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The Software Monoculture
balster neb writes "CNET News.com has a piece titled 'Seeds of Destruction' on monoculture in software and its effect on security. The article talks about similarities between software attacks such as last year's MSBlast, and agricultural catastrophes such as the Irish Potato Famine. Isn't this another good argument against monopolies?"
That's right. They stole it fair and square. Per-Processor licensing was introduced in 1988, and illegal.
The major illegal practice cited in the complaint was that Microsoft imposes a per processor license fee on OEMs, which means the manufacturers would have to pay Microsoft a royalty for each PC they sold, even if it did not include a Microsoft operating system. Thus, in order to sell a computer with a competitor's operating system (such as OS/2), the OEM would have to pay for the operating system it actually included as well as paying a royalty fee to Microsoft. This discourages OEMs from selling PCs with competing operating systems, or causes them to charge higher prices for the competing systems in order to make up for their extra cost.
That's what I could find out about "per-processor licensing." What I don't understand is how Microsoft "imposed" anything onto anybody? Did they sign a contract agreeing to that? Oh, they did? Well, then what's the deal? I sign a contract.. agreeing to pay 20% interest on my car loan. Ok, that's arguably bullshit. My friend has the same car, make the same amount of money, and pays 5%. That's unfair. Can I file a lawsuit?
just two words - Predatory Practices
Look up the definition of the word in a dictionary, and you'll see it's clearly not so. Years ago, yes, they indeed were. But 85% market share is not 98%.