

Re:Abolish copyright, and this isn't problem.

[Audacious]

Yes, that is why I said small buisnesses. As an example I recall something about Winnie the Pooh and Epcot Center. Both from the same company who applied extreme pressure to have the government to pass this law. My suggestion is to allow small businesses who would otherwise not have to pay royalties to these companies to produce Mickey Mouse T-Shirts, Donald Duck T-Shirts, cups, mugs, hats, pants, and the like sit and create the laws. Because then they would not only be considering their own needs but the needs of those who can not pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars just to make something to sell.

You see, the copyrights are monopolies and monopolies are an aberration to how the U.S. is set up to run. That is why they were severely limited in the first place. So succeeding generations would not owe, in coin, their predecessors. But they would have to acknowledge them. Now, we are slaves. Shackled by invisible bonds which make us all criminals if we even sing the "Happy Birthday" song. We are sinking into the haves and have-nots with the haves gaining more power faster than the have-nots can ever hope to overcome. That is wrong. We do our best when everyone can build upon what went before without fear of reprisal.

As for the "living longer" - just type in '+copyright +"people living longer"' and you will be amazed at the results.

Gotta run!

What was the judge thinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can Bush actually pardon MS for its crimes if Bush gets booted?

Re:What was the judge thinking?

[ScrewMaster]

I don't know ... CAN a President pardon a corporation? I know the law maintains this fiction that a corporation is a legal "entity" for certain purposes but I'm not sure that that entity can be pardoned. But maybe it can. Any lawyers out there that can answer this question?

Re:What was the judge thinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone subject to conviction under law can be pardened. even if the person is a corperation. they have done simulart thing in the past by limiting liability in some cases of wrong doing too.

moreso they can pardon thie ceos and emplotyies efectivly leaving nothing to prosecute. but bush wouldn't allow that kind of political pressure ruin the republicans. clinton got away with it because there was already a shadow of conspiracy surounding him and the general public would believe the the "another rite wing conspiracy" stuff they efectivle pulled over everything else that should have shocked the shit oput of everyone.

Re:What was the judge thinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heard of a spell check?

Re:What was the judge thinking?

[camperslo]

Pardon? He'll take credit for MS, citing that it was all part of the plan to distribute those "security weaknesses", put in to aid intelligence gathering in the fight of terrorism.

What are the odds we'll be shipping Diebold boxes to Iraq for those elections? He did promise elections...

the 9 heavy-hitters, including .....

[slavitos]

isn't funny they're listing SCO as a "heavy-hitter"?

Re:the 9 heavy-hitters, including .....

[Gary Destruction]

Yeah, it's very funny. Funny as in suspicious. Sounds to me like there's a conspiracy between Microsoft and SCO to shut down open source. Microsoft has already declared Linux its number one threat. The timing of the SCO trial was perfect for Microsoft.

Must be working SCO took out a license

[bstadil]

Four of the "Major" companies that MS mentioned as proof the settlement is working is our favorite SCO.

Other world players is Tandberg of Norway and Laplink.

Go here for an assessment by a thoroughly pissed of Lawyer that has covered this debacle from the get go.

Re:Must be working SCO took out a license

[beacher]

Microsoft scratched SCO's back - SCO is just scratching back. It's pretty odd that SCO would license Microsoft's protocols and them and then incorporate Samba3 into SCOServer. That whole "we respect IP" crap isn't flying
I don't think it's fair that they're counting this puppet when trying to go after the puppet master.
-B

Re:Must be working SCO took out a license

[spectecjr]

Go here for an assessment by a thoroughly pissed of Lawyer that has covered this debacle from the get go.

Note, that that's a thoroughly pissed off kook (he's a lawyer as a hobby), who has been banned from every bulletin board he tried to post on after pissing off the moderators, and eventually had to set up his own website to peddle his bullshit because no-one would put up with it any more.

Lewis A. Mettler, Esq. (in Bullshit) please take a bow. What was the last one he was banned from? ZDNet? MSNBC? OSOpinion? CNET?

Re:Must be working SCO took out a license

[bstadil]

Didn't know this,

Thanks

not very likely

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not expecting much other than lip service so long as the current administration is in place. Let's face it, Asscroft and company haven't exactly been busting a nut when it comes to M$.

.."offering to license its software technology"

[burgburgburg]

"He argued that Microsoft was complying with the antitrust settlement by offering to license its software technology even if few companies sign such deals."

As much as I dislike having to do this, I have to agree. Microsoft is right here. After all, it's not their fault if the selected President* told his people to give a brisk slap on the wrist to Microsoft after the previously administration had won the case in court and had them bound, bent over and greased up. It's not Microsoft's fault if the lawyers left who actually wanted to try and salvage some sort of basic human dignity from this whole sordid affair didn't watch those movies where someone makes a deal with Satan and leaves out that one little clause that eventually leaves them in a pile of feces. You give an Evil Civil Judgement Decided Monopolist an inch, they HAVE to take a mile and your wallet and laugh while they're doing it.

If I was Microsoft, I'd get out the Icy Hot or Tiger Balm to deal with those sore, sore wrists.

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[mcc]

Microsoft is right here. After all, it's not their fault if the selected President* told his people to give a brisk slap on the wrist to Microsoft after the previously administration had won the case in court and had them bound, bent over and greased up.

And who selected the president?

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[Brandybuck]

Would it have made any difference if Gore had been "selected"? Remember, even though the Clinton administration had Microsoft "over the barrel", it was during that same administration that Microsoft became a monopoly.

From your link: "According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Microsoft has contributed $1.1 million dollars in soft money to both major political parties this cycle -- $529,000 to the Democrats, and $607,000 to Republicans."

The Republicans got more, but not much more, than the Democrats.

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[phantomlord]

After all, it's not their fault if the selected President*

You lost all credibility as soon as you said that. Anything after this point that you say doesn't really matter since you can't deal with the reality of who's in office just because you don't like him. If you want to argue a point, stick to the facts and don't go off on tangents that make people dislike what you're going to say. Is getting bonus points for snide comments with your friends more important than getting your ideas heard?

The Bush administration may have changed the DOJ's perspective on the case, but ultimately, it's up to the judge, not the DOJ, to determine what the actual penalty would be, regardless of the DOJ's opinion

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republicans got more, but not much more, than the Democrats.

They need to contribute to both parties:

They give money to the Republicans when they want to avoid the effects of any laws which might inconveniently impede the execution of their business plans.

They give money to the Democrats when they want draconian new laws to punish those individuals who would violate their IP.

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[Anonymous Coward]

You lost all credibility as soon as you said that

And you lost all credibility as soon as you dismissed all of the poster's points because of his personal politics. Even if he chose to insult my mother personally I would still give his viewpoint due consideration. If you cannot seperate the wheat from the chaff then you are acting irrationally. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day and other cliches and whatnot.

Of course certain partisan and bastardly individuals cannot deal with the free exchange of ideas mixed with opinion that differs from those aforementioned people's own. I pity these folks.

Also before anyone starts with the "hypocritical" bitching and such I am well aware of that aspect of my own dismissal of the parent.

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[phantomlord]

You don't win an argument by alienating a third of your audience before setting forth your views. Reality says that under the election system in the US, GWB won - period. The recounts after the election proved it regardless of how you counted the votes and there were plenty of unpersued irregularities in states other than Florida working in Gore's favor. Reality says GWB won... accept it and move on. Refusing to admit it simply shows that reality doesn't matter and thus, anything the poster says probably doesn't matter. That broken clock might be right for 2 minutes a day, but it's wrong for the other 1438, so I might as well ignore it.

If you want MS punished as badly as I think they deserve to be, let that be the opening premise of your argument, not a whine about how the 2000 election wasn't "fair" because your guy didn't win. Guess what, barring something majorly negative happening in the next year, GWB is gonna McGovern/Dukakis Dean next year and he'll be elected to a second term. Who's in the White House after MS was already convicted doesn't affect the presiding judge's decision on punishment one iota. Perhaps if Judge Jackson kept his mouth shut instead of blathering about how evil "the man", er MS, is, we'd have an outcome we'd like. Stop blaming the "man", er GWB, and actually do something instead of whining. It's hard for your argument to stand on it's own when you have to tear everyone else down to try make it look taller.

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[IM6100]

Almost exactly 50% of the voting public 'selected' the president.

It's plain fact that if Algore had been able to get the 'favorite son' vote, or nearly any other additional state to carry for him, that he'd be president now. But he couldn't even get the Tennessee voters, those who puportedly should know a LOT about him, to vote for him. So he lost the election.

(get over it, foad, etc. etc.)

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[cicho]

it was during that same administration that Microsoft became a monopoly.

Well, the way these things happen, you can't reallyudismantle a monopoly before a company becomes one, can you? IOW, it has to happen after the fact.

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[cicho]

Refusing to admit it simply shows that reality doesn't matter

Bogus. What you're saying is that just because something has been accomplished, everyone needs to toe the line and accept that. So if a military coup removes a democratically elected leader and takes over a country - as has happened many times in history - that's your "reality" and that's OK, right?

The "reality" is that the Supreme Court picked your president. Whether they did right or wrong is one thing (surely the fact that Clarence Thomas's wife was at the time working for the Bush election committee had nothing to do with *his* vote; the fact that while SC's rulings set precedents and are binding, but this time the court added a disclaimer saying that the ruling applies to that one case only - doesn't make you wonder at all, does it?), but to say that everyone should shut up and accept the "reality" is inexcusable.

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[DotNetGuru]

The Bush administration may have changed the DOJ's perspective on the case, but ultimately, it's up to the judge, not the DOJ, to determine what the actual penalty would be, regardless of the DOJ's opinion

Even this is debatable. It's easy to forget the finer points of the long legal battle, but Microsoft has been involved in negotiations with the Department of Justice many times before Bush was in office. A great book that covers this is World War 3.0 (unfortunately I read the original, not this newly updated copy).

Anyway, to make a long story short, there was a point when Microsoft had made an agreement with the Clinton administration. It was the STATES that blocked it; and of course it was the states that didn't sign on to the final agreement.

So while everyone constantly moans about Bush settling with Microsoft it was really the case that the states steadfastly refused to do so (and it remains that way to this day). So that change on perspective was at most "fuck the other states" rather than "fuck prosecuting Microsoft."

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, I get sick of idiotic comments like this.

Algore

But he couldn't even get the Tennessee voters, those who puportedly should know a LOT about him, to vote for him. So he lost the election.

(get over it, foad, etc. etc.)


Looky there, ain't that cute? A little Freeper parrot.

VERY FEW of our lazy-assed citizens know (what I would consider) "a LOT" about ANY of our candidates or elected officials. Why d'ya think so many people fell for the varied "Gore's a Liar" bullscheisse, huh? Hey, during the campaign, Bush lied profusely... far more than Gore. But the "Librul Media" made sure nobody knew, unless they actually did some work themselves.

It's impossible to "get over it" if you love the country -- both informed, serious Liberals and REAL Conservatives, as opposed to these fake-ass "Conservative" sheep who bend over for these greedy, criminal corporate bastards.

Many failed America in 2000.

Our media, both political parties.
The courts, too; plus half of the voting public itself and those who could vote but didn't (by remaining ignorant, voting for the candidate who set off my BS detector like none before [and has proved it accurate], and allowing the shady Florida crap to take place without serious protest).

Stupid Anti-american, you don't deserve the freedoms we still have. Move to Iraq if you want to be told what to do by Dick 'n' Bush.

SncrlyYrs,
A Real Patriotic Regular American Dude.

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[phantomlord]

Again, the SCOTUS ruling was that Florida had to recount all of the votes or none of the votes. They couldn't have a selective recount without violating the equal protection rights of those in other counties. They also admonished the Florida Supreme Court, who's own Chief Justice came right out and said that it was purely a political decision since they were all democrats, for making a decision they didn't have the right to make (ie, changing the standard of a vote in the middle of the game and allowing a selective recount). Basically, the clock ran out on Florida because the other counties hadn't started a recount since they weren't ordered to by the Florida Supreme Court and wouldn't have had time to.

What Al Gore did was attempt a coup by judiciary. His political agenda and wanting the office his daddy told him he was destined for was more important to him than whether or not he was trying to eroding the judicial system, which he swore to protect and defend, like his former boss did. Had Gore actually won on a recount of only selective counties which favored him, HE would have been selected by judicial fiat and we would have seen the first ever successful coup since our founding

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[Edward Teach]

Hmm, you tell me. 2000 Election Map

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks to me like more of the popular vote voted for Gore, but hey, that's just numbers representing people, right?

Re:.."offering to license its software technology"

[IM6100]

You sound like a real zealot. You even know the buzzwords to throw around. I don't hang out at freerepublic.com I think they're just as zealous and angst-ridden as you are.

It's pretty humorous to see you speaking for 'REAL conservatives.' Why don't you wander back to your liberal blog and sing in the choir?

Polticians are almost without exception lying SOBs. But you deny this, claiming that YOUR candiate is a fine man. That's really a laugh.

The best thing that can happen is what SOME of the politicians occasionally try to do: put themselves out of business by cutting off government's air supply (by instituting significant tax cuts).

From the article

[donutello]

The judge said it was unclear whether Microsoft's competitors were unhappy with terms of the offers or simply not interested, "and there's not much we can do about that."

Doesn't sound like the judge is "starting to realize" anything. Next time try reading the article before posting a summary.

Re:From the article

[56ker]

"Next time try reading the article" - you do realise this is /. right?

Re:From the article

[ndavidg]

"...were unhappy with terms of the offers or simply not interested..."

It does seem like a realization that a faulty assumption was made: that Microsoft is a great company because of its innovative technology, and that other companies would have a better chance of competing if they licensed this technology.

The truth is, the quality of much of Microsoft's software is poor, especially considering the price you pay, and Microsoft's most innovative products -- such as Microsoft Project Web Access or the editing/review features in Microsoft Word -- were licensed from other companies by Microsoft. What they could not license, they stole. And if they stole it, but were in danger of getting sued, they just bought the company they stole the technology from. (Apple, for example). Go figure.

The only way to compete with Microsoft is to offer a better product, which is not hard to do, and would cost less to develop independently of the giant. But even with the better product, you still have Microsoft's huge Marketing machine to contend with. This Marketing machine is what allows shotty software and shotty products to make it to a production environment at a high cost.

Re:From the article

[chgros]

And if they stole it, but were in danger of getting sued, they just bought the company they stole the technology from. (Apple, for example)
Microsoft bought Apple? That's new!

Re:From the article

[ndavidg]

They own 25%, last I heard.

Re:From the article

[ndavidg]

http://www.channel4000.com/news/stories/news-97080 6-102917.html

Re:From the article

[ndavidg]

Sorry, that link was bad. Here is the good link to the news archiving explaining that Microsoft and Apple put their "differences" behind them:

Clicka here for article!

Re:From the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you been corrected on this repeatedly?

Re:From the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't sound like the judge is "starting to realize" anything.

He's starting to realise that things are unclear. Next time, try angaging your brain before posting.

Re:From the article

[TheHornedOne]

Again, this misconception, that Microsoft bought Apple. No, they didn't - they bought 150 million worth of AAPL shares but even then, Apple had net worth of over 4 billion dollars. As you can see, they were not in danger of being bought out. Also, Microsoft has liquidated those shares (at a tidy profit mind you), so Apple is completely un-tainted by it now. In fact, in case you haven't been following Slashdot recently, they're competing with Microsoft again.

Re:From the article

[Myxorg]

Yeah I remember when Microsoft bought Apple, funny how nobody realizes Microsoft owns Apple outright. ps Idiot

Re:From the article

[r7]

The judge said it was unclear

The case is clear to anyone without a bias. Kollar-Kotelly is only attempting to spin the fact that justice in the US can be bought (If you have enough money, and there's a Republican administration).

MS' anti-competitive actions have not changed, and will not change until we elect an honest and ethical president. New technologies which do not benefit MS will continue to be supressed, the economy will not improve, the deficit will continue to grow, viruses will continue to get worse, and consumers will have fewer real choices as long as the current DOJ remains in office.

The root of the problem is corporate America's (RIAA, MPAA, Clear Channel, big oil, MS, et al) control of campaign finance. Let them watch (corporate) TV, read (corporate) newspapers, and eat (MS) cake!

r7

Re:From the article

[GreyWolf3000]

The case is clear to anyone without a bias. Kollar-Kotelly is only attempting to spin the fact that justice in the US can be bought (If you have enough money, and there's a Republican administration).

Please. You may agree with Democratic politics, and dislike Republicans, but that doesn't mean Democrats are some sort of beacon of light in a corrupt world controlled by suits.

This is why I hate partisan politics. It makes people think all the problems we have are cause by The Other Side (TM), rather than both sides being equally foobared.

Corporations are a good thing. They provide plenty of jobs and stimulate progress on all fronts. The problem comes when corporations get big enough to screw people, in which case the Republican solution is to give them tax cuts, and the Democrat solution is to tax them so high they have to pack their bags and move their plants to Mexico, India, and China. And then Democrats have the balls to say "look how evil they are! They're moving away from the US, firing Americans, and hiring children."

It's time consumers got their minds off of autopilot and excersized their right to demonstrate and boycott corporations that screw the little guys, 'cause if you tell the Government to do it, you're giving an already overgrown, mutated mouse a very large, tasty cookie...

Microsoft will be beaten by people not buying Microsoft products, not convincing others that they should do the same; not imposing your values on the rest of America.

Re:From the article

[GreyWolf3000]

Correction,

Microsoft will be beaten by people not buying Microsoft products, and convincing others that they should do the same; not imposing your values on the rest of America through legislating through the Judicial branch.

Re:From the article

[HiThere]

While I do agree that the Republicans are more blatant about being bought, don't think that the Democrats are innocent. With the current campaign laws, anyone who can't be bought either represents a small number of people from a homogenous district (e.g., a senator from Vermont) or is out of office.

Re:From the article

[r7]

> Please. You may agree with Democratic politics

Democrat or not, you don't seem to understand the reasons we have anti-trust laws in the first place. These are the same reasons we need campaign finance reform i.e, because justice can be bought. Just like MS bought RAV, and fired its Unix developers, they have enough money to do the same with your favorite non-MS software too.

Only one party can claim that a majority of its members support anti-trust enforcement and campaign finance reform. That party is not the Republican party.

> Corporations are a good thing.

Corporations are neither good nor bad, they can be either depending on their behavior. Enron, Worldcom, et al are all corporations. These are not "a good thing" in my book, nor were they good to all the millions of investors who lost their retirement when their fraud and corruption reached critical mass.

>It's time consumers got their minds off of autopilot and excersized their right to demonstrate and boycott

Nice thought but free markets don't work like that. You can only boycott what you're not forced to buy. If you want to run Project, for example, you have to buy it from MS. Why? Because MS bought the company, effectively removing your ability to boycott.

> Microsoft will be beaten by people not buying Microsoft products

Nice try but no cookie. Anyone who has taken economics 101 knows better.. As long as corrupt justices like Kollar-Kotelly will sell out to the highest bidder (aka campaign financer) there's really not much people can do except vote Democrat.

r7

Re:From the article

[GreyWolf3000]

Democrat or not, you don't seem to understand the reasons we have anti-trust laws in the first place. These are the same reasons we need campaign finance reform i.e, because justice can be bought. Just like MS bought RAV, and fired its Unix developers, they have enough money to do the same with your favorite non-MS software too.

I don't seem to understand the...no I do. We actually have the Sherman Anti-trust law to prevent unions from becoming too powerful, not corporations, if you read your history books.

I agree that corporations can get too powerful, but that's exactly why you need to either a) innovate a way around it (Linux), or b) live without the product. If it is the case that the corporation commits criminal offences, or has just become too large to stop, then yes, I do believe invoking the Sherman Act is in order. My point was not that anti-trust acts are a bad thing, only that your sny comment about the Republicans (while they are evil) is only a small part of the truth. The whole paradigm is set up to give the Federal Government no control. Both parties offer Federal control as a solution to the mistakes The Other Side made.

Only one party can claim that a majority of its members support anti-trust enforcement and campaign finance reform. That party is not the Republican party.

That's a lame argument. Many parties support anti-trust enforcement, the debate is over "to what extent." When you fail to include that fact, you come across like Democrats are the shining beacon of Goodness and Light in an America ruled by corporations. Guess what, we have more votes! We also have a free press which means the we have alternatives to corporate and government bought lies! We also have public education and libraries, and with a quick mixture of common sense, information, and a willingness to think for ourselvses, we could solve these problems ourselves. If we could just care...

Corporations are neither good nor bad, they can be either depending on their behavior. Enron, Worldcom, et al are all corporations. These are not "a good thing" in my book, nor were they good to all the millions of investors who lost their retirement when their fraud and corruption reached critical mass.

Historically speaking, corporations provide many, many magnitudes more jobs than they destroy. I also pointed out (above, not originally) that at some point, corporations can/will start getting evil. I believe that if an educated masses can't stop it, and they're not breaking any greater law, Anti-Trust Act should be enforced.

Corruption is the product of human nature, corruption that lasts is the product of human negligence and indifference. We have become both, so try and change that, and you'll see some better elected officials :)

Nice thought but free markets don't work like that. You can only boycott what you're not forced to buy. If you want to run Project, for example, you have to buy it from MS. Why? Because MS bought the company, effectively removing your ability to boycott.

Some are good, some are bad. I believe that most are good, and only few are bad. Democrats believe that most of them are bad, or at least bash corporations as a whole without looking at the overwhelming good most do provide. Republicans make the mistake of rarely believing that corporations ever are bad (they really only give up in the case of criminal activity as in the case of Enron).

Look, here's my point. We have to follow a procedure here. First: find an alternative. If there is no suitable alternative, make one. If you can't make one or are just unwilling to, at least consider and move on. Then, you try and learn to live without it. If you can't try to find people that also can't live without it, but want to change it, and help them spread the word. If it's ultimately impossible, then the Sherman Act is in order :)

One of my many criticismn of the Democrats is their tendency to "jump the gun"

Re:From the article

[ndavidg]

Perhaps Apple is not the best example. They did buy into apple, and I did post a link previously to an article showing how they settled by investing into Apple.

But this is not the point. The point is that it is apparent that a faulty assumption was made.

MS is terrible for competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Is WINE an excellent bridge for running Windows apps on Linux/x86? If this is true I can switch to Linux without having to keep a Windows partition.

Re:MS is terrible for competition

[Anonymous Coward]

WINE is not an emulator but a layer that provides Windoze functionality on X/Linux with all the win32 API or most. It is very good and a ton of people working on it. God bless them all. www.winehq.org

Re:MS is terrible for competition

[October_30th]

How come I can't get anything useful to work on it?

And I'm not talking about games. I'm talking about programs such as Origin, MS Office and Matlab I use at work.

Re:MS is terrible for competition

[Penguinshit]

http://www.codeweavers.com

That's all you need.

Re:MS is terrible for competition

[October_30th]

So you'd propose that I pay for an emulator that might or might not run these programs instead of paying for the original that will definitely run them?

Re:MS is terrible for competition

[dipipanone]

Only if the emulator meets your needs. It would be a bit stupid otherwise, wouldn't it?

FWIW, you can find out whether it will run the programs you want by checking the website before you buy, running a demo, etc.

HTH.

Re:/. 503 Errors?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm on my laptop, which is running XP, so I'm not sure what the actual code was. I just got the beautiful, yet generic, "Page Cannot Be Displayed" page.

I had it for about 20 minutes or so... hacked again, maybe?

Uhh...

[Zenikase]

May I ask what kind of technologies is Microsoft offering to other companies? All I can think of is .NET

The judge said it was unclear whether Microsoft's competitors were unhappy with terms of the offers or simply not interested, "and there's not much we can do about that."

It was probably a combination of both. Realistically, unless the company is designing software directly aimed at home and office desktop users, they probably won't find all the licensing hassles with Microsoft to be worth the trouble. Also, that bit about SCO licensing technologies from MS made for a hearty chuckle.

Re:Uhh...

[spectecjr]

May I ask what kind of technologies is Microsoft offering to other companies? All I can think of is .NET

Doesn't really matter; all of the Silicon Valley guys have a massive "Not Invented Here" complex anyway.

Re:Uhh...

[twiddlingbits]

Hmm...was the deal between SCO and M$ that M$ pays SCO for some licenses IF SCO turns around and buys an M$ license with part of that money? Why the heck would SCO NEED a Windows code license if they really seriously think they DO own Linux? All that sale does is pump up SCO's stock for the sale of a license which has no value until the legal actions are settled. Then SCO gives back some of M$ "license" money to get something they really don't need. This is very similar to a kickback, IMHO it is a poorly disguised kickback. Kickbacks are illegal. The appearances of collusion between Bill and Daryl keeps on getting stronger.

Ignorance

[Knunov]

"Never attribute to maliciousness that which can be explained by stupidity." - Twain

The main problem is out judicial system is not setup to deal adequately with technology lawsuits. We have lawyers with barely a clue trying to explain to judges with practically no clue what the technology does nor what the ramifications are.

The idea of 3 more years of school might turn you off, but for the out-of-work CompSci degree holders, law school might be a great choice. The world needs lawyers who intimately understand technology to be able to try these cases, and those lawyers need to go on to become the judges who preside over such cases. Without such people in the legal system, we will keep seeing ridiculous judgements.

Knunov

Re:Ignorance

[abertoll]

No kidding! Even if judges were computer gurus, the whole legal system is WAY too slow for the fast pace of technology. Things can be too far gone for real justice by the time it even goes to court!

Re:Ignorance

[thogard]

It was no different than most of the issues involving standard oil which were very complex compared to anything most judges at the time had ever delt with and that was the 1st big one. At least when it was broken up, its parts were forced to compete with each other. Even most /.ers don't even support breaking up MS the same way Standard oil was chopped up. Remember IBM and NCR before them have been involved with this sort of thing.

Re:Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Napoleon said that, and it was:

"Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

Re:Ignorance

[mOdQuArK!]

The idea of 3 more years of school might turn you off, but for the out-of-work CompSci degree holders, law school might be a great choice. The world needs lawyers who intimately understand technology to be able to try these cases, and those lawyers need to go on to become the judges who preside over such cases. Without such people in the legal system, we will keep seeing ridiculous judgements.

Ack--no! The last thing we need in the U.S. is _more_ lawyers.

What we really need in the U.S. is to _decrease_ the demand for lawyers, by greatly simplifying the legal system toward "common sense" (and then making it really hard for the legislators to add back complexity).

Fat chance of that happening, as long as most of the people in charge are lawyers, however.

Re:Ignorance

[HiThere]

And I have a nice bridge to sell you...

That explanation was "sort-of" ok twenty years ago. Not anymore. There's too much history since then.

Re:Ignorance

[HiThere]

I believe that what he said was "adequately explained", which this fails.

OTOH, I don't think that ignorance works as an explanation either. Or stupidity. That pretty much leaves malice in some form. To me "bending to political pressures" seems the most likely, but the evidence is not definite enough to be certain, or even to say "it's highly probable that...." for any one explanation. They all fall below a 30% likelihood estimate. But the cluster of "most probable" doesn't lead me to expect any innocent explanation.

Re:Ignorance

[canadian_right]

Juidges are generally very bright people, and I think some tech people hold themselves in too high regard. The basic concepts required to apply the law to something like the MS anti-trust case just are not that difficult to understand. Judges are quite use to both sides presenting "facts" that support their side and sorting out the truth.

Most court cases with what seem to be wierd outcomes are not due to stupid judges, but to stupid laws.

Re:Ignorance

[MadScie]

I thought that one was Ockham's Razor. I didn't know Twain said that. Thanks.

Re:Ignorance

[UserGoogol]

That is not a quote by Twain, (or Napoleon, while we're at it) it's "Hanlon's Razor" which is usually attributed to "Anonymous," although the Jargon File suspects Heinlein might've had something to do with it.

Although Hanlon's Razor goes "Never attribute to malice..." which means roughly the same thing.

Re:/. 503 Errors?

[Anonymous Coward]

ditto, here, although it was down for more like 2 hours for me.

Re:/. 503 Errors?

[DAldredge]

Firebird 0.7 was just showing a blank page if I tried to open /. from history.

If I typed in slashdot.org in the location bar, the screen would flash for a second, but nothing would happen. The site I had been on was still loaded.

I had to use a perl script to get the error code.

Judge's Name Misspelled

[powera]

It is Kollar-Kotelly, not Kollar-Kelly.

Re:Judge's Name Misspelled

[wrmrxxx]

Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, otherwise known as (thanks to The Register):

Judge Konsonant-Kollection

Re:Judge's Name Misspelled

[pyros]

Judge Konsonant-Kollection

she's a KDE app? who knew?

Justice delayed is Justice denied.

[Anonymous Coward]

It can be just that alot of people have realized that it's not worth it. Microsoft will either make it difficult for your software to operate properly; especially if it directly competes with something from them or they'll simply try to screw you in some other area. IE, higher mark up fee for X software. It's simply not worth the headache and trouble for any business especially a startup business. Sure, Microsoft is a convicted monopoly with zero punishment, so they continue to act like a monopoly. If there is no punishment, even if a crime is committed; a monopoly will continue to do so.. heh you'd think a Federal Judge would understand that. For all those that are going to respond with a monopoly isn't illegal. Be sure you understand that a natural monopoly isn't illegal, a monopoly gained from unfair practices is, however illegal. I just don't understand how one company can be convicted of illegal monopolistic practices in an industry that garners them billions upon billions and are let go with; heh, please don't do it again, and oh yeah you can be on the board of persons who makes sure you operate justly and fairly.

This country, America is a bunch of bullshit.

Re:Justice delayed is Justice denied.

[Bob9113]

I just don't understand how one company can be convicted of illegal monopolistic practices in an industry that garners them billions upon billions and are let go with; heh, please don't do it again, and oh yeah you can be on the board of persons who makes sure you operate justly and fairly.

This really cuts to the core of the problem. The anti-trust law remediation policy says (roughly) "the cure should be the minimum necessary to restore competitiveness - there should be no punishment for past acts, only corrective measures." The courts take this to mean (at the behest of defending council) that the violation should be spelled out, and the company should be instructed not to do so again.

We long ago realized that this does not work with people who break the law. People who break the law are punished, because we recognize that there must be a deterrent to bad behaviour. Not because people want to be bad, or because we want vengeance, but because if there is no downside to being bad, they won't think in terms of the consequences of their actions. And this despite the genetic imperative to be moral that exists in people (social groups are more likely to survive to breeding age than anti-social groups, thus social people are more likely to exist).

There is no such genetic imperative in business. Business schools actively promote amorality - not because it is "good", but because a business should not be in the business of deciding what is moral, it should be in the business of deciding what is profitable. It is assumed that what customers choose to purchase is a reflection of what society wants.

This is in direct contradiction to the anti-trust standards. If customers cannot make a free choice of what to buy, then they cannot enforce the will of society through the power of the pocketbook.

In summary then:

The courts will not punish abusive monopolies (it is not in their mandate - they are only supposed to take corrective steps).

Society can not punish abusive monopolies (without free choice to purchase competing products, there is no power of the pocketbook).

Business profits by being an abusive monopoly (self explanatory).

What behaviour, in light of this, are we expecting?

Re:Justice delayed is Justice denied.

[philthechill]

Boy does this ever miss the point.

The point of a justice system is not to punish the guilty as a deterrent. The point of a justice system is to prevent the victims from punishing the guilty and their family and their family's family.

The victims could punish the guilty just fine, and that would be a strong deterrent, probably stronger than the current US justice system, but this leads to the whole Hatfields vs. McCoys thing, back and forth retribution. In order to maintain an orderly society it is necessary to prevent direct retribution.

I do agree with you about the problem with antitrust remediation penalties though - there needs to be some punitive as well as preventative penalties. On the other hand, if Judge Kelly is starting to realize that the preventative measures aren't working, perhaps she'll think some more about breaking up MS...

Re:Justice delayed is Justice denied.

[deacent]

I don't have a problem with the anti-trust law. I just wish it was applied better. If you read it, Section 2 of the Sherman Act says:

Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding ten million dollars if a corporation, or, if any other person, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.

This is what pisses me off about the Microsoft settlement. By not convicting MS of anti-trust violation, there is no basis for bringing charges against the indivuals who made it happen. I think that it could be disruptive to force major structural changes on MS. And I'm sure that if those in charge are left there, they'd make sure that it's even more disruptive than necessary. But if you remove and punish the people who are responsible for the offensive acts, it sends the right message and gives the offending company a chance to be remedied.

-Jennifer

Re:Justice delayed is Justice denied.

[canadian_right]

I find it funny that a country like the USA that seems to pride it self on its Christian Rightousness allows simple greed to trump all morality.

Use WINE and forget MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is everyone fussing about MS when you can run WINE on Linux http://www.winehq.org?

Re:Use WINE and forget MS

[rock_climbing_guy]

Well, first of all, there are the arguments that in principle, we shouldn't have to, and then again, setting up WINE can be quite a pain in the neck and many applications don't operate correctly with it.

Re:Use WINE and forget MS

[dipipanone]

Why is everyone fussing about MS when you can run WINE

Because we'd rather WHINE than run WINE.

Thank You!

[tuxtomas]

My knee jerk reaction as well.

The anti-trust case went to hell as soon as Big Business Bush got into office. Now that it seems we may actually have an election, things seem to be coming back to life.

Ah hell, it's not who casts the ballots, it's who counts them, right? 51 billion in cash reserves, Micro$loth will probably end up being the one.

Why do I get excited by viruses and tanking stocks? Long term freedom and prosperity.

Yes, switch immediately.

[Anonymous Coward]

WINE is actually much faster than Windows, probably because it is not an emulator.

OH

[glubbs]

whatever! Microsoft is just a businness that the government lets go on (is behind, 100%) in order to get more money pumped into the military. I'm not talking this whole "oooh, middle east" conspiracy theory, either ... I'm jumping that and going straight to "technology we ain't never heard of before" theory. How many people out there think that the government has figured out the gravity problem? Once in a while there comes a company that overtakes the rest, and completely buries everything remotely in its path. There are no words to describe the amount of money that MS has in cash, so I am forced to make up my own ........... Scrumtrulescent.

Re:OH

[stephens_domain]

The word "billion" comes to mind.

Re:OH

[digitalunity]

What I think is even funnier, and that no one ever seems to think about:

Microsoft Revenue: $52 Billion
Wal Mart Revenue: $244 Billion

Microsoft is big. They aren't that big though.
I think it would be a wise business plan for Wal Mart to purchase every outstanding share of Microsoft. MS' profit margin alone(74% in the Office business, according to B. Gates) should make Wal Mart jealous.

Re:OH

[ScrewMaster]

And I might further point out that Wal-Mart, due to it's sheer size and power, and its willingness to use that power to literally dictate the pricing and profit margins of its suppliers, is effecting changes to the way the retail sector operates. Whether this is ultimately a good thing or a bad thing I can't say, but Microsoft is not the only large corporation out there worth keeping an eye on. Matter of fact, any time that vast amounts of wealth are acquired by, or placed under the control of, a relatively few individuals its time for the rest of us to look out.

Re:OH

[Alsee]

Wal-mart has a lot of power, yes. But the critical point is that they do not have monopoly power in their market. Wal-mart's $244 billion is an insignifigant fraction of the retail outlet market. Microsoft's $52 billion represents over 95% of their market. Court's findings of fact.

That is why Microsoft is far more capable of causing harm than Wal-mart, even though Wal-Mart is almost five times larger.

-

Re:OH

[ScrewMaster]

That's true. I also didn't say that Wal-Mart was a monopoly, just that they bear watching.

As a matter of fact, I'm heading over to Sam's Club right now to help them on their way to monopolyhood.

Re:OH

[bill_mcgonigle]

Microsoft Revenue: $52 Billion
Wal Mart Revenue: $244 Billion

The stunning part of that isn't that Walmart is 4x the size of Microsoft, but that Microsoft is 1/4 the size of Walmart.

Microsoft makes an OS and some office apps. Walmart has thousands of stores serving most of the retail needs of more than a hundred million Americans. And that's only worth 4x more.

Something is out of proportion here and it's not Walmart.

This is part of a larger problem...

[rock_climbing_guy]

I know that many of you are of the opinion that nothing is being done about this because the current administration is somehow "anti-consumer."

Please allow me to remind you that the DMCA passed through the Senate unapposed - No one in the Senate voted against it. There were 99 votes for it and 0 against. We have patents on simple software algorithms that last 20 years with no end in sight. Remember, even if you understand that software patents are bad, if you're in the business, you've got to play the game the way it's set up, or your competitors will not hesitate to screw you over. Remember the Amazon.com one-click patent?

The problem is that politicians clearly don't understand technology, plain and simple.

I think that a good starting point would be to impose strict term limits on our Representatives and Senators. Our country can do without the people who make it their career to be politicians and contribute nothing else. Furthermore, those career politicians live in a world of their own; they have no idea what it's like to have your ideas taken away from you because of some stupid patent law. Look at Gray Davis; he's pissed off because he's been recalled from office by angry voters. Gray Davis passed stupid laws from which he was detached from the consequences. He had a big political machine that crushed the opposition in the last election cycle. He didn't care that he raised car taxes through the roof. He didn't care that foolish policies crippled California's power system. It's great to see that someone finally made him face the music.

My point is, politicians don't understand anything but politics these days because that's all they do.

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

The current administration isn't purposefully anti-consumer. It's just pro-monopoly. Consumers are just collateral damage.

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[idfubar]

Your notion of term limits is double-edged: term limits ended the career of Willy Brown, the most dominant (and arguably productive) politician in the history of the state. You are right, though, that term limits could force us to an appoximation of the original representative system our forefathers had in mind (e.g. representatives from all walks of life.)

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[martin-boundary]

You're right in some ways. Unfortunately, it's not just career politicians. Look at Bush. He's not your typical career politician, more like your spoiled rich kid, but he's just as much a problem as the career politicians.

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me just point out that Gray Davis mearly raised car taxes to the level of the last Republican governor Pete Wilson, who btw lowered them at the end of his term in office. And Davis did't fucking do it by himself, it was voted through by a 2/3 majority of the California Senate and House.

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[TyrranzzX]

Mmm, great idea. Impose, say, a re-election every 2 or 1 year and they'll never get anything done, it'll just be campaign campaign campaign. They'll be out for even more corperate money to fight their battles. Sure, I will admit, making them go up more often will help the competition such as the green party to do their work, and people won't be so forgetful when they pass something they don't like, but by and large we need campaign finance reform first and once we have that, then we can discuss further measures if our leaders don't want to rule properly.

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[MeNeXT]

You make a very good point but I believe that polititians go where the money is...I mean if the get canned from office it's not Joe voter who will hire them?

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[stubear]

"Please allow me to remind you that the DMCA passed through the Senate unapposed..."

The Clinton Administration allowed the DMCA to be passed you ignoratnt fucktard. I'm not defending Bush, I'm just pointing our your ignorance so don't blame the messenger (me).

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[mpe]

I think that a good starting point would be to impose strict term limits on our Representatives and Senators. Our country can do without the people who make it their career to be politicians and contribute nothing else.

The only way this could possibly happen is through civil revolt, if not outright revolution. Politicians rarely act altruistically. Especially when they are percieved more as "leaders" than as "public servants".

Look at Gray Davis; he's pissed off because he's been recalled from office by angry voters. Gray Davis passed stupid laws from which he was detached from the consequences. He had a big political machine that crushed the opposition in the last election cycle. He didn't care that he raised car taxes through the roof. He didn't care that foolish policies crippled California's power system. It's great to see that someone finally made him face the music.

One down, how many more to go though?

My point is, politicians don't understand anything but politics these days because that's all they do.

Which makes them fundermentally incapable of doing the job they were put in place to do.

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and it ended it not a moment too soon.

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[HiThere]

He was also a rather corrupt politician, though he based his corruption more on political favors than corporate graft. I think that his loss is probably a net loss to California. But I'm not at all sure. As a mayor of San Francisco he's been more interesting that effective...probably because setting a a network of favors takes a long time. People seem more angry at his arrogance than anything else, so I guess he hasn't been a bad mayor. (But a damned arrogant one!)

In contrast, Jerry Brown has been..arrogant. He rides roughshod over people who disargee with him. He allows the police to be corrupt (in at least certain ways), but he doesn't save them when the courts take notice. He favors his cronys over the wishes of those who live in the city. Etc. My, how similar! But he has much less style than Willie, so people object more (or at least I do). OTOH, Jerry Brown is the mayor where I live, and Willie Brown is mayor a few miles away. That may be an important point of difference in perception. (Also, I must admit that Jerry Brown is an improvement over the prior mayor. With Willie, it's less certain.)

But the only thing that could save us from the current system is forbidding lawyers to run for political office. And probably a drastic restructuring of the election mechanism. The two party system has in it a built in tendency to degenerate into a one party system which is a pseudo-two party system. And it has been doing so with remarkable monotonicness. Probably the Concordet system would be the best replacement. (Fat chance!)

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

in Mexico we have "no re-election"...it hasn't helped one bit. The problem is the party (or institution) not the individual. You may have term limits, but the "party" (GOP or dem's) still rules.

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[rock_climbing_guy]

Um, excuse me, our government system requires both the Senate AND the President to pass legislation; I didn't mean to say that only the Senate was responsible. I just wanted to point out that generally politicians are clueless when it comes to technology.

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[rock_climbing_guy]

Does that mean that no one is glad that Senator Fritz Hollings ( D - Disney ) is retiring because he might be replaced with someone of the same party?

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[drinkypoo]

Term limits won't help because politics is an old boys' crowd. Anyone who's not part of the club is allowed there as a token. The solution is more not to let people over a certain age hold office, though obviously there's pricks in every generation. The real problem is that when the nation was founded, while there was inequal distribution of wealth, it wasn't nearly as inequal as it is today. Sure, most people had nothing then, and some people REALLY had nothing - Well, guess what, it's pretty much like that today. Our trinkets have become more complicated, they're radios or jet-skis or whatever, but the people with all the money have billions of dollars. Huge goddamned piles of money.

Anyway as society is further stratified we get the effect you're talking about, where the people in office are completely disconnected from the citizenry, but it's not just because they're career politicians. It's because they're from the upper class and even if they're not in politics life is inherently different for those people. Instead of worrying about how they're going to pay their rent and their bills and still have enough money to get their car fixed, they're trying to come up with enough money to pay the mortgage on their summer home and their winter home and still pick up that new ferrari they'll drive only on alternate sundays for three hours.

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[canadian_right]

Shorter, cheaper campaigns would help. Here in the Great White North political election campaign never last longer than about 4 weeks. An election is called, they campaign for 4 weeks, then there is an elelection. Much cheaper than this year round presidential campaign you have in the USA.

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess what even if Clinton vetoed it, it would have been overruled.

Re:This is part of a larger problem...

[rock_climbing_guy]

Sure, that could have happened, but at least there would be a dissenting opinion to reflect back on. Anyways, a veto-override is not automatic; they must propose a separate vote for it. If President Clinton were to have opposed it and made a big deal out of it, they might have reconsidered their position in the Senate.

Re:/. 503 Errors?

[DAldredge]

How is this flamebait?

Is anyone getting 503 errors when trying to connect to /.?
--
Poll: 75% of Palestinians support Haifa restaurant attack:

Gutenberg reference.

[ratfynk]

This all comes down to one thing. What is Microsofts business plan? They way I interpret their intentions is simple.

To control digital communication world wide.

To remove all competitors and hardware platform competition.

To invest in technologies that can become a monoply, and only make heavy investments in tech that they can completely control.

Legally steal software tech with coding virgins if they cannot Legally own it.

Protect their code base so that it cannot be cloned by altering the coding languages and making them proprietary.

They are completely within their rights in doing these things. It is the consumer and communication industry that needs to fight this monolyth not the courts. They harm the industry with their software patents and security policies, and the sooner the consumer realises this the better.

9 Samurai

[morelife]

At least the DOJ continues to check on Microsoft compliance on a regular basis.

Let's not forget that 9 states are objecting to the flimsy DOJ ruling and may overturn it locally. Additionally, the market may readjust in the coming 24 months or so, and rearrange Microsoft's dominance without the DOJ's assistance.

Today, the combined state of RedHat/Enterprise, SuSE/IBM, and OpenOffice, have started a huge push which will steamroll, garnering support (and dollars) from both small business and corporate end users. Steve Ballmer has become publicly shrill and irrational. Samba v3 tested faster than Win2k/AD.

Progress on this is like the minute hand- you can't really see it moving, but it's moving.

Not to be a smartass

[Shoeboy]

But has anyone considered that maybe other companies don't consider Microsoft's technology to be worth licensing? I don't even think it's worth pirating, myself.

--Shoeboy

Re:Not to be a smartass

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome back, Shoeboy. We hope you'll put that karma to good use.

Something to consider:

[Sheetrock]

If Microsoft is effectively reined in, would this be a net benefit to the computer industry?

Who would fill the void? Their leading competitors have higher priorities than consumer satisfaction and industry cooperation, I'll bet.

Does mixing up standards again seem like a good idea? Plug and play ain't the prettiest but it's a damn sight better than trying to get things to work in the 80s used to be.

Justice doesn't always equal punishment. In business, sometimes it really is about letting the ends justify the means. I'd prefer Microsoft take a more relaxed stance towards Open Source and the like, sure, but I think the people in this process are showing great wisdom in not immediately jumping down Microsoft's throat. Stifling innovation is the quickest way to kill this industry.

Re:Something to consider:

[Mybrid]

Who would fill the void?

You got to be kidding, right?

The only reasons I can imagine you posted this is that:

1. You've never used quality software that's not bloatware with 50 million intimidating features you've never used and will never use or,
2. It's a troll.

Cheers!
-Mybrid

Re:Something to consider:

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft is effectively reined in, would this be a net benefit to the computer industry?

Competition is the mother of innovation. A computer industry where technical and usable solutions are promoted based on their relevancy and quality rather than them being forced on the consumer.

Who would fill the void? Their leading competitors have higher priorities than consumer satisfaction and industry cooperation, I'll bet.

Like Apple? Oh, right.. they aren't concerned with consumer satisfaction and industry cooperation such as standards and quality from form to factor to actual usage of the products they make. They also don't play fair with the opensource community. Not to mention the myriad of others that can participate in a market place not dominated by a monopoly. Including Linux with it's desktops and other currently fringe operating systems.

Does mixing up standards again seem like a good idea? Plug and play ain't the prettiest but it's a damn sight better than trying to get things to work in the 80s used to be.

No one mixes up standards except for Microsoft. If you'd like to point out one standard they haven't decided to mess with. Again, an example would be Apple who is really the only major computer manufacturer with an operating system in large usage. However, that's not because Microsoft is a monopoly obviously. I wonder why you can order a computer today without an Operating System. You must pay that Microsoft tax, and then the part that is amazing is that you can't turn around and return the software after not accepting the license.

Justice doesn't always equal punishment. In business, sometimes it really is about letting the ends justify the means. I'd prefer Microsoft take a more relaxed stance towards Open Source and the like, sure, but I think the people in this process are showing great wisdom in not immediately jumping down Microsoft's throat. Stifling innovation is the quickest way to kill this industry.

Name something, any technology you can think of that was innovated by Microsoft. Just one. Innovation doesn't come from Monopolies and the corporation that knows this best is Microsoft, they don't even want to innovate. Regardless of what they say you will not see any major innovation come out of Redmond, Washington. You will see however Microsoft co-opt whatever major innovation someone else has taught of or made, They may even buy them out and if they can't buy them out they'll put them out of business and then try and implement the technology themselves; as they've always done.

Re:Something to consider:

[martin-boundary]

Who would fill the void? Their leading competitors have higher priorities than consumer satisfaction and industry cooperation, I'll bet.

Are you kidding? Their leading competition is giving away their code for free. That's a pretty strong priority on customer satisfaction wouldn't you think?

Here's a thought. Suppose Microsoft is destroyed and disbanded. That would open up a huge chunk of the IT market, and we'd see gazillions of startups, small and medium companies, with pricing structures along the whole range from free to heavily overpriced. A real IT renaissance.

Re:Something to consider:

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that if a corporation is found guilty of violating the anti-trust laws, as Microsoft was, there are no punitive damages. The solution is supposed to be "forward looking" by putting into place regulations or other changes that prevent the corporation from violating the anti-trust laws.

Which is the type of solution that the DoJ negotiated. Microsoft is prevented from entering into exclusive distribution deals. They cannot do per-processor OS licensing. They must license Windows to the OEMs at the same royalty rates. They must license their proprietary protocols to others on reasonable and non-discrimanatory terms. A compliance committee is in place to continually monitor Microsoft's compliance. The court regularly checks up on them.

Plus, if you consider all the settlements with the individual states (California, West Virginia, etc.), with AOL/Netscape, with Be Inc., it adds up into the couple of billions of dollars. So Microsoft did not exactly get off "scott free".

Re:Something to consider:

[hamster foo]

Did Apple really open source the code behind their desktop environment? I didn't realize they had.

Regardless, while open source is very nice from the perspective of geeks and developers, at best it is a very small part of customer satisfaction. Mom and pop could care less if they can sift through thousands of lines of code, for that matter, the vast majority of Linux users will probably never touch the code behind their chosen operating system. It's nice to have that possibility, but customer satisfaction is really built more on listening to customers and trying to give them what they want. I think Apple does a pretty good job of that with OS X.

I'm not so sure that Microsoft's breakup would have the effect you seem to think. The division would probably fall along the lines of the OS, applications, consoles, etc. So you'd still have a company behind Windows, which is still going to maintain it's market share by a wide margin. You'd have the applications company that would have MS Office which isn't going anywhere. XBox without the backing of the large MS pockets might die if they are still selling systems at a loss, but all that will do is piss off some gamers and strengthen Sony's share. So I'm not really seeing where the huge change would come from at least in respect to the major markets that MS has a stranglehold on.

Re:Something to consider:

[Alsee]

while open source is very nice from the perspective of geeks and developers, at best it is a very small part of customer satisfaction. Mom and pop could care less

Actually it does force "customer satisfaction". When there is a problem and the source is available, some geek or developer is going to fix it. These fixes tend to get to "mom and pop" one way or another. That also puts a lot of pressure on the company to fix the problem in the "default installation".

While this prossess is good for resolving unintentional problems such as bugs and lousy design, it is especially importand for fixing problems intentionally imposed. Microsoft is particularly guilty of this. Microsoft puts specific "features" into software that Microsoft wants people to have, even when those individual "features" reduce customer statisfaction. Things like Secure Audio Path, Product Activation, ID codes, launching Internet Explorer for a variety of tasks even when a different browser is selected, forced DRM patches to the media player, locking all other applications out of WindowsMedia formats. I'm sure others can list far more examples and better examples. One of my own pet-peeves is they way Windows Media Player automatically launches a browser windon to some spam website when a web-address is embedded in a video file.

Microsoft intenionally designed these things into the software for selfish reasons and contrary to the interests of the customers. If the source code is available they can no longer force these mis-features on customers because someone will fix them and pass on those fixes to "mom and pop". That's the most important benefit of source code - undesireable code can no longer be forced into the product.

-

Re:Something to consider:

[canadian_right]

The MS monopoly is a godsend for small software houses. It is MUCH cheaper to develop ONE product for one very popular OS, than a hundred ports.

So while it is all so very popular here to bash MS (and they deserve it for the many boneheaded security blunders in some of their products) the fact is that if MS dissapeared today it would NOT create an IT renaissance. It would start the race for the next monopoly.

Re:/. 503 Errors?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, I thought I was going insane: mozilla, then firebird and finally galeon all refused to show me /. (went away, came back some time later and for some reason it finally loaded).

Re:/. 503 Errors?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me, or is galeon the most under-rated browser EVER...

I think I'm changing my mind...

[eidechse]

For nearly all of my time as a professional dev guy I've cut Redmond some some slack for a few reasons:

• It's convenient for ISV's to concern themselves with a single platform. Way before my (professional) time, it'd have been tough for a smaller outfit to target all the popular platforms: atari, commodore, amiga, PC, Apple/Mac, various DOS flavors, etc. They pretty much picked one, maybe more, and gambled that they'd still exist and/or remain popular.
• Books, third party dev tools, publications, and training (formal and informal) have long been plentiful.
• Many software companies (ok...not as many now) target MS platforms.
• And a few more...

But as of late I'm having a change of heart. For the following reasons (and others):

• nefarious upgrade practices
• restrictive licensing practices
• the lessening of system level tools/techniques available to third party developers
• still more incursions into third party developer space (search engines, email, possibly anti-virus)

I've about had it with Redmond. I don't even really want to create software for their platforms anymore. Still, I'm not in the RMS camp; I like the idea of making money on software, possibly by restricting the availability of the source code.

I do recognize the benefit of open/free platforms and frameworks. My question is this: is there a place for proprietary (read 'closed') applications on said open/free platforms and frameworks?

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

I do recognize the benefit of open/free platforms and frameworks. My question is this: is there a place for proprietary (read 'closed') applications on said open/free platforms and frameworks?

Yeah. It's called Mac OS X.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[eidechse]

I've actually been considering that. There are three things that bug me though: I got burned when I bought an 840 AV (remember that line?), Steve Jobs (Bill w/ a better dress sense), and the high cost.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[Brandybuck]

is there a place for proprietary (read 'closed') applications on said open/free platforms and frameworks?

Despite what the true believers tell you, Free Software is still "free beer". The problem you will face with open source systems is not that the users will reject proprietary software on principle, but rather that they will reject it on cost.

So you need to put out a high quality product that people will want to pay for.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[romanval]

Um... Steve Jobs had nothing to do with Apple when the Quadra 840AV was released.

At that time, Jobs was busy with NeXT & Pixar.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[eidechse]

Yeah, I know...the reasons are independent of each other.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[mabhatter654]

But without a FAIR field to play on, Your mini-software can't survive. MS [and the other mega corps] is rapidly absorbing or extinguishing everything they can into THEIR homogney. So you may have a really cool app, but if it's on windows your days are already numbered [and the MS big check option is rapidly winding down!] ...that's more certian than even having OSS copy you!

In short, you need OSS to have a level field for you to play on...one that nobody can take away. The only way to KEEP it level is to keep any one group from "owning" too many pieces, i.e. GPL.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[eidechse]

That's what I'm hoping will become the norm. I.E. a general willingness to pay for quality, possibly "closed", software on open platforms. I agree that platforms themselves should be free from control. But I don't think that the same criteria should necessarily apply to all applications targeting open platforms.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[buss_error]

But as of late I'm having a change of heart. For the following reasons (and others):

The thing that causes me to get a major case of the hips is when they release a new version of a language.

Poof! 30% (or more!) of the code has to be re-written for the "new" version. As far as I can see, they only shuffled around some APIs, and maybe added a "feature" or two.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[Scarblac]

Well, it's hard. Although most people aren't totally opposed to proprietary software, I would only use it on Linux if an open source solution doesn't exist and I need the software. OSS just has a much better reputation, to me at least, considering only software to be used on Linux. If I find an open source program that currently does what I need, if barely, I won't look further to find proprietary stuff.

The only non OSS we use in our current (web app/site) project is Java, we use Sun's JDKs. And with the way Sun is going lately, I wonder if in two years we won't view that as a mistake... Consider the way you feel screwed over by Microsoft. The whole point of OSS is to avoid getting screwed over like that again. Being dependent is a bad thing.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[McDutchie]

I've actually been considering that. There are three things that bug me though: I got burned when I bought an 840 AV (remember that line?),

The Macs of Apple's years gone by are nothing like today's Macs.

Steve Jobs (Bill w/ a better dress sense),

Hardly! Steve Jobs is actually innovative, for one.

and the high cost.

That depends. eMac from $799, iBook from $1099... I don't think that's so expensive.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[DreamerFi]

You're on the right track, but you need to do some more thinking before you make your decision. The big question isn't wether there's a place for closed source, the big question is how *you* make your money. Is it by selling the lines of code you write, or is it by the service you deliver to your customers? If your customers pay you for customizations of your code, tuned for them in a very special way, what do you care what happens to the code? You don't get paid for that, you get paid for what's between your ears: the experience and knowledge to make your customers happy. Would you still get enough customers because of your knowlegde and experience if your old projects where "out there", advertising for you that you do indeed know your stuff?

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[TrancePhreak]

You still need to keep the source closed in that case but you could potentially distribute it to your customers. However, once you let the source out, you risk them finding their own way to manage/update the code. If they can find someone who'll do the same work for cheaper, they will.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[DreamerFi]

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. I find that the customers who do go for cheapest are usually the ones that give me big headaches by not wanting to pay at all. Good riddance to them. I find the following remarks to work very well with the kind of customers that do indeed want a good ongoing relation: "you have the code, so it's in my interest to keep you happy about the quality of my work, or you'll walk. You could by closed product X, but if they treat you like crap you're lost."
This is indeed about building a good relationship with your customer, and you're right, some will walk, but most of the time you're better off without them. Oh, and I could tell you stories about those kind of customers coming back 6 months later when it turns out the cheap shop they found won't deliver anything at all...

-John

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

please tell me which proprietary apps use only the free portions of MacOS X. Photoshop.. bah!

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[Ohreally_factor]

The last point reminds me that OS X users will pay for good software. Even though Apple computers are no where near as expensive as they are perceived to be, they aren't the cheapest hardware on the market either.

So this should tell the developer something: Mac users are willing to pay money for a good product. Some further proof: I know a number of people that have been downloading and using the various builds of Panther from bit torrent and the P2Ps. Most, if not all, are purchasing Panther tonite or in the near future, despite already having it installed. (Sure, there is a lot of moaning about the price, but a great deal of this is from folks that haven't tried it, not the 'unofficial beta testers".)

Now, are mac users inherently more honest than other computer users? I doubt it. No, they're just willing to spend their money on a good product. I even know of a few developers that are supplemeting their income by writing donation-ware. Mac users are willing to pay money for good software, even when not required to do so. Does donation-ware even exist on the windows side?

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[_Sprocket_]

I agree that platforms themselves should be free from control. But I don't think that the same criteria should necessarily apply to all applications targeting open platforms.

My home Linux workstation (from which I type this) has a few proprietary software packages on it - mostly games. And I am responsible for a number of Open Source systems (Linux and *BSD) at work that run proprietary software in one manner or another. Having said that - I am also in the process of assessing or replacing several proprietary environments or applications with Open Source alternatives.

Its about competition.

Let's not kid ourselves. Some may find Open Source platforms a rough market. After all, I know the same decision process that lead me to favoring Open Source platforms will also cause me to be biased towards Open Source applications. Proprietary software has to offer something that makes it really stand out from Open Source competition - but then, they have to do the same to stand out from other proprietary software competitors too.

Some vendors may decide they don't want to compete in that kind of market. Which is fine. But by either avoiding or ignoring my preferred environment, they're also (potentially) removing themselves from consideration and effectively removing themselves from the market.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[Bob9113]

My question is this: is there a place for proprietary (read 'closed') applications on said open/free platforms and frameworks?

Yes.

WebLogic

Acrobat Reader

StarTeam, Together Control Center

StarOffice

WebSphere

That's just off the top of my head.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

In short, you need OSS ...

Kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya....

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[IM6100]

I've started selling Macintosh used and N.O.S. hardware on eBay. One thing I've discovered is that Apple customers are quick payers, and they'll bid things up a lot more than the typical 'clone' buyer.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

> It's convenient for ISV's to concern themselves with a single platform. Way before my (professional) time, it'd have been tough for a smaller outfit to target all the popular platforms: atari, commodore, amiga, PC, Apple/Mac, various DOS flavors, etc. They pretty much picked one, maybe more, and gambled that they'd still exist and/or remain popular.

Two thoughts: Java and portable code.

The first will work for anything that is simple enough that running at a reduced speed won't be a big deal (with good JITs, that issue is mitigated further).

The second requires common protocols. OpenGL is one. LibSDL is another. I think that more platforms would encourage development suit producers to create multi-platform libraries. It'd also encourage more portable code, removing lock-in potential. Linux has even shown this can hold true for the OS. I'm sure some manufacturers will be pissed because their own OS can't differentiate itself from the competition. In reality, they can by providing a better cross-platform framework (by better, I don't mean incompatible and hence never used; I mean faster, and possibly incorporating hardware changes to make the library run faster). Maybe then we'd see some real competition. Not to mention seeing from PDAs to Mainframes that could run similar apps (currently, porting from the desktop to a pda is a bitch..).

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[DotNetGuru]

I agree that platforms themselves should be free from control.

Being that your goal is to write closed source software on the open source platform you should watch out for KDE. It's GPL only, so if you link against it (e.g., write any KDE app) you have to go GPL as well. You can of course buy a Qt license to make your software non-free, but you still can't link against KDE! So you can only write Qt apps, not KDE apps.

Gnone & GTK don't have this GPL problem (it's LGPL) so you're free to control your own source code. So you can write Gnome apps that are closed source. Is it any wonder that most large companies support Gnome over KDE?

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's convenient for ISV's to concern themselves with a single platform. Way before my (professional) time, it'd have been tough for a smaller outfit to target all the popular platforms: atari, commodore, amiga, PC, Apple/Mac, various DOS flavors, etc.

I was around before MS was around, all the various platforms meant was that there was more room for more players. Software vendors would specialize on a platform, so instead of 20 different comapnies competing to sell, oh, say, antivirus software. They all have to target the same platform and compete against each other now. Back in the day, those same 20 companies would be divided supporting the various platforms. More of the companies would survive, employing more people longer and strengthening our economy.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[starseeker]

"is there a place for proprietary (read 'closed') applications on said open/free platforms and frameworks?"

Yes, but probably not one you'd find particularly fun to work in. People in such an environment would pay for only a few things.

One: software that is guaranteed to work. (read - someone to sue; truly guaranteed software is limited to things like NASA and medical systems. Consumer apps developed using the B Method and the Z language would rock, be they closed or (especially) open, but aren't terribly likely)

Two: Highly specialized and complex programs where there isn't a high enough interest level or large enough user base to compell people to do free counterparts. Things like very high end specialized engineering design and simulation, or high end video systems designed to render movies across thousand-system clusters.

Three: Business specific apps where even developing the application involves trade secret or propritary information. An open source platform can work, but the app itself can't be open.

So yes there are cases, but none are simple to exploit. Nothing like the "write simple program, charge $30, and retire" modes can work anymore - if the user base/cost ratio gets past a certain point, a free alternative will appear.

Re:I think I'm changing my mind...

[HiggsBison]

My biggest problem with closed source is something like anti-virus programs. If Norton and McAfee push an anti-technology bill through and take a legal monopoly, that hurts. If someone comes up with a closed source virus-scan for the various unices, it is still open to abuse in the form of "allowing" (scum-sucking freaking spyware @#$%&) "Adware", and well, generally squeezing the masses for protection fees.

If I have the choice between paying for closed source, getting closed-source for free, or paying for open-source, I'll pay for open source. At least in extreme cases like anti-virus. Sometimes closed-source sells well, like the Opera browser. Sometimes it's good enough, sometimes it's not customizable or fixable enough. YMMV.

Microsoft exploits the loophole again

[rhysweatherley]

Microsoft agreed to make their specifications available for people making interoperable software. But the government forgot to say "available at no cost to the licensees", and Microsoft is exploiting that loophole. Big surprise.

I visited the "licensing" site a few weeks back, and the whole thing is "fill in this form and we'll get back to you about your payment". Sorry, that's not what they were supposed to do.

Let's hope the judge realises that for competition to occur, the main player cannot levy a fee against its competitors.

Re:Microsoft exploits the loophole again

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the deal with the DoJ was that Microsoft's protocols would be available for "reasonable and non-discrimanatory terms," not "free."

That means Microsoft is allowed to charge royalties for the protocols, but the royalty schedule is the same whether you are Sun or IBM or somebody else. The DoJ has negotiated with Microsoft to lower the prepayment fee and the royalty rates, which MS did. If you license the protocols to build a server OS which speaks all the MS protocols like SMB, Active Directory, etc., then Microsoft will charge you the highest royalty rate (which sounds like 5% of your product's revenues).

To even look at the list of protocols available you need to sign an NDA and pay a $50,000 fee. I think the $50K fee is refundable if you do not decide to license anything. The NDA prevents people from peeking at the protocol list and posting it on Slashdot. The interesting thing about the protocol list I'm sure is that it probably includes protocols which are actually those of competitors that MS had to reverse-engineer to support in Windows NT. Like Novell's IPX/SPX protocols. If I'm not mistaken, NT supports those proprietary Novell networking protocols because MS reverse-engineered them.

Re:Microsoft exploits the loophole again

[hey]

This is so obvious is nuts.
The info should be on a free website.
Remember this is a punishment not an income stream.

Re:Microsoft exploits the loophole again

[IM6100]

Why should it be on a free website?

Clearly they weren't giving out the info to anybody, at any cost, before. Any business that is seriously intending to compete with Microsoft will have no problem signing an NDA and paying a few thousand for the info. That's standard business practice, as followed by almost any other vendor.

Re:Microsoft exploits the loophole again

[RickHunter]

That means Microsoft is allowed to charge royalties for the protocols, but the royalty schedule is the same whether you are Sun or IBM or somebody else.

But the thing is, and what I think the original poster was saying, that doesn't seem to be the case. Microsoft appears to have a form that you fill out saying that you want to license something, and then they "get back to you" about the fees. That doesn't sound like the behavior of an entity that intends to use the same royalty schedule for IBM and SCO. In fact, it sounds suspiciously like an entity that's trying to avoid licensing its technology at all, except to carefully-chosen partners. (As "proof" that its complying)

Also convenient that you have to sign an NDA to look at the protocol list. This prevents you from telling the public, for example, that there are no protocols on the list. Or that Microsoft wanted to know what you'd use it for before giving you pricing information. Or any one of a dozen other violations.

Face it. Microsoft's violating the spirit and intent of the agreement while they try to look like they're adhering to its text. The wrist-slap just made their violations of the antitrust laws even bolder and more blatant, as they know the Cheney/Ashcroft/Rove administration won't touch them.

Remember this next time it comes time to vote or purchase software. Microsoft's a convicted felon. Yet they have more influence in your nation than you do, and recieved a smaller punishment than a 12-year-old girl who downloaded an MP3 off Kazaa.

Re:Microsoft exploits the loophole again

[ScrewMaster]

Someone ought to mod Rick here up a little.

Re:Microsoft exploits the loophole again

[ScrewMaster]

That's true enough, so far as it goes, but there are some other aspects to this situation.

If the only possible competition to Microsoft were other large corporate entities, you would be correct and I would agree with you entirely. However, the greatest competition to Microsoft's hegemony, at the moment, is not coming from another big corporation. Apple Computer, for example, doesn't qualify as competition to Microsoft, they're a niche player and marginalized anyway. Sun has its little Java sandbox to play in, and it looks like Microsoft may edge out Java anyway. Who else is going to take on Microsoft and have a snowball's chance in Hell of breaking their monopoly? No, Microsoft has pretty much held most of the other big corporate players at bay.

The real competition is coming from the Open Source movement, specifically the Linux crowd. Those developers don't have ready access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in "licensing" fees, and the interoperability (read: competitiveness) of Linux and Linux applications would greatly benefit from access to those APIs and specifications. The Samba folks, for example, wouldn't have to reverse engineer Microsoft's (periodically revised) protocols and risk a DMCA lawsuit in order to provide that functionality.

In ordinary business dealings, the fees derived from such licensing agreements are often intended to help offset the costs/risks of releasing the information. That's hardly the case here: an extra million or two in fees is meaningless to Microsoft. The only reason they are charging anything at all is to limit access.

