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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."
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.
Help fight continental drift.
It is Kollar-Kotelly, not Kollar-Kelly.
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
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.
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.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
http://www.codeweavers.com
That's all you need.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
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.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
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.
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
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).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
George Bush Sr Pardoned Casper Weinberger for his involvment in the Iran-Contra scandal prior to his trial or conviction.
"You don't need a weatherman/ To know which way the wind blows" -Bob Dylan: Subterranean Homesick Blues
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?
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.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor