Slashdot Mirror
EU Deadline Approaching for Microsoft
doga writes "As reported by various publications, Microsoft is facing its deadline tonight at midnight central European time. The commissioner has then to decide whether it implemented correctly the measures (windows without media player and interop documentation) or if it should be fined up to 5% of its daily sales." From the article: "European antitrust regulators, who have been at odds with Microsoft over its efforts to comply with its order, hope to make a decision by July 20 as to whether Microsoft has submitted an acceptable proposal for compliance, said Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for the European Union. That date is the last meeting of the European Commission before its summer recess."
A private monopoly is wrong, of course. But I don't buy that a state monopoly is not a private monopoly. Yes, yes, I understand that "we all own the state", but this is just pretty rhetoric. I don't have any more power over the officials of state monopolies than I do private monopolies. One vote out of tens or hundreds of millions every X years for a leader, who will appoint a cabinent memeber/minister, who will appoint a head of a state run industry is so abstracted as to be meaningless. And because state monopolies tend to be over "socially critical" matters, the mistakes they make are just that much more harmful.
As for socialized medicine, the U.S. government spends more per capita on health care than a lot of EU countries, so it is a bit unfair to say that the U.S. isn't socialized medicine. However, having lived with the U.S. 60%-70% quasi-socialized system, and living now with Canadas 100% socialized system, that health care in the U.S. is orders of magnitude better. Even the poorest people without insurance where I lived in the U.S. got better health care than where I live in Canada. And Canada's system is considered comparable with most EU countries, so I don't see why it would be any different there. One thing to remember is that the U.S. government desperatly wants to control everything in the world, including health care, and EU countries need to justify their massive government monopolies, so both the E.U. and the U.S. find it convienient to spread the same propoganda.
I wish Microsoft just pulled Windows, Office, everything from europe completely, with the exception of the UK and Ireland since they don't bitch about everything. Just flat-out refused to sell there. I'd even spend $20 more per copy of anything from them just to see this happen.
i'd hazard a guess that europe would slide into the third world even faster.
free state run health care, free software, what more do you need, right?