So, if the idea is to actually encourage interoperability and a truly competitive marketscape, Microsoft must be required to provide that information without artificial barriers designed to eliminate the only real threat the company is facing in the operating system arena. Otherwise they are only paying lip service to the agreement they signed.

Re:Microsoft exploits the loophole again

[Alsee]

Clearly they weren't giving out the info to anybody, at any cost, before.

Correct. They were also breaking the law in a variety of ways before. They were then COMPELLED by a court to disclose this information to REMEDY PRIOR ILLEGAL ACTS.

They broke the law and to fix their wrongdoing they MUST disclose this information. (1) Why should they continue to profit from their illegal acts? (2) They have manipulated the terms on the information to minimize who can get the information and what they can do with it.

Only FOUR companies have agreed to the terms Microsoft placed on the information, SCO, Cisco, Laplink and Tandberg TV. There is reason to suspect one (SCO) or more of the four a sham orchestrated by Microsoft itself. I've never even heard of Tandberg, according to Google Tendberg is a "Microsoft partner" in some DRM project. I don't know what Cisco and Laplink plan to do with the info, but it seems pretty clear that the judge doesn't think these results are adaquate to remedy Microsofts illegal acts.

-

Re:Microsoft exploits the loophole again

[DotNetGuru]

But the thing is, and what I think the original poster was saying, that doesn't seem to be the case. Microsoft appears to have a form that you fill out saying that you want to license something, and then they "get back to you" about the fees. That doesn't sound like the behavior of an entity that intends to use the same royalty schedule for IBM and SCO. In fact, it sounds suspiciously like an entity that's trying to avoid licensing its technology at all, except to carefully-chosen partners. (As "proof" that its complying)

The Justice department (and the enforcement panel) can certainly inspect the fees that are being charged here.

Also convenient that you have to sign an NDA to look at the protocol list. This prevents you from telling the public, for example, that there are no protocols on the list. Or that Microsoft wanted to know what you'd use it for before giving you pricing information. Or any one of a dozen other violations.

First, given that there are licencees, obviously there are protocols to be licensed. And there's no doubt that the Justice department & friends have seen the list. Obviously this process is going to be looked at very closely by the Justice department. Now the Judge wants an even CLOSER look. If your allegations were true they would be violating the terms, and I think we'd see something significant. What, do you think no one's paying any attention to what Microsoft's doing these days?

Re:Microsoft exploits the loophole again

[RickHunter]

The Justice department (and the enforcement panel) can certainly inspect the fees that are being charged here.

And who's on the enforcement panel? Why, I believe Microsoft is. What a coincidence. Yup, they can look at their own offerings and verify that they are indeed following the terms of the agreement.

First, given that there are licencees, obviously there are protocols to be licensed.

Licensees like SCO? That's not very good backing for the argument. And as I said, it'd be perfectly in-character for Microsoft to hand out a few licenses to point at when people accuse them of not following the agreement.

And there's no doubt that the Justice department & friends have seen the list.

This would be the list from the company that's famous for saying one thing and doing another? Or showing different things to different parties and making them swear not to talk about it on pain of being reduced to a greasy smear on the business landscape?

Obviously this process is going to be looked at very closely by the Justice department. Now the Judge wants an even CLOSER look. If your allegations were true they would be violating the terms, and I think we'd see something significant. What, do you think no one's paying any attention to what Microsoft's doing these days?

It is? The impression I got from Ashcroft's statements around the time of the settlement was that he thought the suit never should've been brought anyway (Microsoft is, after all, a good Christian company - remember that they've got "strategic partnerships" with several fundamentalist groups) and that he wanted to wash his hands of it as quickly as possible. I'm willing to bet that the Justice Department doesn't care what Microsoft's doing. They'd rather be chasing big-name bad guys, like Terrorists or Druggies. So far they've shown a startling disinclination to persecute Enron or White House staffers who committed treason in wartime - what makes you think they'll bother to pay attention to Microsoft?

This looks like one judge getting suspicious and wanting a closer look at the stuff she signed off on.

Re:Wrong. Fucking wrong.

[St4rScream]

He is not wrong these are the Goals of Microsoft. And they reason these are goals of Microsoft are as you have stated. THEY WANT TO MAKE MONEY.

The problem is most companies need to occasionally play nice with other companies in order to achieve there goal to make money.
Microsoft does not, or at least believes they do not need to play nice ever.

I think there is a huge misunderstanding...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a quick thing to say here:

A lot of people bash the gov't for not getting as far-reaching a settlement from Microsoft as they should have.

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson did a lousy job of being a judge. He let his disgust with Microsoft's behavior inside and outside the courtroom show easily, and granted interviews with the press that seriously undermined the impartiality he was supposed to have.

Consequently, the court of appeals for that federal district THREW OUT a lot if not most of the things that the Department of Justice won.

The DOJ basically was given a bad deck of cards and they did what they could.

Blame Jackson and the court of appeals, not the DOJ.

Re:I think there is a huge misunderstanding...

[mabhatter654]

Judge Jackson's findings were never, ever thrown out. Only his take on what the solution should be. That's a big stick the courts have! The court is really trying to give MS a "chance" for some precieved indiscression by Judge Jackson. As MS repeats its show for the new judge!

Hopefully, She will keep brutally silent as MS plays its games with her. Like Teddy Roosevelt said, "speak softly, and carry a big stick" if she maintains absolute silence now, her smack down will be un-appealable! The Appeals court thought Jackson was HARSH, not WRONG! Also remember that MS made a fool of a Federal Judge...when they attempt to do it again, the Appeals court will be watching...and won't like what they see from MS at all! The appeals court didn't seem inclined to deal with any of the facts of the case, only the judge's behavior. Unlike poor judge Jackson, they don't have to discuss publicly their choices...only the final rulings. Stunts like MS's make for very bitter judges, but they only have to produce a neat ruling draft, and not the very sarcastic comments they are known to make while debating it! [read Supreme Court docs sometime to see that the higher courts don't take bull...or play "pretty" about it! They can be vicious even by /. standards.]

MS is too big and stuck on itself to learn to play nice at this stage of the game. They will screw even this joke of a settlemen up. Not IF, but WHEN!

Re:I think there is a huge misunderstanding...

[IM6100]

Actually, some would say that the DOJ attorneys, i.e. 'wonderboy' Boies, made a fool out of the judge. Jackson was duped and become so blatantly and clearly partisan that he lost most credibility.

Re:I think there is a huge misunderstanding...

[Alsee]

Jackson was duped and become so blatantly and clearly partisan

Have you actually looked at what Jackson said and why he said it? Microsoft was repeatedly caught presenting FALSE and INTENTIONALLY MISSLEADING evidence and testimony in court. The appellate court did not dispute Jackson's findings. They clearly stated there was no indication of actual bias at all. They quite clearly indicated the reason they set aside Jackson's sentencing was to avoid the APPEARANCE that there may have been impropriety. The fact that he gave comments to the press before the case was over simply looked bad. Jackson simply should have waited for the case to end before justifiably blasting Microsoft for their antics in court.

On re-sentencing the DOJ agreed to an absurd settlement and gave Microsoft almost exactly what they wanted. A sentence with virtually no teeth.

-

Re:I think there is a huge misunderstanding...

[IM6100]

The time and place for Jackson to hammer Microsoft for their courtroom behavior was in his courtroom.

The fact that he waited, and then took the opportunity to badmouth them afterwards indicates serious poor judgement on his part. If Microsoft's courtroom behavior was so horrible, why didn't he DO something about it when it was in his purview to do so? Or is it a case where he felt his innuendo and unofficial remarks would do them more damage?

It just doesn't make sense, and Jackson looks unprofessional and like a zealot.

Re:I think there is a huge misunderstanding...

[Alsee]

The time and place for Jackson to hammer Microsoft for their courtroom behavior was in his courtroom.

I believe in some cases he did legally "hammer them" when their antics crossed the line and violated the law. When their antics did not technically violate the letter of the law the proper time to "hammer them" was in sentencing, for being guilty. The most important thing about Microsoft's courtroom antics is that they failed to provide any actual defence. The findings against Microsoft were upheld on appeal. They were guilty.

Or is it a case where he felt his innuendo and unofficial remarks would do them more damage?

That's quite absurd. Even assuming he had some intent to "cause damage", what sort of damage are you saying he expected to cause? Anything he said unofficially was vanishingly meaningless compared to his power to speak officially in his ruling. He had the power to order a Microsoft breakup, just like the Ma Bell and Standard Oil breakups. You suggest he though he could do more "damage" with unofficial remarks?? That's laughable.

-

Re:Microsoft is Like a child

[Whammy666]

Besides As much as I dislike M$, Microsoft does not have an illegal monolopy

Ummm, you haven't been paying attention, have you? M$ was in fact found guilty of being an illegal monopoly in a court of law.

Additionly, it was no secret that Bush and company had no real interest in pursuing M$. They said as much during the 2000 election campaign which is why M$ did their best to drag the court case out until after the inaugeration. It payed off for them. M$ got a slap on the wrist and basically walked away unscathed.

As far as hurting consumers, M$ hurt consumers by limited their choices by preventing competition. The result is that consumers are stuck with shoddy and overpriced software with few options to shop elsewhere.

Why is everyone here against freedom?

[geekee]

Would you like it if the govt. started dictating terms for Linux and rewriting the GPL? What if the govt. said you can't bundle Mozilla with your distribution? Think about these things before you beat up on MS. They're doomed anyway. Win the fair way. A win against MS using govt. thugs rather than free market is a hollow win that will come back to haunt you some day.

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[ndavidg]

The difference is that Linux is not a monopoly. It is a kernel. The government has to come down on the Tweed bosses and Al Capone bosses of the IT world so that the consumer is protected from tyranny. Microsoft has broken the law and exercised illegal business practices to force their shotty products down the throats of America. In order for America to be free, companies like these must be controlled or destroyed.

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[HeghmoH]

Microsoft has been convicted of a crime, therefore it should be punished. I don't believe it putting random people in jail, but I do believe in putting criminals there. Likewise, it is possible to believe that MS should have terms dictated to it by the government, because of its anti-trust violations.

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[wirehead_rick]

Hey moron. It is about the government FIXING THEIR OWN FUCKUP!

Why is it all you free market advocates only scream free market after the free market has already been closed and the disasterous mess is all that is left? The government is SUPPOSED to fix the break. Why is it only THEN you start squealing like stuck pigs about the free market?

Where were you when M$ was illegally steamrolling their competition into the ground by govt sanction? What about that free market violation?

If you had half a brain you would realize that in a true free market monopolies CANNOT happen. Monopolies exist ONLY because the government sets up market control scructures that favor monopolies. Some are good overall (patents, copyrights, trademarks, WITH LIMITED TERMS), but most are not (copyrights that last over a century, government payoffs and backdoor dealings, etc.).

The day free markets are truly free is the day when future M$'s cannot happen anymore. Something I doubt will ever happen because most free market advocates are really not free market advocates at all. They just use the term as a whip when things don't go their way after they have raped, burned and pillaged and their dastardly acts have been uncovered.

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[surprise_audit]

Would you like it if the govt. started dictating terms for Linux and rewriting the GPL? What if the govt. said you can't bundle Mozilla with your distribution?

The difference here is that Linux (any distro) doesn't also make Mozilla. Microsoft is enforcing use of Internet Explorer by, at least in some cases, ignoring the user's choice of a different browser. Their web-page building applications produce code that "works best with IE", thereby making other browsers look like crap, in part by screwing with the standard. Their document formats change with every release, making it necessary for everyone to upgrade Office to maintain interoperability.

Linux, on the other hand, is just the kernel. The distros put together collections of software from hundreds of different sources, most of which have alternatives. Sure, there are clear favourites in the common applications, but you're not forced to use them. Shoot, you even have a choice of distro! RedHat, Suse, Gentoo or about 2 dozen others. You can pick one that fits your usage.

And no, the various different Windows releases don't count as distros. Microsoft is end-of-lifing most of them so that companies that rely on them have to upgrade to the latest version. Which by total coincidence comes with a different licensing deal, forcing the consumer to either lock-in on several years worth of upgrades, or pay a big fat fee next time around, when the document formats have mutated yet again...

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[kelzer]

A win against MS using govt. thugs rather than free market is a hollow win that will come back to haunt you some day.

Yeah, just like we've been so haunted ever since the AT&T breakup. Damn, I sure preferred the old days where you rented an old clunker rotary dial phone for like $10 a month without ever getting the opportunity to go down to BestBuy and buy a 2.4GHz wireless with digital answering machine and caller ID for $20.

When there's an abusive monopoly involved, there's no such thing as a free market.

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[Anonymous Coward]

> free market

I don't know of any first world country that lives in a truly free market. Each government grants an artificial monopoly in the form of copyrights and patents. As such, it's possible for a company to unfairly become a monopoly. Without copyright and patents, the price of software would be reduced down to near $0, the cost of reproduction. Because the government is responsible for MS becoming a monopoly, it should also be responsible for restoring the market place into a more free market form.

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[Paul the Bold]

Win the fair way.

It is hard to win the fair way when the competition is cheating.

A win against MS using govt. thugs rather than free market...

The problem is that capitalism favors monopolies. To keep the market free, a competing power (like "govt. thugs") is necessary to maintain a balance between capitalism and a free market. If you believe otherwise, then you must be a Republican strongly in favor of market deregulation and supply side economics. (That was not an insult, it was an observation.) You are deluded. (There, that was the insult.)

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the govt. said you can't bundle Mozilla with your distribution?

Then the distribution would shrink to half its original size!

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[HiThere]

...Shoot, you even have a choice of distro! RedHat, Suse, Gentoo or about 2 dozen others. ...

2 dozen? There's a lot more than that! It seems like a hear of a new one every week. Sometimes more often. I heard of a new one yesterday (rubyx -- a source based distribution vaguely like Gentoo, but using ruby as it's scripting language). And I only heard of that because I was browsing the comp.lang.ruby newsgroup...so how many do I just not hear about?

Also consider "linux from scratch". Basically, anyone who feels like it can put together their own distribution out of GPLed pieces. It may be missing a few pieces, but not much! (For some reason most commercial efforts seem to start from Debian.)

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[HiThere]

The problem is that capitalism favors monopolies.

This is a fallacy. That the current incarnation of politico-economic systems favors monopolies is true. And that a part of that system can fairly be called a capitalist system is true.

But note that a rather than the . There are many possible implementations of capitalism. Many of them favor monopolies. But not all of them. Possibly not even most of them. (OTOH, I will agree that the ones easiest to navigate to from feudalism do tend to favor monopolies.)

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[geekee]

Comparing MS to the mob is ridiculous. MS never pointed a gun at anyone. Monopoly laws are an attack on freedom

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[geekee]

Monopoly laws are an attack on freedom. Supporting them may hinder Linux in the future, since Linux will eventually surpass MS.

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[geekee]

MS never used forced against anyone. They got to where they are because people value compatibility more than anything else when they buy an OS. That what the free market decided. The govt. had no influence in the matter whatsoever, and they have no business interfering. Antitrust legislation is an attack on freedom, and someday, when random companies are suing Linux distributors for bundling applications after MS is long gone, maybe you'll understand that your freedom is also being attacked. Anyway, I'm not going to stoop to your level of name calling. The facts speak for themselves, but you've completely misinterpreted them.

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[geekee]

The difference between the Bell break-up a(not AT@T) nd MS antitrust is that the govt. created the Bell monopoly by only allowing them to run phone lines to residences, so they screwed that up to begin with. The so-called MS monopoly evolved because people decided compatibility was the single most important feature in an OS. Given that Linux is a viable alternative, calling MS a monopoly isn't even an accurate description.

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[geekee]

copyright and patent enforcement protect a free market in the same way laws against theft protect a free market. There's a difference between free market and anarchy. The govt had nothing to do with making MS a "monopoly".

Re:Why is everyone here against freedom?

[Anonymous Coward]

> copyright and patent enforcement protect a free market in the same way laws against theft protect a free market.

That's a very overly broad statement; there are many types of theft possible, some of which aren't theft at all. Theft of a design will prevent production of that design. Copying of a design, though, is often called theft and will let the original company still able to produce a good, but their monopolistic position to produce the good will be removed. Theft of a finished product removes the ability of a company to sell a product. More than that, it also costs them the lost good.

With copyright infringement, while the ability to sell is gone, another customer can still buy a physical copy of the good. Because production is normally based on sales, there isn't an excess loss due to overly produced goods which are stolen but instead a loss in the lack of sales. Copyright protects a company to produce the embodiment of an idea and reproduce it without direct competition (clones or other close substitutes often appear, leading to an oligarchy). Without copyright, competition would occur on who could reproduce each work the cheapest.

So, I agree that both copyright and theft laws do protect a company. They don't necessarily "protect the free market". All the free market requires is a market with non-regulated or near non-regulated supply and demand. Without copyright, supply and demand would still occur. Most if not all companies devoted towards copyrighted work production would likely cease to exist, but an industry in a market existing or not existing isn't a part of "protecting the free market" any more than the government backing oil companies so they don't collapse. In fact, the *less* government involvement there is, the freer the market will behave. A absolutely free market, as you seem to notice, might not necessarily be the best type of market. But, with government regulation (aka manipulation) is a requirement that the government be responsible for fixing messes it either directly creates or creates through carelessness.

So what do we do about it?

[Brandybuck]

Did the DoJ "roll over"? Did Bush order a lenient judgement? Is Microsoft really government-proof? The truth is, the answers don't matter one whit. No amount of finger pointing is going to help anyone.

Let me repeat that. No amount of finger pointing is going to help anyone. Shocking but true. Bitching doesn't solve problems. So what do we do now that it's clear that the government isn't going to come to our "rescue" and slay the Evil Microsoft?

First, we need to throw away all our myths about being powerless. Microsoft is a natural market monopoly. They don't have any laws preventing competition with them (like the USPO does). Nor do they own the infrastructure (like the telco monopolies). As big as they are, they are still at the whim of the marketplace.

So use the market against them. Sell off any Microsoft stock you own. Don't buy any Microsoft products. Don't buy systems that have a Microsoft "tax". That's step one. It might not be easy, but it can be done. Stop buying your systems at BestBuy or CompUSA, and start buying them at the small mom-and-pop shops who will build you a custom system. Or build them yourself. Or buy a Mac. Then when you do, write to Dell, HP, Gateway, etc., and tell them why you didn't choose them.

Next step is to support the non-Windows operating systems, even the proprietary ones. You don't have to run them all, but you can certainly stop denigrating them. Stop bitching at the price of Macs and Sparcs. Even if they're too expensive for you personally, you don't want to discourage the people for whom they aren't too expensive.

Funny thing is, despite the Microsoft monopoly, there are others out there. Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, OSX, etc. Since this is Slashdot, odds are you probably use one of these already. Let your friends know you don't use Windows. Help your friends use another OS. Contribute to the Open Source project of your choice, even if it's writing docs or testing alpha and beta releases.

We gave Microsoft their monopoly. That's right, "we" did it. Despite their shady business tactics, it was ultimately we the consumer who chose to purchase Windows. Now it's time for us to take that monopoly away from them.

Re:So what do we do about it?

[Anonymous Coward]

No amount of finger pointing is going to help anyone.

That is not true. Finger-pointing is important over the long term because it results in the credibility of those who constantly are mistaken vanishing. The problem is not that people let Microsoft get away with crap. The problem is that people let them get away with crap, let it go or brush it aside, let them get away with more crap, forgive them, let them get away with more crap, claim "finger pointing doesn't help", and let them get away with more crap. Instead of stopping the finger-pointing, let's actually STOP LISTENING to those people who are constantly wrong, and listen to those who are right! How many times has the Internet shuddered under a Microsoft-only virus or worm, and yet people continue to apologize for Microsoft and claim that it is not the problem. How many times has Microsoft used illegal means to destroy a competing company, and yet people defend their practices. Let us point fingers at these morons! Let us heap blame on them so that THEIR INFLUENCE WILL DISAPPEAR!!!

Re:So what do we do about it?

[Sean Clifford]

This is probably the most lucid argument I've read. It's really up to us to find or build open source alternatives to proprietary software. "But X doesn't run on Linux," should be seen as a challenge to (first) get X to run on Linux and develop Y to compete with X. There's a lot of great stuff out there, and there's a lot left to do. But moaning about Microsoft doesn't do much good when you re-up your licensing time and again.

I develop on Windows - its the platform of choice in my industry. However, Linux is making inroads. I'm doing what I can to port stuff over. We've frozen on Windows 2000 and in the iteration after next, I have a Linux port on the books. SQL2K=>PostgreSQL, IIS=>Apache. We're dependent upon a bunch of components, but those can be replaced in time.

There is only one industry standard win32 app I have yet to get running on wine, but that's just a matter of time.

Re:So what do we do about it?

[Zenikase]

The problem is, most people honestly don't care about Microsoft's politics in the least. They just want to surf the Web, write e-mail, and type in a word processor. Despite all the IE security holes and OE worms, people still don't understand that there are better solutions out there. I can honestly tell you that most people either have never heard of open-source Unix solutions, or if they have, to them it's just a distant concept of "something different than Windows."

I think the main thing to focus on is making more clueless PC users aware of alternate OS solutions and giving them a CD-based Linux distro to try out. If they like it, they can get a Red Hat distro so they won't tear their hair out in bewilderment and confusion during the installation and swear off Unix forever.

Re:So what do we do about it?

[Maxhrk]

If IBM were able to adversite to show what Linux is, then we switching by then. *grin* at least i see no ads on T.V. talking about linux. :p It just my thought about it. I hate to see too many microsoft ads on T.V. too often. bah

Re:So what do we do about it?

[Bob9113]

Nor do they own the infrastructure

I'm afraid you are mistaken, they do own the infrastructure. The infrastructure of modern business is information protocols. Microsoft most certainly does own the MS Office document formats, their inter-tier APIs, and their non-standard network protocols. That was the entire point of this case, that they are using their lateral monopoly on information infrastructure to leverage expansion of their monopoly and to prevent competition. ISVs were told, "if you do not help us kill the competition, then you cannot sell Microsoft compatible products(*)," and the ISVs cannot survive without selling Microsoft compatible products.

* Note that they were told they could not sell Microsoft products, which are the only products that are Microsoft compatible, because of the aforementioned proprietary infrastructure.

Re:So what do we do about it?

[theCoder]

Or buy a Mac. ... Stop bitching at the price of Macs and Sparcs.

I appreciate what you're saying, but please don't kid yourself into thinking that if Apple or Sun had the marketshare MS currently has that they'd be some sort of benevelent dictator or something. I suspect that the only reason MacOSX is the way it is today is because Apple saw itself on the way out and had to do something drastic to stay alive. They were able to come through, and they'll probably still have a future because of it.

