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Appeals Court OKs Microsoft Antitrust Settlement
mbstone writes "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has upheld [pdf] the settlement reached between Microsoft and the U.S. Justice Department in the antitrust case filed in 1998, beating back a challenge by Massachusetts, the only state that didn't settle. Many critics, of course, believe that Attorney General John Ashcroft took a dive on the case which was originally filed by former Clinton Administration Attorney General Janet Reno."
How dare you suggest, on slashdot, that something is not the fault of the Bush administration. The MS settlement, 9-11, the fall of the dot-com economy, the rising popularity of reality TV shows, the blame all stops with the Bush administration according to slashdotters. You will be receiving numerous -1 Troll mods in the next few hours.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
"Reno won her antitrust case against M$."
Only because of a biased judge, which ended up costing them on the appeal. Or is that how you think our justice system should act?
"Ashcroft ignored the monopoly, cutting a cheap deal that keeps M$ in control of the sick state of disrepair from which we all suffer."
He would have needed to show a lot more than MS is the most popular software provider in the U.S. to break them apart. Fact is, an objective judge would have likely thrown the whole thing out. He was lucky to get what he got.
BTW, I take issue with the "from which we all suffer" part of your rant. I don't suffer from MS. I've found a way out, by using a non-MS operating system. If you hate MS you are free to do the same thing.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
We (humans) all suffer from M$ monopoly. Most obvious is the reduced innovation from their predatory application of their monopoly status. If you've never had your IT planning influenced by the futility of working against the M$ roadmap, you've never worked in a sector in which M$ operates. And the instability of the Internet, due to the vast hordes of compromised M$ computers around the globe is a daily nuisance, as well as an actual severe security threat where essential systems run on their SW. Like the power grid systems in last Summer's blackout, taking down power to over 20M Americans while alert and backup systems were overwhelmed by an M$ worm. There's lots of reasons to severely distrust, if not hate, the monopoly controlled by M$.
The case showed that M$ not only held an effective monopoly on computer software, but that M$ abused it to compete with everyone in sight. Based on the copious evidence that M$ violated its 1990s consent decree from the US Dept' of Justice, by illeglly bundling Internet Explorer on Windows 95 desktops (to the exclusion of Netscape), the court's monopoly decision was legal support for what everyone who's paying attention finds obvious. During the trial, M$ lies about the necessity of bundling IE with their OS were debunked thoroughly by a Princeton CS professor, who cut out IE in short order with crude, non-insider tools. While M$ failed to defend itself, by using faked videos of revised computers as illegal evidence. The only bias by the court was in favor of M$ wealth, witholding contempt of court, and worse, charges against M$ and their attorneys.
The list goes on. And the final decision was to document common knowledge: M$ abuses its monopoly. Since you can't offer any evidence to the contrary, the question is merely why you defend them? Getting checks from trading M$ stock? On the payroll? Or just a dupe who prefers official fantasies to a world in which our computers work for us, rather than us for them, or against us?
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make install -not war