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Founder of Go Computer, Inc. sues Microsoft
wantobe writes "From Yahoo! News 'Microsoft saw Go's PC operating system as a serious threat to its operating system monopoly and took swift covert action to 'kill' it just as it did the Netscape/Sun Java threat to its monopoly," according to Go's private action in federal court. '
Are Kaplan's complaints warranted, or is he just taking advantage of some recent Microsoft court losses and trying to get his cut? "
Another lawsuit? How many times is GO going to sue Microsoft?
Are Kaplan's complaints warranted, or is he just taking advantage of some recent Microsoft court losses and trying to get his cut?
Yup. This has been going on for a long time. Once a company becomes successful, kooks start coming out of the woodwork to sue them. It's starting to happen to Google too. Microsoft is an ideal victim for this, with their "unclean" history when it comes to other peoples' intellectual property. Microsoft would be well advised, if they haven't already, to have a strict regimen for ensuring that all code they release is really theirs. This is the only viable defense against these types of suits. This suit certainly won't be the last.
It looks like opportunism to me. According to the lawsuit, Gates wrote in a memo, "guess I've made it clear that we view an Intel investment in Go as an anti-Microsoft move, I am asking you not to make any investment in Go." That doesn't seem like enough to dig up a 20 year old case, especially since the "grandfather clause" for those types of cases is 5 years.
All in all I think they do a pretty good job of keeping the system running. There are plenty of other things they do or don't do to bitch about.
Several years back Be, Inc., developers of BeOS, launched a similar lawsuit against Microsoft. While it was touted as the case that would demolish Microsoft, I believe they ended up settling. So I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a repeat in this situation.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I hate MS as much as the next guy but this sounds like a person who bought the company to sue and make some serious cash on the curtails of other companies legit claims against Microsoft. And on top of it all its a 20 year old claim. Where was the litigation 18, 17 or even 15 years ago?
Microsoft saw Go's PC operating system as a serious threat to its operating system monopoly and took swift covert action to 'kill' it just as it did the Netscape/Sun Java threat to its monopoly
You know, I'm not an MS fan by any means, but please, that's gotta be the most over-used line in the universe! It would seem that any company that isn't doing so well decides to use the "let's sue the MS monopoly route" rather than trying to improve themselves by, oh I don't know, innovating!
Microsoft isn't a monopoly by any means. If you don't like it, get a Mac. Or, better yet, get Linux and quit complaining.
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
Do not suppress Go, do not collect one billion dollars.
1) Found Company
2) Sell company - stage 1 profit
3)Realise there is more money to be made by suing a former competitor
4) Buy failed company back
5) Sue Competitor
6) More Profit????
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Does Go feel they have a better case now that tablet PCs are using pens as a means for control?
In the 1980's pen recognition wasn't what most people would call viable so perhaps this "swift covert action to 'kill' the Go PenPoint wasn't as villanous than. However now, I'm sure there are a few judges that probably use a tablet with stylus and will see PenPoint as a possibly OS in a more favorable light.
-Teiresias
I don't think there is a defense for Microsoft. In the same week that Microsoft writes a big check to IBM, they get slapped with another suit. Draw your own conclusions about the merits of GO.
But the long and short of it is that it's going to be impossible for Microsoft to prevent these kinds of suits. They have something like sixty thousand employees, for cripes sake, how could they possibly make sure that each and every employee isn't infringing in some way on somebody's IP?
In a way, it's poetic justice. Microsoft has led the war on patenting the universe, now they're getting a little of their own medicine.
What Part Of Software Development is Outsourcable?
A few times in the last 10 years, I wrote a few lines of code toward a new operating system. Each time, after thinking about Microsoft's monopoly and how they conspired so that people like me couldn't compete, I gave up.
I'll send them a bill and follow it up with a lawsuit if they don't pay it.
I'm a big tall mofo.
I'm not saying that the technology didn't exist 20 years ago when Go was making their Pen-based computer. However, the computing world back then didn't take it seriously, and until the PalmPilot III was released less than 10 years ago, using a stylus was simply not a reasonable way to enter data into a computer.
20 years ago, there was no mobile computing world to speak of, and Microsoft's monopoly did not extend into that field at all. Their first real forays into the mobile computing world, with the Casio Aladdin and eventually the Cassiopeia, weren't even pen-based, as such. They were more like the original HVGA HPCs.
I don't feel this case has any merit. Microsoft's power did not extend to the area that Go contends they were forced out of. And when someone (Palm) serious came along with a viable mobile operating system, Microsoft was caught way off guard and stumbled quite a bit.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
This was like 20 years ago... Why is he just now pressing charges? It looks like someone is low on cash so they thought getting on the "Sue MS" bandwagon was a good idea.
True: I do believe that if MS did do wrong, it should have it's tail whuped.
Also True: The extremely late timing of this looks very suspicious. It looks more like he's grasping at financial straws...
http://malfeasance.50megs.com/
Have you ever thought that it might be due to overuse? Servers do get overloaded after all. You obviously have no clue how difficult system management is so you shouldn't be talking.
If Mickeysoft did do it then they should pay.
It was standard procedure from them. The government didn't do anything under the do-nothing Republicans.
Which brings up the Justice departments ridiculous penalty or slap on the hand . Why didn't anyone mention to the DOJ that Mickeysoft should release 'driver source code'.Hardware makers should have been forced to release technical details or not use Mickeysoft's OS. Anything that dealt with 'lockin' should be opened.
Also breaking the OEM and MSFT monopoly would have been a nice idea. So you would have to buy the 'expensive' software off the shelf. That might have made people think twice about buying it.
Nope.