But make no mistake -- if Macs were as prevelent as Windows , everyone here would be bitching about Steve Jobs the anti-christ and how Bill Gates is trying to save us from the software and hardware lock-in from the evil giant Apple. Personally, I'm glad MS got the monopoly -- at least we're all using a more open hardware platform.

Buy a Mac or a Sparc if you want, after all the hardware is usually quality. But do so knowing that the companies you're locking yourself into are just like your sworn enemy. Give them too much power/marketshare, and they'll abuse it any way they can. The only true way to keep the companies in line is to ensure there is competition. And the best way to do that is through open standards. If your vendor knows he's replacable, he's much less likely to abuse you.

Re:So what do we do about it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitching doesn't solve problems.

Correction: bitching doesn't solve problems unless there's a Democrat in office. Then all you'll hear from the "enlightened" right wing is bitching all day long, about how he lied, about how he did this and did that and is unfit to hold office. Then a Republican gets along, lies our troops into a war that has the potential to kill millions, butchers the economy, and what do we hear from the "enlightened" right wing? "Stop being partisan!" "Bitching doesn't solve anything!" "You're just politicking!"

Get a clue. Please.

Re:So what do we do about it?

[Reziac]

Actually, way back when Macs had 20% of marketshare (vs. today's 4% and still dropping) you heard a LOT of bitching from Mac users, particularly about Apple's hardware monopoly. Eventually some Mac users realised that you can buy the exact same Sony monitor labeled for a PC at $300 (plus a $3 adapter plug), instead of the Apple-branded Sony monitor at $900, but it goes to show the *way* Apple would have liked to lock down the marketplace. As you say, this would have been worse than the M$ monopoly, which at least doesn't negate our hardware choices.

In fact, M$ thrives partly due to the vast breadth of hardware one can choose to run M$ OSs on -- yet this also allows alternative OSs like linux to thrive, rather than having to create and thereby being stuck with their own proprietary hardware. You don't see Sparc poised to take over the OS marketplace, do you? Of course not, nor will you for any OS that's tied to a narrow or closed-standard hardware spectrum (no matter how superior it may be).

Re:So what do we do about it?

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM wants the enterprise market. It has no interest in selling Linux to end users. None of the commercial Linux distributions has the money for such a campaign.

Re:So what do we do about it?

[HiThere]

Actually, MS is more lenient than Apple would have been. I was (and, actually, still am) please that MS came out on top of Apple. Apple has traditionaly been much more restrictive when it could get away with it than MS was originally.

What has happened is the natural evolution that you get when a monopoly occurs. The mere existence of a monopoly is a clear and present danger. Once you see one, the only sane move is to determine either how to destroy it or how to get away. It doesn't even need to be doing anything particularlly bad at the moment.

The greatest cause of evil is the knowledge that you can do it, and nobody can punish you for it. If, in addition, you also gain a lot, then bingo! And that's what a monopoly allows and fosters. Some individuals can resist the evil for awhile. Others either can't, or don't want to. Apple wouldn't have wanted to. MS didn't even see that it was there. Apple, even in the early days, was restrictive in it's licensing agreements. Bill G. didn't see that being restrictive was wrong. Apple did, but didn't care unless it cost them users. Clearly, neither would have shown the degree of restriant that one would want...but, historically, no monopoly has behaved well except under outside threat. (Prove me wrong...find an example!)

Re:So what do we do about it?

[Brandybuck]

We will have to agree to disagree, because I think you're mistaken as well.

The "infrastructure" I was talking about was rails, phone lines, fiber, etc. When AT&T owned all the long distance lines, it was prohibitively expensive for another long distance telco to emerge.

But file formats are different. The prohibitive expense of laying new rails from coast-to-coast doesn't exist in file formats. You're thinking of a different problem, and that's the problem of lock-in.

Two years ago my company had a SOlaris network, Netscape email and calendar server, and StarOffice/Framemaker documents. Now we're IIS, Exchange, MSOffice. What happened? Did Microsoft come in and put a gun to the CEO's head and make us switch? Of course not! My company *chose* to become a MS only shop. In fact, we never got a visit by any Microsoft salesmen. We *went* to Microsoft! The excuse was that our customers use MSOffice. But we handled that before with a single NT server and Citrix. The real reason was that we got a new head of IT who didn't like UNIX(1)

Modern business has *chosen* MSOffice formats. It wasn't forced upon them. If Microsoft disappeared off the face of the planet tomorrow, businesses would still use MSOffice. This is a problem, to be sure, but it is a problem that can be solved through the marketplace. But like any solution where we are the ones who have to get off our butts, it's not going to be quick or easy.

(1) Don't belittle or denigrate people who use Windows. You're just going to enforce the elitist UNIX stereotype in their mind. That only helps Bill Gates.

Re:So what do we do about it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I'm glad MS got the monopoly -- at least we're all using a more open hardware platform.

GOD how I wish Apple had gotten the monopoly! Then we'd be using a reasonable architecture in all our machines, instead of the craptacular x86 legacy fuck-brained shit. Why are we still using an architecture designed as 4-bit with 8 registers? It's no wonder x86 machines are always memory bandwidth-limited! Ever wondered why we accept half the transistors on our chips being used just to translate from the x86 instruction stream into something worth executing? Why aren't those transistors being used for a second core? Really, Microsoft winning the monopoly was the worst thing to happen to the computer industry imaginable.

Blank pages in Firebird 0.7

[DAldredge]

If you are getting blank pages in Firebird 0.7 it may be due to /. returning http 503 errors. It appears that Firebird and, maybe, other related browsers do not show 503 errors, they just silently fail.

Re:Blank pages in Firebird 0.7

[IM6100]

I have noticed a few odd things about the error pages that seem to be more and more common on Slashdot lately. I have two machines, a W2K box and a NetBSD box, behind a NAT router, that I use a KVM switch to switch between.

The W2K machine consistently gets more of the '500 Internal Server Error' screens when reading slashdot. Sometimes I just give up and switch to the NetBSD box (part of the reason for using the W2K box primarily is it has the faster processor, a P3 800, whereas the NetBSD box has a PPro 200 and is often being used to burn CDR media, etc.)

Is Slashdot using the User agent info to selectively 'blow off' certain clients during peak usage times??

(Now I am getting them while trying to post this comment, on a beige G3 Macintosh with OS 9.2.1 and IE 5.1)

Re:Blank pages in Firebird 0.7

[HiThere]

Could you please say "Mozilla Firebird" or Moz-Firebird or some such. I kept thinking you were talking about the Firebird DBMS, and that your comments were addressed to Taco until I was passed by two posts.

Question about the monopoly

[abertoll]

Microsoft's monopoly came largely in part due to agreements with computer manufacturers to ship their operating system pre-installed (even today most computers come with windows).

So the question is, if Microsoft DIDN'T have this agreement would they be able to charge aprox $200 for the "home" edition of their software? Can you imagine buying a computer first, then going out and choosing the excellence of Windows for just a low $200?

Basically, is Windows true market value $200?

Re:Question about the monopoly

[Keeper]

No, the true market value of the home edition of windows xp isn't $200, hence the reason you can buy it for under $100.

If you'd like something to compare it with, feel free to wander on over to the apple store and buy OS X for $130.

Re:Question about the monopoly

[dipipanone]

You're trolling. Here's another comparison that uses the same dishonest tactics:

You can only buy Windows XP for under $100 if you buy it with hardware.

If you buy Apple's hardware, OS X comes free.

Re:Question about the monopoly

[theCoder]

Personally, I think the best justice for Microsoft would have been to force them to sell all their products at the same price. No OEM version, no upgrade version, no special-Windows-just-for-Dell version. If Microsoft wants to sell the boxed Windows XP for $100, then the price of XP on new computers is $100. And the price for Windows for OEMs that also sell Linux preinstalled computers is also $100. Preventing the price discrimination alone would have gone a long way to helping competition.

Re:Question about the monopoly

[hburch]

If you buy Apple's hardware, OS X comes free

By that argument, when I buy Dell's hardware, MS Windows comes free.

We can quantize the cost of MS Windows because it is made by a third party. OSX, on the other hand, cannot be so easily quantized, because the hardware and software vendors are the same. This does not mean it's "free".

Re:Question about the monopoly

[tshak]

Basically, is Windows true market value $200?

No, it's about $30 to the average Dell user, and no more than $90 for even the smallest mom and pop PC shop.

Re:Question about the monopoly

[Alsee]

does not mean it's "free".

And your own argument shows exactly how Microsoft illegally monopolized the browser market. Microsoft gave Internet Explorer away for "free", when in fact it was not free, they simply rolled the price into the operating system. They REQUIRED that all computers with Windows pre-installed MUST come with IE bundled.

They falsely presented it as free, and they illegally tied it to their OS monopoly.

Back to the true market value", yeah, that is difficult to determine. However it is indisputable in law that Microsoft HAS illegally abused their monopoly position, and it would be absurd to suggest that the illegal abuse has not artificially inflated the market price of the operating system to some unknown extent.

-

Re:Question about the monopoly

[/dev/trash]

It's market value is what people would pay for it.

Re:Question about the monopoly

[HiThere]

Actually, Apple is running a more restricted monopoly. I.e., their OS is the only one that runs on their hardware. (I've tried using Yellow Dog...and it wasn't even vaguely satisfactory..not at the premium price the hardware cost. Truely this was largely because there were no disk partition formats that could be read/write to both systems, but also once I'd installed Jaguar, Yellow Dog couldn't even format disk partitions. Sometimes I wonder about hardware problems, but since I bought the system from TerraSoft, that doesn't let Yellow Dog off the hook.)

Re:Question about the monopoly

[HiThere]

No. The best punishment would be revocation of their corporate charter and confiscation of all assets. I've seen pieces of their EULAs, and any corporation that would issue those deserves death.

Re:Question about the monopoly

[Keeper]

Where hardware in this case is a free ADI power cable splitter. The buying with hardware requirement is a joke.

OS X costs money when you buy it with hardware too, Apple just chooses to not disclose what portion of the price is for the OS that you're paying when you buy a mac. Same as Dell doesn't disclose what portion of the computer's price is for windows when you make a purchase (and I guarantee you it isn't a price you can get through normal retail channels, OEM or not).

Re:Question about the monopoly

[Keeper]

And your own argument shows exactly how Microsoft illegally monopolized the browser market. Microsoft gave Internet Explorer away for "free", when in fact it was not free, they simply rolled the price into the operating system. They REQUIRED that all computers with Windows pre-installed MUST come with IE bundled.

* Did it cost microsoft money for each copy of IE they distributed (ie: liscense fees to third parties)? Nope.
* Did they have to ship an extra cd or use extra packaging to get the product out there? Nope. Did the price of windows increase when IE was integrated? Nope.
* Could you download it off their website for free? Yup.
* Did it cost you anything (other than time) to download it from their website? Nope.
* Were competing products being given away for free? Yup.
* When IE became integrated into Windows, was IE the only thing that used the html rendering engine? Nope. (all the explorer windows use the html rendering engine -- all those icons 'n stuff are rendered by ie's html rendering engine; all your help files, rendered by ie's html rendering engine; the ie rendering engine is used all over the place -- third party apps use it like crazy, and it is a classic example of PROPER code reuse -- instead of re-inventing a rendering engine for each component, they created a shared library).
* Is IE anything more than a tiny shell for an html rendering engine? Nope.

Back to the true market value", yeah, that is difficult to determine. However it is indisputable in law that Microsoft HAS illegally abused their monopoly position, and it would be absurd to suggest that the illegal abuse has not artificially inflated the market price of the operating system to some unknown extent.

I think it's pretty hard to make such a claim when the only competing product on the market costs more.

Re:Question about the monopoly

[dipipanone]

Where hardware in this case is a free ADI power cable splitter.

That deal is almost tempting enough to make me want to upgrade from my warez copy of Windows 2000.

Almost.

Re:Question about the monopoly

[Alsee]

Did Microsoft expect to recoup and profit on the investment they made to to create IE, and on the ongoing expense of developing IE and the cost of the website for downloading IE? Yep. Were did they expect this money to come from? People who paid for the OS.

You talk about using IE for rendering icons and all sorts of stuff. If you want to do that then there's no reason you couldn't substitute Netscape or some other engine, however that is teh LAST thing Microsoft wants to happen. Microsoft has been activly integrating IE into the operating system because of the anti-trust suit. They are NOT doing it for valid programming reasons. I am a programmer, and I can tell you that it is harder and more complicated for Microsoft to take the route they have taken.

I think it's pretty hard to make such a claim

As I said, it is legally indisputable fact that Micorosoft has a Monopoly and has illegally abused that monopoly. It is absurd to argue that it has had no effect on the market price.

the only competing product on the market costs more

I'm guessing you're refefring to Mac OSX? (1) The anti-trust case defined the relevant market to be OS's for Intel-compatible PC's. The only signifigant alternative is Linux which is available for free. (2) I don't know anything about the pricing of Mac OSX, and even assuming it does cost more it has no bearing on the question of whether Microsoft has inflated the "fair market price" of windows. For one thing there is a vastly larger market for intel-compatible hardare (and OS) than for Mac-compatible hardware (and OS), and software has a marginal cost of near zero. That has a huge impact on the true market price.

-

Re:Question about the monopoly

[Keeper]

Did Microsoft expect to recoup and profit on the investment they made to to create IE, and on the ongoing expense of developing IE and the cost of the website for downloading IE? Yep. Were did they expect this money to come from? People who paid for the OS. ...or maybe they expected to profit in the same way their competitors were expecting to pull in money: corporate sales & "portal" sites (you remember those pieces of crap, don't you?). If MS had to pay a liscense fee for every copy of IE distributed, I'd agree with you, but they didn't. It was a fixed cost.

You talk about using IE for rendering icons and all sorts of stuff. If you want to do that then there's no reason you couldn't substitute Netscape or some other engine,

Side note: IE isn't just rendering the icons 'n stuff, it's actually rendering HTML which describes the placement of icons 'n stuff...

Believe it or not, the acclaimed "meeting" between the Office developers @ MS and Netscape was about them wanting to have some sort of html rendering engine to use for help files. The IE guys found out about this, and that's where all of the "Netscape must die" emails came from. Netscape said they weren't interested in writing a component that anyone could use (seeing how they were on ther whole "web platform" kick). At least, that's the story as told by a few Office developers I know.

(In case you hadn't noticed, Office seems to "pioneer" features that are later sucked into Windows itself).

There is also nothing stoping anyone else from making a proper pluggable html rendering engine for Windows. The only thing that comes close is the Mozilla engine, but using it isn't nearly as simple as including an active x control on your dialog.

They are NOT doing it for valid programming reasons. I am a programmer, and I can tell you that it is harder and more complicated for Microsoft to take the route they have taken.

I am a programmer as well, I can tell you that I would NOT implement a different html rendering engine for every piece of code I wrote -- especially if I'd already had one available; I would alter that piece of code so that it was usable from some sort of shared library. I wouldn't rewrite it from scratch.

As I said, it is legally indisputable fact that Micorosoft has a Monopoly and has illegally abused that monopoly. It is absurd to argue that it has had no effect on the market price.

So, what SHOULD the price of Windows be set at? I look around, and I see distributions of something FREE selling for $45 (the last time I saw Redhat). Last time I saw BeOS on a store shelf, it was going for $80. I see WinXP going for $90. And I see MacOS going for $130. Server OSs go for much MUCH more. You can say that there isn't any way that it couldn't have effected the price, but I look at what else is out there and it's a pretty hard claim to prove.

I'm guessing you're refefring to Mac OSX? (1) The anti-trust case defined the relevant market to be OS's for Intel-compatible PC's. The only signifigant alternative is Linux which is available for free. (2) I don't know anything about the pricing of Mac OSX, and even assuming it does cost more it has no bearing on the question of whether Microsoft has inflated the "fair market price" of windows. For one thing there is a vastly larger market for intel-compatible hardare (and OS) than for Mac-compatible hardware (and OS), and software has a marginal cost of near zero. That has a huge impact on the true market price.

If anyone cared about 1, why hasn't Apple been taken to court yet? Their actions have been far worse in many respects than Microsoft. Apple IS competing with Microsoft, weather you admit it or not. 2, Mac OSX costs $130; WinXP Home Edition costs $90 if you shop around for it.

Additionally, the "fair market price" == "what people will pay." The amount of hardware available for Apple platforms vs PC platforms doesn't enter the equation. You ca

Re:Question about the monopoly

[Alsee]

It was a fixed cost.

According to court documents that "fixed cost" was over $100 million per year in 1995, and increased after that. With Microsoft admiting it was a "no revenue product". Numerous internal Microsoft documents show that Microsoft's IE activities were for the purpose of maintaining the OS market, thus OS profits. IE was finaced through OS profits for the purpose of OS profits. IE is part of the price of the OS. If you dissagree then go argue with the court that convicted Microsoft, or the appeals court that upheld that conviction. Especially now that Microsoft says IE is "part of the OS".

Believe it or not, the acclaimed "meeting" between the Office developers @ MS and Netscape was about them wanting to have some sort of html rendering engine to use for help files.

Microsoft's own internal E-mails, PRIOR to the meeting, state a primary goal was to move Netscape out of the Win32 arena. A variety of documents in court showed that Netscape's descriptions of the meeting were accurate and that Microsoft's descriptions were not.

There is also nothing stoping anyone else from making a proper pluggable html rendering engine for Windows.

Microsoft has invested quite a bit of work and money to prevent that. Internal Microsoft documents state that they were working for the specific purpose of preventing anyone from making a properly functioning pluggable replacement. They actively tied IE into the OS for that purpose.

I can tell you that I would NOT implement a different html rendering engine for every piece of code I wrote

I said nothing of the sort! If you re-read my post you should be able to see I was reffering to the sort of "pluggable replacement" you mentioned above.

why hasn't Apple been taken to court yet?

Because there is far less barrier to switching from Apple to another computer/OS, and most importantly Apple has not illegally erected such barriers.

"fair market price" == "what people will pay"

Sorry, US law dissagrees. It recognizes various illegal activities that artificially inflate market prices. Google: "monopoly rents" doj Microsoft. Monopoly rents are not "fair market price".

-

An opinion from back in the Zd-Net days...

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the days of the antitrust trial, Lewis was actually rather instrumental in explaining the legal mumbo-jumbo underlying antitrust to the ZD-Net community. I personally checked many of his assertions and never found an inaccuracy.

At one point though, Lewis just posted the same piece over and over and over again, with little variation. Users complained he was hogging bandwidth and as a result of those complaints he was booted on the pretext of having a URL in his signature. A few people cheered. A few people mourned. Most ignored his absence. When he was actually posting argument; he was well worth reading. When he was in diatribe mode; less so.

Personally, I wouldn't categorize him as a kook, and certainly I've not found a record of his JD (though I admit not having looked very well) so he may well be a legal hobbyist. Still, at face value his less-belligerant rants make for a good editorial opinion - simply don't appeal to him as an authority. Far better to read the case law and decide for yourself. Your clickage may not be commensurate with Lewis'.

JL'B

Re:An opinion from back in the Zd-Net days...

[mvdwege]

Minor note of interest: The grandparent poster spectecjr is one Simon Cooke, a former Microsoft employee, and full-time Microsoft defender on all sorts of online media.

Oh, and him calling someone else a kook is too laughable to describe, as he has a rather kooky history too. Check out the Google USENET archives for some fun.

Mart

Re:An opinion from back in the Zd-Net days...

[Anonymous Coward]

Minor note of interest: The grandparent poster spectecjr is one Simon Cooke, a former Microsoft employee, and full-time Microsoft defender on all sorts of online media.

Oh, and him calling someone else a kook is too laughable to describe, as he has a rather kooky history too. Check out the Google USENET archives for some fun.

Minor note of interest: the above poster is one Mart van der Wege, who is also a full-time poster on Comp.os.linux.advocacy, and he has a rather kooky history as well.

Oh, and look, he's moderated Troll, has a userid an order of magnitude higher than Simon, and probably has much lousier karma.

Re:An opinion from back in the Zd-Net days...

[spectecjr]

Personally, I wouldn't categorize him as a kook, and certainly I've not found a record of his JD (though I admit not having looked very well) so he may well be a legal hobbyist.

By the way, he is a real lawyer. But his profession is very much kook first.

Re:An opinion from back in the Zd-Net days...

[spectecjr]

Minor note of interest: The grandparent poster spectecjr is one Simon Cooke, a former Microsoft employee, and full-time Microsoft defender on all sorts of online media.

Oh, and him calling someone else a kook is too laughable to describe, as he has a rather kooky history too. Check out the Google USENET archives for some fun.

Funny how you couldn't find anything factual to go on, so you go for an ad hominem attack.

Who do you work for, Mart?

Re:An opinion from back in the Zd-Net days...

[mvdwege]

Hmm. I point out that you have ties to Microsoft, and hence an a priori bias against people like Lewis A. Mettler.

I also refer people to your USENET history, which has some angry oubursts which could be called 'kooky' at best.

I think these facts speak for themselves. I don't see the ad hominem.

On the other hand, I don't try to inflate my own importance by posting additional replies as AC. Honestly Simon, if you didn't think the style would give you away, did you think I would overlook the misspelling of my name?

Sad. Real sad. For others reading this: my full name is Mart van de Wege. I have never tried to disguise it, so go and check my history against Simon Cooke's. I am fully confident in who will come out more mature in the comparison.

Mart

Re:An opinion from back in the Zd-Net days...

[spectecjr]

Sad. Real sad. For others reading this: my full name is Mart van de Wege. I have never tried to disguise it, so go and check my history against Simon Cooke's. I am fully confident in who will come out more mature in the comparison.

Yet you're defending Lewis A. Mettler. Do you even know anything about him?

Wow you're a jerk.

Re:An opinion from back in the Zd-Net days...

[mvdwege]

Reading comprehension still isn't your strong suit, is it?

I was not defending Lewis A. Mettler per se. I wa merely pointing out that you did not disclose a possible reson for being biased against him. For the record, I only know him from his Slashdot posts, which sounded fairly reasonable, if a little one-sided. You, however, I know from other venues...

Mart

Re:An opinion from back in the Zd-Net days...

[Gary Destruction]

Zdnet is rather hypocrtical when it comes to Microsoft. They promote Microoft then complain about its domanance in the software industry. Then they bash Microsoft. i.e. Jesse Burst.

Re:/. 503 Errors?

[Anonymous Coward]

GO AND FUCK YOURSELF.

Re:Microsoft is Like a child

[Brandybuck]

M$ was in fact found guilty of being an illegal monopoly in a court of law.

Actually, they were found guilty of abusing their monopoly status, a very different thing.

Monopoly Capitalism...

[idfubar]

The reality is Microsoft won. They put everyone else out of business, there is no competition, and there will be no penalities for their means and ways - no matter what Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly thinks! Best way to get ahead at this point is to learn the dynamics of monopoly capitalism...

Re:Monopoly Capitalism...

[FatherOfONe]

IBM was a monopoly also.

Rome fell, but not in a day. My belief is that because Linux can be free it will take down Microsoft. That may or may not happen, but Microsoft will fall. Now I am not saying they won't be a player like IBM, but they will not be the 800lb gorilla they are today.

Re:Monopoly Capitalism...

[surprise_audit]

Are you saying that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly couldn't order Microsoft to cease (or suspend) operations for willfull violation of the judgement?

I'm ignoring for a moment the flurry of appeals and motions-to-dismiss that would follow such an order. I'm interested in finding out if the Judge could actually make such an order. If a judge can't exercise the ultimate sanction and shut them down, why would anyone bother submitting to the courts anyway? If the Judge fines Microsoft, say, $1M-per-day of continued violations, what options does she have if they tell her to cram it up her ass? Could she send in the Marshals (or whomever) to clear the buildings at Redmond and chain the doors shut?

I'm also ignoring for the moment the probable "adjustment" of the global economy if Microsoft were to disappear overnight... Obviously the software wouldn't just stop working, but there'd surely be panic on Wall Street if Microsoft stock was suddenly worthless.

Re:Monopoly Capitalism...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really think MS has that much of a stranglehold on our economy? They may look big but they they are really very small. Besides, if our economy cant handle one business shutting its doors then our economy is royally screwed already. So who cares if they are shut down, I say we have more problems than MS to deal with. Lets shut them down just so we can get to some the important problems in this country.

Don't forget to...

[Black Parrot]

...put that campaign contribution in the mail Monday, Steve.

Re:Don't forget to...

[IM6100]

C'mon. Steve Jobs is slicker than that. He probably moves as smooth in political circles as Larry Ellision.

The famous quote from Microsoft is Bill Gates saying 'I regret that we now have to maintain a Washington presence.' Gates always considered politics a vulgar activity he wanted nothing to do with. Until the poly-tricksters started getting their ear bent by the coalition of crybabies, that is.

Re:Don't forget to...

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve ballimer or jobs?

Re:/. 503 Errors?

[after]

Yeh. I got like 3 today.

This is strange, maybe the admins are doing background sekrit work that they dont want us to know about and somehow lead to the conclution that having random 503 errors throught the day will bring profit.

I need a Coffee XP

Re:/. 503 Errors?

[Anonymous Coward]

yep, lots and lots of 503 errors here, will post AC due to the fact the mods seem to have a fuck of alot of SAND in their vagina today

You people are broken (nerdy) records..

[ProtonMotiveForce]

Like, a broken Devo record or something.

Seriously, nobody in the real world gives a shit about this, and the idea of a "monopoly" based on intellectual property is laughable.

It ain't oil, it ain't air, it ain't water, and it ain't food. Nobody's dying in the streets over MS's dominance in the OS market.

What's funny is they, by definition, do not have a monopoly. I mean, there are innumerable choices - this is not an arguable item.

And yet here you nerds go, all chiming in with your "they got a slap on the wrist"'s and "the law doesn't understand technology"'s.

Next you'll start in with "won't someone please think of the CHILDREN!!!!". Egads, how ridiculous.

Re:You people are broken (nerdy) records..

[ndavidg]

"Next you'll start in with "won't someone please think of the CHILDREN!!!!"

Yes, especially poor ones in Uganda!

Re:You people are broken (nerdy) records..

[HeghmoH]

Did you say the same thing about the telephone monopoly? After all, it wasn't oil, air, water, or food. Nobody died because of it. There were plenty of other choices.

If MS doesn't have a monopoly, their court case where they were convicted must have been pretty screwed up, then.

Plenty of people in the "real world" (as if we're in some fake world, hah) care about the MS monopoly. They hate the low quality of MS's offerings. They wish they could change. But they don't think they can because the interoperability isn't there, everybody uses MS, etc. etc.

Re:You people are broken (nerdy) records..

[TrancePhreak]

People can die because of the telephone companies. That is why 911 is required to work on phones even if you do not have service. If no one knows to help you, how do you get help?

Re:You people are broken (nerdy) records..

[Anonymous Coward]

What's funny is they, by definition, do not have a monopoly

Actually they do have a monopoly .. monopoly is defined as market concentration and ability to set prices in a market (the market of people who pre-install Windows on PCs is one market, maybe you didn't think of that). Microsoft is most definitely a monopoly no matter which economic definition you use!

Re:You people are broken (nerdy) records..

[krumms]

Nerds? On Slashdot?

You're shitting me?!

Re:You people are broken (nerdy) records..

[ratfynk]

If the 911 system screws up because of non compatable Microsoft interfaces,...then people can certainly die! If a hospitals pharmacy software or med imaging software screws up then ditto...etc..etc..etc. I will not name names and places but guess what, it happens, and MS gets away with it because they are not the vender responsible for the GUI that is tacked on to the MS servers. So trojans and worms are really a threat to these operations and have caused trouble and will continue to cause trouble because of the stupid MS .NET C# to OS communication protocols and their ability to infect client machines at the OS level. Strange that a Hospital now has to worry about computer viruses as much as real ones!

Re:You people are broken (nerdy) records..

[nagora]

Nobody's dying in the streets over MS's dominance in the OS market.

Do you think so? You think there's never been a case where a crash caused by MS's hopeless security and reliability endangered or even cost lives?

There was a recent case where a MS security flaw took out the signaling on an American railway. I would have thought that might be a safety issue.

Did the last 20 years pass you by or something? Computers are pretty common in life-critcal situations nowadays. Having the field dominated by a monopoly (ie, a company that knows that no matter what the quality of their product they're the only game in town) is an issue where people can die in the street.

TWW

Re:You people are broken (nerdy) records..

[dipipanone]

Like, a broken Devo record or something.

Are we not nerds?

Re:You people are broken (nerdy) records..

[TyrranzzX]

Why are people modding this guy down? He's right, Microsoft isn't in foreign countries feeding propaganda to parents to feed their kids Microsoft brand baby milk that gives the kids all sorts of diseases, or in our country building Microsoft brand private prisons that torture people and give life sentances for misdimeanors because prison labour is profitable.

But we do need to realize that our society is built on more than the basic neccesities. The monopoly affects us in indirect ways; slammer getting into hospital databases could mean death for a number of people. Sobig getting into a food distrobution companies system and wrecking it could mean some small town's food shop won't get their shipment this month and the people there will go starving. Some hacker exploiting a RPC hole in the DOD's nuclear mainframe...

So sure, if Microsoft's monopoly goes on I won't starve...yet. If you've ever listened to the tales of the afternow (www.theafternow.com) you'd realize that monopolies have a tendancy to grow, defang goverments (whichis the purpose of the wto btw) and screw people all in the glorious name of gr33d.

Re:You people are broken (nerdy) records..

[TrancePhreak]

The IT admin that puts hospital computers on the same network that has internet access is an idiot, regardless of what OS they run.

Then vs Than

[dbCooper0]

Jeezuz. Why are our schools allowing people to obliterate the language they teach?

I'm so sick of seeing (4 times in the last day) people writing a post with "then" where "than" should have been used.

I know that's not the only term misused, but I'm getting damned sick of it.

Don't have a link to send these idiots to to teach them grammar, but you know I wish I did.

BTW this is not the worst, but there are more typos there as well.

And yeah, the poster is a troll...

Re:Then vs Than

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you must realy love those who write payed rather than paid :) I see that on here at least daily.

Re:Then vs Than

[krumms]

Don't have a link to send these idiots to to teach them grammar, but you know I wish I did.

Worst. Sentence. Ever.

Slashdot: The blind leading the blind.

Re:Then vs Than

[focitrixilous P]

Don't have a link to send these idiots to to teach them grammar, but you know I wish I did.

While I don't deny this sentance wouldn't win a pulitzer, I think it makes more sense if you say it aloud.

Slashdot: The blind leading the blind.
And the second blind man whines continiously.

I'm no threat to your wife.

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, I'm her savior. If I go over there, I'll be doing her a "big and Black" favor (IF you know what I mean - wink wink) by providing her with something only a real man can give her, for the first time in her life. What's that address?

What's really interesting is the SCO license

[dbryson]

That's right, one of the few licensee's is SCO!

Mod down all you want.

[Thinkit3]

It won't make you original as most posts calling for abolishment of IP get modded down. To me, copyright is as unnatural as 1+2=4. Since I see very few with the same opinion, I regard my views as underrated. If I'm a common troll, then do direct me to all the others calling for the abolishment of copyright and patent.

Re:Mod down all you want.

[jared_hanson]

I've said this before, and I will say it. I have no problem with you're opinion, and I respect it in certain ways. However, at least you have mathematics to back you up on 1+2 != 4.

You never give any justification for your stance on copyright however. This is why you get modded troll. If you are going to take a controversial position, you need back up or you will be seen as a fanatic. I've seen countless controversial posts get modded insightful, but they do that by giving justification for their beliefs. Progress happens when brilliant people really challenge the status quo. You don't challenge anything by spouting trite, unfounded propaganda.

Again, I respect you're views. I don't respect your methods. If you could positively contribute to the copyright argument, you might find your views taken seriously, or at least considered rather than disregarded outright.

No - only 1 Samuri left

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, eight of the nine states that originally refused to approve the DoJ/Microsoft deal have now settled with Microsoft. The only state not to settle yet is Massachusetts.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/927494.asp

Re:No - only 1 Samuri left

[morelife]

You are completely correct, sorry.. man they should have modded me down for this and you up. I'm starting to seee how fucked UP the system is.

Okay so no one on Slashdot is surprised?

[erroneus]

I know I'm not. Let's face it. Nothing with Microsoft ever goes as planned. Not for Microsoft competitors, not for Microsoft partners, not for Microsoft fans, not for Microsoft at all.

Re:Wrong. Fucking wrong.

[ratfynk]

I think the anon coward did not read what I wrote. So whats new. A companies intentions are their methods. This is not the financial plan, but it is the method by which one achieves the financial plan.
The Policy Statement of MS would not look like what I wrote. But the operational directives coming from Gates and Ballmer no doubt reflect what I have written, if not by exact word then surely by inflection. I am sure that they are very hush about their preception of what MS really is, like most monopolist their actions are like that of J. E. Hoover and make the CIA look like an open organisation.

The judge is surprised...why?

[Mac Degger]

Because the bloody system is corrupt. How else can you explain a clearly criminal act (exasperated by the repeated further missteps of MS violating any trust they might have built up) going not just unpunished, but almost blessed by the courts when that court just said 'We can fine you millions...we can (and should) do to you what we did to Bell...but we'll do nothing of the kind; just don't do it again'.

That is nothing if not corrupt. Or criminally negligent.

Don't lose sight of the big picture

[kneels_bore]

Why would this administration have rolled over when they had Microsoft over a barrel? Campaign contributions you might say. Possibly, but let me suggest a more likely reason. This administration is comitted to the "Project for an American Century". If you read this document you will find that one of it's goals is to ensure American domination of world commerce using all forms of leverage at its disposal, including military. I suggest that this idealogically driven administration views Microsoft as a tool in this program. The compete domination of worldwide computer technology via the WinTel platform is a major component of economic power.

Re:Don't lose sight of the big picture

[hey]

This is exactly why China is developing its alternative to WinTel and European countries
(eg Germany) are exploring Linux.

Re:Don't lose sight of the big picture

[Anonymous Coward]

as an American i don't want America to rule the world, because if we ruled the world then you have to be responsable for it, either having to feed it or kill it, i want neither, i just want America to take care of its own which ot does a very damn poor job of now...

so fuck you and your "Big Picture"

MS BulletProof 2000 (w/ SP4)

[mm0mm]

Maybe redundant, but some may find this background interesting.

From the page:
" ....Prior to 1998, the company and its employees gave virtually nothing in terms of political contributions. But when the Justice Department launched an antitrust investigation into the company's marketing of its popular Windows software, things changed. The company opened a Washington lobbying office, founded a political action committee and soon became one of the most generous political givers in the country."

During 2000 - 2002 election cycle, Bill and Co. gave about $5M to Rep., nearly $4M to Dem., which are nothing significant for their bank account. Under the current administration, no one will ever come to harm Microsoft's monopoly. Period.

The Licensed Technologies

[pkturner]

The Register says examples of the technologies Microsoft is licensing are SMB and CIFS.

Re:The Licensed Technologies

[DotNetGuru]

And why would no one want to license SMB or CIFS? Is it maybe because Samba offers a (nearly?) complete implementation for free? And that Microsoft has done nothing to prevent this? Nahh... that couldn't be the reason at all.

Imagine if Samba didn't exist: There'd be a lot more people clamoring at the door to license these protocols. They'd be able to sell a product for Unix/Windows interoperability and make a bunch of money. Obviously there's demand for it.

EU vs. Microsoft

[Elektroschock]

There is still a case existing: EU commissioner (competition) Mario Monti against Microsoft. Perhaps it would be better to focus on this case.

There is an article on EU Business: Microsoft faces 'final chance' in EU anti-trust probe from August. And Newsfactor thinks Don ' t bet on it.

The response of Microsoft is already very strong. They want to take the case to the US, where the justice system is probably more corrupt (home advantage). See Hindustan Times's Reuters article for more information on this issue. They present the same accusation in an more polite manner: "Microsoft Corp has been trying to drum up support among US lawmakers as part of its effort to fend off antitrust sanctions being considered by European regulators, congressional sources say.

With the European Commission weighing a fine and behavioral changes that could go beyond its US antitrust settlement, Microsoft lobbyists have taken their case to key members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sources said.

While Microsft is under investigation because of its abuse of power, Microsoft propaganda requests stronger IPR law, criminal prosecution . They claim the proposed EURO DMCA++ (IP Enforcement directive) was not strong enough. Examine the horribleEU directive proposal paper by AEL Wiki (page of Association Electronic Libre, Belgium).

I for one

[so sue mee]

Welcome our MICROSOFT Overlords...err... Overlord

Kollar-Kelly was a gullible moron

[Get Behind the Mule]

There was ample evidence on record that MS is an incorrigible scofflaw, with numerous violations of court orders, and yet Kollar-Kelly let them go with a behavioral remedy. She finished off her decision about the punishment with a couple of paragraphs about "You better do what I said, or else I'll be really, really mad, and you'll be really, really sorry." I guess we get to find out now if she has any balls. It was going to happen sooner or later.

Re:Kollar-Kelly was a gullible moron

[Ear Phantom]

Not quite.
She did what any judge in her circumstances *could have* done. She asked the DOJ and the states to come up with a new settlement, and unfortunately, the shift from Reno to Ashcroft happened. All of a sudden, you have the DOJ saying, "let's just have Microsoft write their own punishment instead of breaking them up" and the states having to decide which is more important, sucking up to the new administration (not to mention the skyrocketing court costs and their burdens to the taxpayer) or getting a pound of flesh.
Don't blame the judge, blame the regime change.

--Ear Phantom

Why?

[thedecompilermsn.com]

Can someone actually answer me simple question: Why? Does anyone know what MS has done is technically wrong? They came out with their OWN architecture for their OS. Sure it was based on Apple's, but there's no such thing as true creativity, rather an improvement of existing ideas and theories. So what, they came out with some decent technologies and now they're an evil empire? Actually, if you look into it, they're far from it. Their employee treatment supersedes most large corporations. They DO NOT force you to buy their products. You may feel that you're obligated to do so, or even just bootleg them (like even 90% of the people that read and post on this site do anyways). Honestly you have no right to complain. Chances are, you didn't purchase your copy of Windows. What Microsoft has done is capitalize off of the corporate America that we as a nation allow to continue. I say good for them, as, I'm sure, would anyone that's actually trying to do something with our lives in this oddity of a country. Sure there's many downfalls to our society, granted. However, that's not the topic of this post. The point is, they created something, (within legal boundaries of barrowing and/or improving technologies) which they should not be punished for. Good for them. Maybe a few of you can go on to be the next Gates. Who knows? But keep in-mind, Steve Jobs had the monopoly going first. Gates and his associates just took it to a new extreme. Why don't you stop wasting your time worrying about what MS is doing, and maybe, start worrying what you're going to do, in order to succeed in this area of work (that's if you're even pursuing it; over half of you won't). As a developer, I appreciate what MS has created. As to those of you who complain about the bugs... TRY DEVELOPING. Those of you that do, I'm sure you can appreciate those bugs a bit more. If this post hasn't got you thinking a bit different, which it probably won't, just remember, all empires eventually fall due to an over size. May very well be a few decades, at their rate, possibly a few years, they will break on their own. Causing all sorts of legal mischief in licensing their OWN technologies. If you Linux gurus out there still remain unsatisfied with the virtue of patience, all I can say is stfu. Your tech isn't exactly best for a nice profit margin. Plus, once it provides as much flexibility to an array of users such as old man Rivers down the street, to the thirteen year old Asian in a basement somewhere in China (probably cracking the leaks of Longhorn right now), to developers AND servers then we'll talk. Not saying that Linux is a poor choice of web-server, but does it accommodate the rest? No it doesn't, if you just argued that statement. Unix was a great system, don't get me wrong, but it's time to let go, and wake up to a standard so we can ALL communicate effectively. Sorry about dragging on, but have any of you anti-MS reps actually seen the working conditions of MS employees. It is simply incredible. Those of you that appreciate free caffeine as much as I do free cocaine (I wish MS provided that in product packaging. Maybe I'd purchase it too), you should respect it a bit more. In defense to the developers, I'm sure they're not as money hungry (the damn well get paid enough) to release any of their products with any bugs, that may reflect poorly on them. Being a developer, of coursed based on Window's techs, I sure as hell don't like being responsible for assets gone missing when my 30 mile long TSQL proc actually listens to what I accidentally wrote. Nor are they wanting to be responsible for $50k in patch development. Then again, it is job security for all of us, isn't it?

Re:Why?

[smack.addict]

Can someone actually answer me simple question: Why? Does anyone know what MS has done is technically wrong?

They are a monopoly and they abused that monopoly position. Though it is not wrong to be a monopoly, it is illegal to abuse your monopoly position.

Chances are, you didn't purchase your copy of Windows.

Actually, chances are you have been forced to buy copies of Windows you do not even legally need.

Steve Jobs had the monopoly going first.

No, he did not. Apple is not a monopoly. You have to control an overwhelming portion of the market and the barriers to entry in the market have to be significant. Apple has never been in that position, though one could argue it could have placed itself in that position. Maybe.

Re:Why?

[rusty0101]

Then again, it is job security for all of us, isn't it?


Did your company hire you to be a patch monkey, or are you goint to talk to your boss about the new job description?

In all likelyhood you were hired because they perceived you to have skills that will save the company you work for money over the long run. I strongly dobut that being a patch monkey was the perceived skill they selected you for.

You might want to document the activities you have performed over the last month or two that have prevented you from performing the job that they hired you for, and suggest that they either change your job description, or take one of several (documented) steps to change the situation so that you can perform the jobs that they hired you for.

-Rusty

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new to the astroturfing scene, you dont use ALL of the arguments MS gives you the first time you post. Save some for later, better impact.

Within thier rights... Wrong.

[qtp]

To control digital communication world wide.

To remove all competitors and hardware platform competition.

They are completely within their rights in doing these things.

Wrong. Being a monopoly, Microsoft is not permitted to do either of the first two items on your list, as it would run coumter to anti-trust regulations.

These laws were written in the late nineteenth century to counter the increasing control over comerce that the railroad industry was having over trade and the damaging effects of that control on interstate trade and on private citizens.

It was costing farmers more to transport thier goods to market than could be gained from the sale of those goods, RR company investments in banking and mortgage companies were enabling them to evict farmers from thier land and to replace them with company owned tennants, and the price of foodstuffs was becoming exhorbitantly expensive for consumers as the RRs were beginning to control the markets over the goods they were transporting as well as the market for transporting those goods.

Essentially, the Railroad companies enjoyed majority monopolies in the markets that they served and were using thier monopoly control to regulate those markets. This was unacceptable to the private citizens who were increasingly finding themselves subject to rules and regulations that were unevenly applied (Goods from the RR company owned farms were shipped "free" while the rates were being increased to push the family farms closer to forclosure) and were implimented by persons who they did not elect and who were in no way representing them.

The possibility of a single company controlling digital communication and the tools necessary for business in a world dependant on computers in order to conduct the affairs of government and business is exactly the reason that antitrust laws were authored.

It is the consumer and communication industry that needs to fight this monolyth

As most of the communication industry enjoys near monopolies on last-mile technologies, it is unlikely that they will embrace any alternative to the possibility of restrively licensed technology. They are too afraid that open technologies will be able to lower the cost of entry into the last-mile market and alow smaller competitors to threaten thier currently strong positions.

the sooner the consumer realises this the better.

Agreed, but it is difficult when media associations and communication giants enjoy the power that they currently have. It is against the interest of the media to suggest that monopoly is harmful when the media companies are attempting to deregulate (through lobbying the FCC) in attempts to gain monopolies over individual markets. Likewise, it is against the interests of the communications giants to support (or permit) alternatives to Microsoft software when they themselves are attempting to regulate how consumers are using the connetions that they are selling. The cross investment between big media and the communications giants ensures that the news will foster an belief among consumers that there are not any monopolies in the software, media, and communications industries, and that if there were it would not be a bad thing.

IMHO, it is perfectly fine to use the courts in an attempt to apply currently existing law in order to pry open the markets, including going to court as well as applying the laws that these companies use to maintain thier monopoly positions in new ways (ala GPL).

The greatest logical fallacy in computing

[danaris]

is that there must be a monopoly. Personally, I believe that if M$ had not become a monopoly, no one would have! Why should Apple have become one?

There were a whole bunch of different operating systems, on different hardware platforms, poised to take off between the mid-80s and the mid-90s. What was it that crushed them--was it merely the presence of a bigger fish? Or was it the fact that the big fish was systematically going around eating and killing the little fish?

Apple's philosophy has always been different than Microsoft's. Where Microsoft has made things cheap and functional, Apple has made things solid and elegant. Where Microsoft has bought or squashed new, useful technologies, Apple has developed their own, or licensed existing ones. Where Microsoft lied, cheated, and stole their way to the top, Apple was still plugging away down there, making good, dependable hardware (generally) and elegant, well-written software to go with it.

Yes, there have been times when Apple did bad stuff, too; I'm not trying to paint them like some kind of saint. For a while, they lost their way, in the Amelio era, and they have done unpleasant stuff before & since, too. But they didn't make a pattern out of it the way M$ did.

I think that if Microsoft had not become the monopoly that they did, the playing field today would look totally different. I suspect there would have been at least ten major OSes (including Linux and its OSS brethren as maybe 2 of those), playing by a set of standards that mean that almost any software will run easily on most of them.

The worst part is how close M$ came to dying before it was even born. Have you watched Pirates of Silicon Valley? You should. The beginnings of Microsoft and Apple were both incredibly precarious. If one tiny decision had gone the other way, everything for the past 25 years would have been changed.

And, once again, I don't think that anyone but Microsoft would have become the monopoly that they did. No one else has the mindset that Gates does, that everything belongs to him. Jobs is a control freak too, but he just likes to control everything that does "belong" to him absolutely. Not make everything his.

That's the difference between Microsoft and Apple.

Dan Aris

Genetic pressures for morality

[Antaeus Feldspar]

You mention that there are genetic pressures towards pro-social behavior (or, to satisfy the purists, genetic pressures towards biological features that in turn encourage pro-social behavior).

However, you neglect the other side of that coin: a society (or genetic population) where pro-social behavior is the norm is itself an environment with genetic pressures towards anti-social behavior. A big network of bonds of trust is a network of opportunity for one willing to abuse those bonds.

It's just as inevitable as evolution itself, I'm afraid: if genetic pressures can and do push for cooperation, they can push back for defection. As Jack Handey said: "I can imagine a world without war, a world without fighting, a world without weapons. Then I can imagine us attacking that world, cause they'd never see it coming."

Re:Genetic pressures for morality

[Bob9113]

However, you neglect the other side of that coin: a society (or genetic population) where pro-social behavior is the norm is itself an environment with genetic pressures towards anti-social behavior. A big network of bonds of trust is a network of opportunity for one willing to abuse those bonds.

I can't mod after commenting, but if I could I would. I started thinking down this exact same path after I had posted. Fascinating stuff. I need to get around to reading a book on game theory.

Re:Genetic pressures for morality

[HiThere]

Only if you stipulate that the environment was created sui generis, as it might be in a lab setting. If the environment evolved, then there were pressures that caused it to evolve. And as long as these pressures remain in place the environment will continue to support pro-social behavior.

This, however, is not the current situation. The cost of running for political office has drastically changed, and, in part, been changed by large corporations. In part this is due to a malicious (I can no longer merely call it stupid) court decision in the 1850's (I think it was Union Pacific vs.??? [the US? Calif.?]) which decided that corporations were persons, and had constitutional rights as such. In part it's the FCC decision that decided that the stations could charge for access to the airwaves, and no longer had to grant equal time. There are others, but those are two of the biggies.

Re:/. 503 Errors?

[IM6100]

I have consistently had more of those errors when browsing Slashdot on W2K than on NetBSD, both using Mozilla behind the same NAT router.

User Agent trickery??

Rolling Over

[smack.addict]

The government rolled over when George Bush became President. Can anyone think of one positive accomplishment of this President? I can't.

Re:Rolling Over

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear hear!! To understand ANY of his decisions, follow the money (or oil) trail. That goes double for Penis Cheney.

Re:Rolling Over

[mabu]

The government rolled over when George Bush became President. Can anyone think of one positive accomplishment of this President?

Don't hate the playa, hate the game. Our illustrious administration has many accomplishments that they undoubtedly think are positive:

* Attacked and took over two countries.
* Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
* Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
* Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.
* Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
* First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
* First president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
* First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
* After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in US history.
* Set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips than any other president in US history.
* In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
*Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history.
* Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12 month period.
* Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
* Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
* Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in US history.
* Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
* Presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
* Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
* Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
* Dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
* My presidency is the most secretive and un-accountable of any in US history.
* Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (the 'poorest' multi-millionaire, Condoleeza Rice has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).
* First president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
* Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
* First president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation.
* Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
* Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history.
* First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the human rights commission.
* First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the elections monitoring board.
* Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
* Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
* Withdrew from the World Court of Law.
* Refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
* First president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 US elections).
* All-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
* My biggest life-time campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
* Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.
* First president in US history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation

..."under the election system of the US"...

[burgburgburg]

"that under the election system in the US, GWB won"

No, it was NOT under the election system of the US. It was a selection by the SC. They stopped recounts mandated by the Florida Constitution and recognized by the Florida Supreme Court, declared W to be the winner and stated that any further recounts would cast doubts on their selection. While he may be in office, all I'm doing is noting that he is the Selected President*. Why does ignoring Republican spin and pointing out the reality of the situation irk some folks?

As for your second paragraph, it made a huge difference. The "Justice" Department, after winning the civil case under the previous administration and holding all the cards, suddenly decides "Let's Settle" under the current administration. And then they set the terms so lax and pathetic that calling it a slap on the wrist is an insult to slaps on the wrist everywhere.

Re:..."under the election system of the US"...

[phantomlord]

No, it was NOT under the election system of the US. It was a selection by the SC. They stopped recounts mandated by the Florida Constitution and recognized by the Florida Supreme Court, declared W to be the winner and stated that any further recounts would cast doubts on their selection. While he may be in office, all I'm doing is noting that he is the Selected President*. Why does ignoring Republican spin and pointing out the reality of the situation irk some folks?

Every newspaper that went to Florida and recounted the votes afterward, even the NY Times, admitted that regardless of what standard they used to recount, GWB won the state. If Gore won his own home state, it never would have been an issue.

What the Florida Supreme Court said, was that they wanted to force selective recounts in the counties that Gore selected and not all counties. The SCOTUS ruled that unfair - you have to recount all the votes, not just a subset. Inaugeration day was quickly approaching and Florida just didn't have time to do it.

Complaining about Florida and ignoring what happened in New Mexico, Missouri, South Dakota, etc is like blaming the last guy up to bat for losing because he struck out. It's just as much of the rest of the team's fault as it is the one who had the final strike out.

Now... you can thank all the voters here at /. who voted for Nader and took votes away from Gore (note, I didn't whine in 1995, 3 years later, that it wasn't fair that Clinton won with only, what, 39% of the vote because Perot took too many votes away from GHWB. I accepted him as the President regardless of whether I thought he was actually fit for the job).

Get OVER IT

[Crashmarik]

The way to beat Microsoft is to beat Microsoft. Bitching the judge, justice dept etc didn't throw the game isnt going to help anyone. Arguing the courts should interfere in business won't win converts or friends.

The way to beat microsoft is to consistently build better products. Products that do things Microsofts don't, offer choices Microsoft won't, or provide economies that Microsoft can't are the key to dislodging them.

No one who makes decisions at a company is going to ask if a product is politically correct, if they do they should be fired. They either want something that will help them win against their competition or will mean fewer headaches for them. It doesn't matter if stalin, some crazy leftist wacko, or pat robertson is making it.

If you want to bitch about microsoft bitch about how they put their users at risk. Bitch about how the complete lack of security in windows products will make companies with sensitive data LIABLE. Bitch about how the lack of security in microsoft products makes certain business crimally culpable (healthcare, banking)

Don't go on and on about how microsoft pushed the envelope of business practice. Everybody respects a tough competitor nobody respects whiners.

Re:Get OVER IT

[fishexe]

Everybody respects a tough competitor nobody respects whiners.

Everybody respects someone with a grasp of grammar nobody respects fools.

Re:Get OVER IT

[Crashmarik]

Intellectual property = Intellectual theft ??

Well I can see who the fool is.

Re:Get OVER IT

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody respects whiners?

Yeah, maybe, but nobody likes assholes.
Better him than you, huh? ;-)

You've just bought in to the same bullshit that convinces so many to enjoy getting fucked in the ass by corporations.

Of course they should compete as hard as possible! But our Gov't should also set Limits, to encourage the free market and help We The People against this especially "moneyed interest". It's not whining, it's protest in support of justice. And right-thinking people respect a Decent, Honest, and Tough competitor more than one that only goes for the jugular without thinking about the long term... which would describe most huge corporations today, I'd say.

YOU ARE NOT IN GRADE SCHOOL ANYMORE. Don't let this stupidity turn you into a bastard; remember, Americans (historically) tend to root for the underdog. And decent people realize there are far more important things than business. This is one of the things Government SHOULD do. Like a military, it would be protecting its citizens. What's wrong with that?

But I guess we're all dickhead false-Conservative Republicans now, living by their new Golden Rule: He who has the gold rules. Corollary: If you're rich, you deserve it; if you're not, you deserve it. However it came about. Gotta love these guys!

Later,
YOMAYO *under assumed name*

Re:Get OVER IT

[Crashmarik]

Don't be a dimwit. This has nothing to do with politics.

Microsofts behavior is no worse than most companies its alot better than many software companies. I have never had to buy a dongle to run a Microsoft ( I am not saying microsoft doesn't sell dongles or what have you). I have never had a Microsoft license die on my because I have run a backup.

On the other had, I have been pissed at their license schemes. Do you remember their old compiler licensing schemes ? I am talking Microsoft C and Microsoft Fortran. If you wanted to distribute the compiled binaries they required a separate license. Do you know what changed that ? Borland came up with their no nonsense license for Turbo Pascal, and priced it at a great pricepoint. For awhile it looked like borland would drive Microsoft out of making compilers for their own operating systerm.

Novell had the opertunity to strangle Microsoft. Imagine if when they owned 70% of the network installations they required DR-Dos to install netware. They made a half hearted attempt by bundling personell netware with DR-Dos. Why they didn't go all the way ? My qguess is they were worried about damaging the netware market.

OS/2 warp came damn close. If IBM at the time had of been willing to install it on everything they shipped and had of made it cheaper (read giveaway) it would have been a different world.

Lotus, Corel, Quaterdeck, Have all been nearly there. My point is simple when businesses/individuals compete to produce better products we all win. Even though the companies I cited didn't win this particular battle we are all better off because they tried. Every one of them has made significant contributions to the state of the are.

Before you go shouting for the courts to take down microsoft you better realize the courts aren't your friend. There's alot of laws out there and the judge that rules against Microsoft today can rule against Linux tomorrow.

Re:Get OVER IT

[Crashmarik]

"dongle to run a Microsoft" should read "Microsoft product."

"license die on my" should read "die on me"

"opertunity" should read opportunity

"qguess" should read "guess".

"state of the are" should read "state of the art"

What the hell is with all the 500 errors on slashdot allready ? How bout a statement or at least an acknowledgement they are happening.

Re:Get OVER IT

[mabu]

The way to beat microsoft is to consistently build better products. Products that do things Microsofts don't, offer choices Microsoft won't, or provide economies that Microsoft can't are the key to dislodging them.

I agree, but when future patches of Microsoft's OS or releases of new hardware deliberately cripple or make these "better products" cease to be supported or function properly, that crosses the line.

When you truly create a better product, and Microsoft bundles a competitive product for FREE with their next software release, it's hard to compete. When you do have a better product and Microsoft funds a legal effort to discredit the integrity of your product founded on unstable premises, that's not competition. When you're trying to develop a superior product and the overlord of the OS refuses to release information on the platform needed to make your product compatible, that's not fair competition.

This is not a level playing field where the best product wins. So your argument is weak.

Re:Get OVER IT

[Crashmarik]

I agree that its not a level playing field. I also agree that Microsoft can and will do things that are against the spirit of competition.

On the other hand I have no Idea what a fair or level playing field is. If I were running a brick and mortar store, I would feel that internet stores with their exemption to sales tax had an unfair advantage. In the middle of the ninetenneth century if you were a steamship line executive you would have felt the railroads were being given an unfair advantage of land grants and government subsidies. If youre an over the air broadcaster you might feel the lack of FCC oversight on internet based broadcasters is unfair. If youre an internet broadcaster you might feel the clout and content availability that traditional broadcasters have is unfair.

I posit this to you. The better product you seem to be using as your poster child is netscape. Before I go further,Don't get me wrong I am writing using mozilla. I have used netscape since the begining. Netscape didn't have to lose. It had certain features that if properly played could have allowed it to keep slugging it out with Microsoft. Security is the main feature I am reffering to. Netscape never truly trashed Microsoft on this. Netscapes reps didnt go into fortune 500 companies and say if you use IE you will violate every concept of confidentiality and due dilligence in existence.

Btw on the subject of tilted playing fields, yes microsoft did bundle I.E. and do some really silly things with it, but they could legitimately argue they were competing against a product whose development was funded by the government. Netscape was descended from Mosaic.

Licensing fees forbid its only competitor

[dwheeler]

In many markets, the only viable true competitor to Microsoft is Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS). Microsoft knows this. So, Microsoft cleverly proposed a settlement - and the gullible government accepted - a settlement that is fundamentally discriminatory, designed so that the only viable competitor CANNOT compete.

So, with a "fix" that is specifically designed to forbid use by the only competitor, why would anyone think that the fix would ever work?

The APIs and file formats for Windows and Office need to be public and open to all, no exceptions, no licenses. The document formats are in many ways more important, even; it makes no sense that much of the world's public records are only accessible via a private gatekeeper.

Re:Microsoft is Like a child

[tshak]

M$ was in fact found guilty of being an illegal monopoly in a court of law.
Actually, they weren't. They were found guilty of abusing their monopoly status. The distinction is huge. Their monopoly has always been legit - people here are just bitter about it. Once MS had a monopoly they started leveraging that monopoly to shove out any potential competition via "strong-armed" agreements with OEM's. This is where MS was found guilty, and rightly so.

The result is that consumers are stuck with shoddy and overpriced software with few options to shop elsewhere.

My Dad, his brother, and his mom all love their Macs. You can buy many Linux distro's in major electronics stores. The choice is there, it's just that most people choose Windows. Remember the Windows95 MAD RUSH to stores when it was released? Microsoft did _NOT_ have a monopoly at that time. If Apple only came out with a quality OS like OSX sooner then they would have easily thwarted off the monopoly. Linux on the desktop was nowhere to be found at the time. BeOS had shoddy hardware support (up until it's "death"). The lack of _good_ competition was not Microsofts fault.

Had to be done, sorry...

[fishexe]

This all comes down to one thing. What is Microsofts business plan?

1. Control some software markets
2. ...
3. Profit!

big duh

[Anonymous Coward]

hello, clueless fucks.

we have an administration of texas republicans, all of whom have enjoyed the fruits of the oil monopoly.

they have sent american troops to their death in iraq based on a pack of lies they used to dupe the american public.

they gave the go ahead to big energy fatcats (the ones who slowly bought up california's energy infrastructure since 1994) to rape and pillage california's budget surplus by the manipulation of energy availability.

they also ordered that microsoft be given a wrist slap instead of the ass pounding they so richly deserved.

kotar-kelly, all i have to say to you is this:
(with apologies to Dan Aykroyd)

"Kathleen, you ignorant slut"

Isn't Microsoft criminally insane?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's culture is fundamentally sociopathic. The leaders are fundamentally sociopaths. If they weren't in a legitimate profession they'd spend most of their time in jail or asylums. We are not dealing with people who are "normal productive members of our society". We are dealing with people who are certifiably sick!

Consider the formal, medical definition of antisocial disorder (colloquially known as "being a sociopath") and ask yourself: Gates? Ballmer? Alchin? Hmm." By the way, all you Microsoft employees: how does it feel to work for the betterment of people who share a diagnosis of Charles Manson, Ted Bundy and Jim Jones? Do you sleep well at night?

Diagnostic Criteria for 301.7 Antisocial Personality Disorder

A. There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

• (1) failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest

Microsoft business practices conforming to social norms? Yeah right! Subject to arrest? Violating antitrust - well not in the US, unfortunately. Perjury in federal court? Definitely. Repeated theft of IP? Sometimes.

(2) deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure

Does perjury in federal court count? Does stealing IP, multiple times count? Aliases? Does SCO count?

(3) impulsivity or failure to plan ahead

Go back in comp.risks 10-15 years and note that people have been warning about MS security and design flaws for a very long time. If ignoring widely published warnings by leading CS professors and leaders isn't lack of planning (and responsibility) I don't what is. If designing schlock and passing it off as quality product isn't lack of planning...

(4) irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults

Does Billy Boy get irritable and aggressive against legitimate competitors and start "cutting off air supplies" in response sound like a form of assault? Does throwing legal departments count as a fight or assault? Duh! Yeah!

(5) reckless disregard for safety of self or others

Nuclear power plants and medical devices using Microsoft Windows!?!? HP, IBM and Sun have long had this barred in their Ts&Cs. Microsoft doesn't. 'Nuff said!

(6) consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations

Does failing to comply with a Antitrust Consent Decree count? I'd say so.

(7) lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

Sounds like the Microsoft press relations department's broken record. Sounds like every word from Gates, Ballmer and Alchin regarding Microsoft's antitrust conviction. Sounds like what they all say every time their hands are caught in the cookie jar. Check!

B. The individual is at least age 18 years.

Ah, yeah. Check.

C. There is evidence of Conduct Disorder (see p. 90) with onset before age 15 years.

Hard to know, but we got all the other criteria covered anyway

D. The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia or a Manic Episode.

Well, our boys (and girls) in Redmond haven't been officially diagnosed with anything else, that we know of, but the antisocial behavior seems pervasive and perpetual.

Well, there you have it. A positive diagnosis doesn't even required all points, yet Microsoft and its management qualifies on every single point! Perhaps we need men in white suits instead of federal courts.

Re:Isn't Microsoft criminally insane?

[Ogman]

Well diagnosed, Doctor!

I thought collusion like this was illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not surprised that SCO is one of the "major" licensees for Microsoft "technology", given that Microsoft has purchased nonsense licenses for SCO's "technology".

I thought that this behavior was exactly what got Enron into trouble. They inflated their revenues by selling nonsense "product" to companies who had already sold them (the same) nonsense "product".

Clearly i'm doing something wrong, here. I'm just trying to build stuff, but there's obviously not money to be made in that...

the biggest free software lie

[Stu Charlton]

"Without copyright and patents, the price of software would be reduced down to near $0, the cost of reproduction."

Software development is a service that is funded through productization. People's time and knowledge are not "zero cost", even if their volunteer it without pay. There always is an opportunity cost involved.

Re:the biggest free software lie

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there's a fixed cost to producing the software/music/etc, but the variable cost of production is near zero (sub-$1 range). Without copyright, anyone could redistribute anything, so there'd be virtually no way to recoup the fixed cost (contracts, bulk buy-outs, etc are ways). Because of this, very few companies would ever get into copyrighted work productions. Now, people still might, without any real hope of recouping a profit. They might be able to make money through guest appearances, though.

Of course, copyright was originally designed to expire in a sane period of time. At the time, that was 14 years + a possible extension. This made a lot of sense because just getting a book shipped all the way across the newly formed United States might have taken several years. With the ability that data can be distributed across the whole world same-day and publishing can ship within a week to near anywhere, it'd make sense that copyright would go *down* in time, not up. Authors/companies don't have an inate right to profit. Copyright is a means to try to help companies profit while enriching the social sphere. Without a sane limit in either direction, one of the two spheres is being abused.

Re:MS BulletProof 2000 (w/ SP4)

[Anonymous Coward]

Under the current administration?

As if it would be somehow magically different if Gore or some other Democrat was in office?

Did you miss the part in your own post about the dems getting $4 million bucks?

Your unfounded belief that one party is somehow evil and unclean and pro-business/anti-consumer while the other is good and clean and just and favors the people is based on the incorrect assumption that there's some sort of difference between the two major political parties in the US.

There isn't.

Both are sucking off the corporate teat to the same degree and respond in the exact same way.

In this administration, indeed!

How naive. Your ideas would be cute, if they weren't so dangerous.

Wal Mart Buying Microsoft Is Not Feasible

[kelzer]

Relative revenues are irrelevant here. (Wow, very alliterative!) Ignoring the entire issue of whether such a merger would make business sense, Microsoft's market capitalization (stock price times shares outstanding) is so huge ($287.52B) that there's no way on earth Wal Mart could acquire them. Wal Mart's capitalization is only $253.89B. It would be more feasible for Microsoft to aquire Wal Mart than vice-versa.

Re:Wal Mart Buying Microsoft Is Not Feasible

[stephens_domain]

I think it was really just an exercise in comparison. So many people see MS as the Evil Empire and Wal-Mart as a friendly store with yellow smiley faces.
Wal-Mart does have a significant amount of power. When Wal-Mart decides they will sell products with RFID tags, most manufacturers will start using them. Wal-Mart can make or break companies by carrying or dropping their product. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it just points out that MS is not the only huge and powerful organization.

Re:Wal Mart Buying Microsoft Is Not Feasible

[twiddlingbits]

A large amount of Wal-Mart's goods come from the mainland of China. Just imagine if that buying power was focused here in the US (or at least not in Communist China). I have heard that Wal-Mart suppliers have some of the most horrible working conditions in China. Of course the Government looks the other way ( a few yen goes a LONG way to lowering prices). Sounds to me that Wal-Mart's tactics put Mr. Gates to shame. At least M$ is not using slave labor and sweatshops to develop Windoze software. M$ has about $50B in the bank in CASH and more every day. They can buy small South American countries with that! Welcome to Gatesville, capital of the nation of Microsoft!

freedom?

[Stu Charlton]

The Unites States is a highly regulated country in almost all industries: rules, regulations, subsidies, trade barriers, etc.

Pure lassez-faire markets are not usually acceptable in a modern society: society can not handle the pace of change and wildly-swinging boom bust cycles of the 19th century that led to widespread and deep unemployment every decade or so.

Since the 1980s, the "conservatives" decided to be the exact opposite of what a conservative would do: instead of taking gradual steps to proven solutions, they have been reactionary -- trying to move us back to the 19th century classical liberalism that apparently will work much much better than the 20th century's approach.

Unfortuantely, the U.S. in particular has also had to deal with some world-class coporate scandals lately, leading to the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, the biggest set of business regulations since... wait for it... FDR! So much for that deregulatory agenda.

No, I don't think regulation will come back to haunt us, if it is well-designed regulation. I think, for example, the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which came as part of FDR's New Deal, was a good regulation. It insisted on auditing for publicly traded companies and public filings on the state of the company. It's widly known that at the time most businesspeople derided such changes as communist and blatently anti-free market. How times change.

Re:freedom?

[geekee]

I'm not against all forms of regulation, but I believe that attacking MS is an abuse of power since the govt. did nothing to help MS reach its position. Most regulated monopolies in the US were created by the govt. in the first place, because they didn't like the idea of having multiple companies stringing redundant wires for power, phone, etc. That's a shame because with redundant, competitive systems, the consumer would probably be better off. This can be seen in the low cost of long distance, where there are multiple networks (Sprint, Verizon, AT@T, etc.). However, all the power problems are due to a regulated single grid system that nobody is motivated to improve because of lack of profit. I think there's real competiton in the OS market, and Linux will win on its merit anyway. It's unfair to impede MS, however, to achieve this end. Breaking up standard oil was an abuse of power, and regulating MS is just as bad.

Re:MS BulletProof 2000 (w/ SP4)

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah right. I know exactly where you are from. your brain is symply too old to understand comments of others, and only activity you find pleasure is to make political debate out of anything you can find. it doesn't matter if you are right or left. you don't belong here. just so you know, /. is not talk radio. go home and jerk off..

Re:MS BulletProof 2000 (w/ SP4)

[spectecjr]

During 2000 - 2002 election cycle, Bill and Co. gave about $5M to Rep., nearly $4M to Dem., which are nothing significant for their bank account. Under the current administration, no one will ever come to harm Microsoft's monopoly. Period.

This is what is called a Shake Down.

The politicians weren't making enough money from Microsoft, but were making a lot of money from KPCB-venture group companies including Oracle, Sun, Apple, etc.

As such, the California guys paid for an antitrust trial with their campaign contribution. Once Microsoft started paying cash to politicians - as they 'should' have been doing all along - the problems for them stopped.

But hey, as long as the system works in your favor you really don't care about that, do you? All you care about is that Microsoft has figured out the game, and is now immune from it. Never mind that it was the game that got Microsoft into court in the first place.

In related news....

[mabu]

various authorities in favor of deregulation point to the plethora of competition in their markets. A true testimonial to the benevolence of large multinational corporations:

Cox Cable shows industry executives the diversity of the marketplace via a poignant slide show depicting 37 year old Milton Lagrois offering his own Cable TV service (currently consisting of one channel "views of my fish tank" but soon to expand) to all 3 tenants of the local apartment complex in Topeka, KS.

Clear Channel Communications dismisses any claim to local market domination by hilighting the diversity of programming in their many markets, including as Clear Channel describes, the "wildly successful station KRBT in Butte Montana featuring 24-hour updates of traffic conditions on County Highway 17".

Insiders at the Justice Department's antitrust division remain confident that competition in the marketplace will continue to thrive.

How we got to live 'longer'

[enos]

You're right, there were people living long in ancient times. The non-murdered Roman emperors would live into their 60s. But what about the average Roman? Even today, there are countries with an average life span in the 40s. So yes, we do live longer in terms of years. I guess the industrial revolution got this rise started, but that's just a guess.

The other thing is averages. Adult cavement would live into their 40s, but the average life span then was in the 20s. Why? Child mortality. If you have kids dying early, then that brings down the average, even though if they survive childhood they'll live to a ripe old age. That is probably responsible for the biggest 'rise' in average life spans over the centuries. That and soap.

Re:How we got to live 'longer'

[Audacious]

Yes! (I love the part about soap!) :-)

Medicine, better living conditions, and more awareness about hygiene in general have helped to extend the lives of many people who would have otherwise died in the first twenty years of their life. But it still doesn't guarantee them to live until they are over 200 years old. :-/

Sadly, even with all of the strides mankind has made in the past six or seven centuries - we still kill ourselves off faster than we can heal the hurts. Drugs, guns, crime, and invaders from other countries all take their toll on how long someone lives.

Still, the universe is rather large. Maybe we could give one planet to each person? But then would we find happiness or loneliness? And if we did - whom would we tell?

Credit where credit is due

[Trillian_1138]

While I think the above post is both very funny and very scary, it appears to come, without credit, from here:
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/04 /23_res ume.html

-Trillian

The good judge

[Anonymous Coward]

Slightly off topic, I found out that a relative of mine in Philadelphia knows Judge CKK.

My Aunt is in the "art world" -- she owns a gallery, teaches courses at universities, puts together exhibitions and represents artists in the field of "modern craft art". Basically that means ceramics, fabrics, paper and jewelry designed to be art instead of practical crafts. She recently published a book about one of her client's work in jewelry, and the angle was that the people who purchased the work would model it in the book.

For example, there was a picture of Madeline Albright wearing a brooch the artist created. My family got a free copy as a gift, and my mother and I were sitting around looking at the pictures. We were shocked at how hideous most of these old rich ladies looked, and how the last thing they should have consented to was a photograph of their spotty, scrawny veined turkey-necks covered in bizarre angular jewelry-art.

Imagine my surprise when one of the "models" was Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly! I had never seen her picture before, but she fit right in with the rest of the pretentious old matrons.

The next time I saw my Aunt I asked her about the judge. She said that CKK was a friend, and could easily have been biased because of her social acquaintance with Bill and Melinda Gates. They're all from the Northwest, and Mrs. Gates is also a collector of modern craft art. The Judge was a fan of the Gates collection, and may have been interested in acquiring several pieces for herself.

Even if that isn't an accurate interpretation, it's still quite disgusting and completely unrelated to the concept of justice. But very little is anymore, I suppose.

Post-election recounts are not the point

[burgburgburg]

The SC showed that they cared nothing about ensuring that Florida voters were enfranchised when the stopped the recounts. They made a decision to ignore states rights, ignore the decision of the Florida Supreme Court, ignore the statutory obligation of the State of Florida to continue with the vote recount and declare, without clear evidence supporting their case, that W was the winner and that recounting would cast doubt on their selection.

Post-election recounts by the media aren't the issue. The SC made the decision without that knowledge.

As for the actual media recount, as the NY Times admits, their standard for counting disputed ballots would not necessarily have been the legally accepted one. They were playing by their own ear. And since their final recount came out very shortly after 9/11/01, many (myself included) tend to doubt it's inferences.

Re:Post-election recounts are not the point

[phantomlord]

The SCOTUS ruled that you must recount ALL of the votes in the state according to the same standards, not just a select batch which were likely to favor one candidate. Had the Florida Supreme Court ordered a complete recount from the beginning, there wouldn't have been a whole lot the SCOTUS could do. The recount was ordered to be stopped because it couldn't be completed (a FULL recount, that is, not a selective one) in the timeframe that existed (there is a Constitutional amendment (20) stating that the new president needs to be in place on Jan 20).

They didn't ignore states rights, presidential elections fall under the purview of the Constitution and the representative body of each state (as they're elected by the people, not appointed, and thus capable of being held responsible). The Florida Supreme Court made a bad decision which was overturned - the SCOTUS does this all the time, nothign new. State law cannot overrule federal law - allowing a select group of votes to be recounted, but not others, is a violation of equal protection rights. Finally, the SCOTUS didn't declare GWB the winner, the finalized vote tallies in Florida and the Florida legislature, as is their duty, did.

20th Amendment, Section 3:

[burgburgburg]

From Wikipedia.org:

If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

The recount DIDN'T have to be stopped. The SC chose to stop it. Since they chose to stop it without the recount and certified the suspect vote count already achieved, they selected W as President. Everything after that was proforma. He's the Selected President*. There is no getting around that.

Re:20th Amendment, Section 3:

[phantomlord]

...and who would the VP elect be? The VP gets the same electoral college votes as the President by law under most states (and that position was dependent upon Florida as well).

The recount had to be stopped at some point for the continuity of our government. You can't have endless recounts until the guy you want eventually wins. Again, had the Florida Supreme Court ruled that a statewide recount, instead of a selective recount, be done, it WOULD have been finished by the deadline. Further, focusing entirely on Florida throws out the questionable stuff elsewhere (democratic judge in Missouri ordering the polls in heavily democratic St Louis remain open for an extra two hours, democrats in South Dakota bribing bums with cigarettes for a democratic vote in the election, the mess in New Mexico, etc). Again, if Gore won his home state, Florida would never have been an issue... and if the Florida Supreme Court ordered a complete recount instead of a half-assed, favor Gore recount, it would have stood. Accept that your guys lost and that you should, as one of the current big democratic party websites says, move on.

You stopped in the middle

[burgburgburg]

If you'd read the whole section 3 which I included, you'd have an answer to your question:

and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

So the recount DIDN'T have to be stopped for the continuity of our government. The writers of Amendment 20, section 3 thought ahead. The SC decided to ignore that, ignore the fact that there was all the time they needed to order a full recount if they really thought that was needed. Instead they selected W as the President. And they declared that recounts would cast doubts on their selection. That's why he's the Selected President*. And willfully ignoring the rest of section 3 won't change that.

Re:You stopped in the middle

[phantomlord]

which would have been a completely political decision... Given that both the house and the senate were controlled by republicans at that point, a republican would be appointed president. But who would that have been, GWB probably, given he was the republican nominee... and as soon as he would have been swore in as the interim president, all of your type would have been whining about how the republicans in Congress "selected the President against the wishes of the popular vote" and how it would give an "unfair legitimacy to the presidency" given that most people would accept him as the de facto president.

Nah... that wouldn't cause an even bigger reaction from the left, casting more doubt on the legitimacy of our government, etc would it? You'd be crying even more about how once GWB was in office, he manipulated the vote like Jeb did in florida, right? Break out the tin foil hats everyone.

If a consistent standard is used statewide, GWB's margin widens despite what standard you use... and you still fail to address the irregularities in other states that GWB could have sued over if he was as egomaniacal as Gore

It's the Constitutional Requirement

[burgburgburg]

THAT'S the issue at hand. The SC decided to bypass the Constitution, which clearly HAS mechanisms for dealing with elections in dispute, and selected W as the President. And all the Republican crybaby distractions aren't going to make that go away.

Put W in as seatwarmer, recount every damn state in the Union if that's what you want. Whoever came out of that would have been a legitimate President. That's clearly not the case here. He's the Selected President* and always will be. And all the professional Republican whining (Bill "Liar" O'Reilly, Rush "Hillbilly Heroin" Limbaugh, etc.) won't change that.

Re:It's the Constitutional Requirement

[phantomlord]

Given the recounts, GWB wou;d have been the president... or are you still in denial about that? If Gore really cared about what was best for his country, he wouldn't have brought the lawsuit to begin with (GWB's lawsuit was a response to the Gore lawsuit). GWB did not bring recount lawsuits in other states because, unlike Gore, he didn't have some type of fanatical self-entitlement to the Presidency. GWB wasn't selected and you'd be bitching even more if he was put in as a "seatwarmer" because then he would have been selected. In addition to (probably) calling for an end to the electoral college, you'd probably be calling for a new amendment against the Congress installing a president.

Do me a favor... keep dwelling on the past so that we republicans can steamroll your candidate next time. The left thinks the problem with the 2000 election was that they weren't far enough to the left - problem was they were already too far to the left. Not a single one of the nine democratic challengers have a shot at unseating Bush. Give me Dean or Clark, especially, and I'm gonna have a field day watching all but their most ardent supporters vote for GWB. Of course, when GWB stomps whoever it is, it's going to be because he has the benefit of "an incumbancy of an illegitmate presidency" so he still won't be the legitimate president, right?

Democrats,Republicans,Religion,Mom's Apple Pie

[lcsjk]

Face it guys; all the arguments in the world cannot change peoples opinions about some subjects. The presidential election was very close everywhere, and recounting Florida or some other state could have easily changed the outcome.

The only clear outcome was that there was not a clear outcome. --- When things are so close that the ballot counting errors can determine the election, we learn that a problem exists. The real winner is the American public who will have a much more closely monitored ballot system next time. There will still be errors, but not so much.

It's unfortunate that most of our politicians follow the leader like Lemmings. I welcome evenly divided legislative bodies at both the federal and state level. It keeps either party from become overly foolish for very long.

At this point, GWB is our president and the republican party has a slight majority. If you cannot pick out both good and bad legislation passed by them, just consider yourself biased, conservative and close-minded regardless of your political affiliation.

And thank God that we live in a country where we can have this bantering. (or thank the devil if you do not agree with me - ha!)

Re:Democrats,Republicans,Religion,Mom's Apple Pie

[phantomlord]

That's entirely my point... the guy is the President, accept it and move on. I'm a registered republican but there's still plenty of things I disagree with my party about. It just happens that our election system gravitates toward having two major parties and the republican party is the one I most closely agree with (in reality, I most closely identify with the Constitution Party (even though, gasp, I'm an atheist)). Bush wasn't even my candidate until the last minute smear campaign the weekend before the election (my primary vote would have been for Alan Keyes but I wanted to make sure McCain didn't win my state so I voted for GWB... then my meaningless presidential vote (because in NY, the democrat almost always wins despite pretty much everywhere but NYC being republican) was originally going to Howard Phillips)

What do I disagree with GWB on? Off the top of my head, Microsoft, putting troops on our borders, naturalization of illegals, free trade, his dept of education reform (I want it completely abolished), his SSI reform (even more individual control for pensioning), I'd cut back federal medical coverage, I'd veto the Congressional raises especially because all the other government employee wages are tied to them, etc.

Constitution be damned?

[burgburgburg]

"We woulda won anyway, so why bother with the law" seems to be the sum total of your argument here. If W actually thought he was going to win all the recounts (in every state you keep trying to bring up as relevant), then he should have pushed for them. Instead, he was illegitimately selected by the SC and he went along with it. He's the Selected President* by his own choice.

"What was best for his country" was to ensure a legitimate Presidency. We don't have that right now.

Since I'm the one who keeps calling for the enforcement of Amendment 20, section 3 (the one that you and the SC seem to find so inconvenient), it seems rather Republican typical of you to accuse me of an extreme position that is completely removed from what I've been saying.

Do me a favor: Keep imagining that W won 2000. Keep drooling over pictures of him in a flight suit and imagine that an AWOL coke-snorting chicken hawk that has put the ecomony in the dumper, presided over the first net loss of jobs in 70 years and turned world sympathy over 9/11/01 (which happened on his watch) into world hatred can compete against people who've actually put their lives on the line (Clark, Kerry). Or is that harsh?

Re:Constitution be damned?

[phantomlord]

Would you or would you not have bitched the minute Congress installed Bush as the President? Your "selected" line would be true at that point. What happens if we couldn't conclusively solve it, given the recount totals changed every time the ballots were touched? Do we hold another nationwide election right away, completely ignoring the results of the first one? Do we wait 4 years until the next scheduled election while you cry the whole time about having a Congressionally selected President?

Were you in favor of Ken Starr going after Bill Clinton, given that he was simply following the rule of law (live by the law, die by the law)? Do you believe he should have been impeached for committing perjury otherwise establishing that Presidents are above the law the rest of us are subjected to? Further, can we immediately eliminate welfare, SSI, etc because they're Unconstitutional even though FDR got a court to declare them so after threatening to increase the number of judges and install his puppets so it would be whether they thought it was Constitutional or not?

If GWB wins in 2004, will you call him a legimate President or not? You neglected to reply to that question. The economy started tanking in March of 2000 - while Clinton was still in office. Remember the dems complaining that GWB was trying to talk down the economy because it had already fallen so much that year? Macroeconomics takes years to play out - the setup for those loss of jobs happened under Clintons watch... As for what the world thinks of us, Europe has been envious and jealous of us for decades and with the fall of the Evil Empire, they've finally decided it's safe to spit in our face. There was plenty of anti-US sentiment before GWB took office. In fact, you may remember a day during Clintons first year in office where the same building came under attack and Clinton rolled over, just like the terrorists expected him to. I respect Clark and Kerry deeply for their service, but being a soldier doesn't automatically qualify you to be a President. Kerry has repeatedly wiped his ass with large portions of the Constitution when it convenienced him and Clark is too wishy-washy to be electable (he's changed his mind 6 times on whether we should have gone into Iraq since the beginning of September, there are videos of him endorsing GWB since he became president, etc). Someone is pulling the strings behind the scenes of all of these candidates... someone who doesn't want a democratic president in 2004 because they want an open White House in 2008. I'll let you figure it out

I didn't realize I was so important

[burgburgburg]

I didn't realize that the SC abrogated the Constitution of the United States, disenfranchised the people of Florida (and other states too, potentially) all because of concerns about what I'd say about the interim appointment of a President. I feel honored.

As for W in 04, I won't consider him legitimate if those Diebold black boxes are being used all over the place. Funny how an electronic voting machine with no possible audit trail and no real security is being put in place all over the country subsidized by the W's Federal Government. Funny how the head of the company is a W state chairman who has vowed to win his state for W.

By the way, laugh of the day: "the setup for those loss of jobs happened under Clintons watch". That's a funny one. And the past three years (3 YEARS) have all been the Clinton recession. W gets all his tax breaks, has control over both houses, has effectively tossed out the Bill of Rights and all we get is a jobless "recovery" that's just about ready for the third dip. 3 years and the first net loss of jobs in 70 years! But thank heaven's that people making more the $200,000 a year off of investments are safe to plan what to do with their tax cuts. That's the important consideration.

What is of course most telling and amusing is the Republican conspiracy mongering (which you gladly handed me) about Hillary. Let's see, the party of Nixon's plumbers and dirty tricks, Lee Atwater, Willy Horton, Florida '00, California uber alles, Diebold, etc. sees the people they hate and fear as engaging in conspiracies. Hmm, where could that idea come from?

He's the Selected President* and all your Clinton whining (Bill and Hillary) won't distract from that. He can't find Osama (the guy who actually is responsible for 9/11), can't find Mullah Omar, can't find Saddam, can't find WMD. He turned the most of Europe, most of Asia, most of South/Central American against us. He's losing the peace in Iraq. He's almost entirely lost Afghanistan (the warlords are cutting it up, the Taliban are back). He's got the biggest deficits in history. But I'm sure that heroic carrier landing and W in a flight suit is a winner.

Re:I didn't realize I was so important

[phantomlord]

The SCOTUS made a decision to make the question of the legitimacy of the presidency the least detrimental. I remember seeing reports about people eating the chads during the recount. Punch cards are easily manipulated using nothing but bare hands. As for what you think... you also didn't answer whether Clinton should have been impeached for violating the rule of law for committing perjury. Does the rule of law, the basis of your argument, matter or not?

You're already insisting that the 04 election isn't going to elect a legitimate republican huh? Apparently if your guy doesn't win, it's automatically a conspiracy. Hey, guess what, I planted Monica Lewinsky in the White House (such was my part in the vast right wing conspiracy(VRWC)). Everyone has a political opinion whether they're a bum, an assembly line worker, a CEO or a politician. Apparently you think a PHB is either only capable of ordering all of his programmers (who are also all members of the VRWC) to deliberately write fraudulent software and still manages to completely covering it up or else he doesn't employ anyone and wrote the software himself. (For the record, I don't like the Diebold machines either). Further, it is up to the individual state legislatures and local election boards to pick their equipment, not GWB or "his" federal government.

Yes, the last 3 years were the result of the polices laid down during the Clinton administration. Remember, the illegal actions Enron, Global Crossings, etc commited happened during Clinton's years. Alan Greenspan warned way back in 1998 that the market was reaching unretainable levels and people still foolishly pumped more money into stocks. When the bubble finally burst, the 2000 election hadn't occured. After the bubble burst, people's entire life savings were destroyed as dotcoms dotbombed. The market lost all liquidity and it needed to be recreated from somewhere - that somewhere was taxcuts. Federal revenues have continued to grow with the tax cuts (it's spending which has increased) despite taking in far less capital gains due to lowered market exhuberance. You can't have jobs if nobody has the capital to create them and you don't gain capital by giving it to the government. Those people making $200k are going to do something with that money... if it's spent, a job is created to make a product and if it's invested, a job is created by someone taking a risk with it. Nobody in that bracket is sticking their money under their mattress. BTW, JFK was a huge proponent of the tax cuts of the early 60s for the same reason.

I openly admit pure disgust for everything that the Clintons are. I think they're the most corrupt people to ever live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. I also admit that they're some of the most shrewd and brilliant politicians of the 20th century. I put nothing beyond them. Isn't it odd that Bill is consulting several candidates instead of just one he favors right now?

Your contempt for Bush and republicans is just as obvious as my hatred for the Clintons. I admit it right up front and I admit it biases what I say. Despite my loathing of them and the fact that he only got 38% of the vote when Perot torpeded GHWB, I never was in denial about hiim being the President. Clinton turned down Sudan when they offered him Osama in 1998 (who was responsible for the 1993 world trade center bombing). He didn't do anything to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons but did turn the cheek for them. He did allow the transfer of missile tech to China which now enables them to nuke anywhere in the US with weapons technology which they stole while he blindly looked the other way so he could have coffee for illegal foreign campaign donations from that same country.

Europe already hated us because they're no longer the seat of the world's power (well, except for the countries who appreciated out hard stand against the soviets - you know, the people who had to live under their tyrannical rule). Lots of Asia has similarly hated us. Most of South/Central America seems to be practicall

Why was he in it in the first place?

[burgburgburg]

anyone flying in an ejection seat is mandated by navy rules to wear a flight suit

What is the Selected President* doing in an ejection seat? He didn't need to be in it. The ship was close enough to shore for them to helicopter in (the safe way). Instead, Rove et. al. decided to create a pathetic photo op for your AWOL coke-snorting chicken hawk. The man who slipped into the Air National Guard with the lowest scores possible (displacing someone who deserved the slot), then decided he couldn't be bothered with the last 18 months of his service (so inconvenient).

The guy who failed in business after business (but who was conveniently bailed out each time by another friend of daddy who was willing to throw good money after bad). The guy who "forgot" to file the papers concerning his insider selling, the guy who happened to find an anonymous buyer for all of his (rarely) traded shares just at the moment he needed the money to be let in to the Texas Rangers deal. The guy who, despite putting the least money into the deal, was put in charge. The guy who used all of that fat corporate welfare and eminent domain to make the money he has now.

And let's not forget the guy who got they let into and kept in Philips Andover despite being a Gentleman's C student. The guy who had SATs 180 points below the Yale average of 1968 yet was still accepted, where again he never achieved above a Gentleman's C. Talk about affirmative action: The drunken coke-snorting alumni's son exemption. The guy who actually considers his acceptance by Yale and Hardvard as a sign that he deserved to be there, never noticing that drunken coke-snorting idiot sons of rich guys have to be protected from the big bad world that doesn't always recognize their entitlement.

The SC decided to explicitly ignore the Constitution which had specific instructions on what to do in situations like Florida. It made it up as it went along (Scalia's must have been copping some pills from Limbaugh when he wrote his parts of the decision). They Selected W: hence, he's the Selected President*. If they were concerned with the legitimacy of the situation, they never would have done what they did.

Re:Why was he in it in the first place?

[phantomlord]

talk about ad hominem. I must have missed when we went from debating something into just providing a platform for you to make unsubstantiated allegations. If that's all you want to do, consider the debate over.

BTW, the DNC called - they want their 2000 talking points back. Ann Richards may claim copyright infringement from even earlier

You spend an entire post on Clinton ...

[burgburgburg]

which I understand is Republican for "Great Evil" and is required by your bylaws, but which is so 3 years ago get on with your life already, and you talk about ad hominem?

I'm sorry if I'm paying attention to the issue at hand: W, the Selected President*.

So why WAS he in the ejector seat? Hmm?

Oh, and where is Osama, Mullah Omar, Saddam, and WMD?