"Handwriting recognition had severe limitations in the late 1980's and early 1990's and no company that attempted pen computing was successful then," [Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake] said.
Go was sold to AT&T Corp. in 1994, which closed the company in July of the same year. In November of 1994, Microsoft shut down its competing pen-computing effort, called PenWindows, which the suit alleges had largely existed to destroy Go.
Go was based on handwriting recognition. The technology was not very good in the early 90's and has only recently become usable. I realize that most of Slashdot never sides with Microsoft but in this case Microsoft only made a competing product that didn't even do very well itself. Just because Microsoft shut down their PenWindows division after Go was sold does not mean that it existed to destroy Go. This was 1994! Handwriting recognition was horrible! -Keith
It was innovative, and had some interesting points (the developer documentation was well done). However I have to say that it wasn't a Windows Killer IMHO. While a better Pen OS than Windows for Pen Computing, the latter provided a better overall user experience and could run apps I already had. The programming interface to PenPoint struck me as cumbersome (though I never did any development for it).
What do you know I wrote a novel
Reject any submission that ends with '?'. Makes the submission sound like a tabloid. Imagine an article in the NYT ending with a question mark. Doesn't make sense.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. -- Mark Twain
Considering that in a private antitrust action the only possible resolution is a cash settlement, I don't see the difference.
The only party in a position to change the competitive landscape (with either a behavioral or structural remedy) is the Department of Justice.
Oh, wait ...
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
...for just a few more months and closed it in 95, then where would this suit be?
Of course, everyone ascribes to Microsoft the mastery of the mythical magical power of money, so therefore the only reason Microsoft would shut down an effort so soon after Go did and sold to AT&T would naturally be, mission accomplished. Not the very real reason that it was just not going to happen back in 1995 the way Go or Microsoft wanted.
Go is being a real opportunist and they need to be slapped down. The Linux world needs to understand that their derision for Microsoft doesn't change the fact that opportunistic lawsuits happen all the time. The SCO affair should make that abundantly clear. How long till some small distro outfit sues Red Hat or Novell? If there's merit, there's merit, but this doesn't smell like it and neither does SCO's actions and if things keep up like this, it is bad news for any IT company for the future.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Um I actually run a server farm for a living. We have paying customers so we are expected to have as near 100% uptime as humanly possible.
Slashdot is just utter shit. They have paying customers but they can't manage to catch dupes or keep the server running. Being overloaded is not an excuse - use better code (Slashcode is terrible shit that is inefficent) or bring more servers in.
I would go back and say YOU obviously have no clue about system management and should shut your fucking ignorant loudmouth up before you embarass yourself more.
Go soil yourself, retard.
The story is well described in his book, Startup : A Silicon Valley Adventure. He has some point.
Kaplan wrote a book Startup that goes into detail about how Microsoft undermined his company. Read the book before taking the knee jerk reaction that everyone above has in saying that this is another guy trying to make a quick buck off of Microsoft.
Why would we assume that those two are mutually exclusive?
Is there any doubt that MS would have behaved that way, if they really perceived GO to be a threat?
Is there any doubt that they would have behaved immorally and illegally if that's what it took to counter that threat to their monopoly?
Was there any reason for Kaplan to file a suit before there was a possibility of success?
I'd say there's a good chance that Kaplan is taking advantage of MS's recent court losses to get his cut ... the cut that he's warranted because MS wrongly did him out of it!
See what I've been reading.
Could you at least read the very first paragraph of TFA?
"The founder of Go Computer, a pioneer of pen-based computing that was once seen as a possible alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s operating systems, filed antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft last week"
I don't think this is an "or" question. I think it clearly is both. IAMDNAL (most definitely not a lawyer ;-), but I think MS could argue that "it has been too long."
I wouldn't slam the plaintiff here, though. I suspect the majority of actions brought are "nuisance suits," intended to extract a "pound of justice" by the mere threat rather than cases intended for trial.
This is the judicial ecology. It's all part of the semi-free market. I'm a big fan of the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. The alternative is the good old days of range war. I can't say I'd be a fan of that.
Au contraire, it is officially ("Judge Jackson issued his findings of fact on November 5, 1999 that Microsoft's dominance of the personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly.").
Not to mention that Microsoft didn't hold nearly the power back in '87 that they do now. Windows took over the world because it was better than the DOS-shell alternatives (better meaning "more compatible with DOS", which is Microsoft's big thing the Did Right). I used a lot of these things. They all SUCKED compared to Windows 3.1, which was way, way faster. I even remember an X-based shell. God was that thing bad. HP had a DOS shell that was interesting, but had major problems.
People don't remember that there was a reason Microsoft won. They actually had a better product.
The only thing that came along that was better was OS/2, and IBM made the fatal mistake of making it incompatible with Win32 and Windows drivers (which meant no software). Microsoft learned that compatibility was everything; IBM didn't. I even recall that IBM shipped OS/2 and Win 3.1 as a dual-load for awhile. It defaulted to OS/2, and you actually had to go through some steps to delete OS/2 and install Win 3.1, and people STILL installed Win 3.1.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Dad? I thought the shrink told you to cut down on the harassment.
That's an odd claim, especially since they were convicted in court of illegally using their monopoly position.
Sort of hard to do without actually being a monopoly, hrm?
Not that actually being a monopoly is illegal - it's the use of that position to suppress others in that market through your monopoly that's illegal. You're still expected to compete, like everyone else.
Because he sold the company and just got it back 3 months ago. It became part of Lucent.
But yea, IMO, the whole thing is rotten. The reason Go flopped wasnt because of MS, it was because pen-based computing wasn't popular back then. It really isn't all that popular now. I mean yea we have Palm Pilots and what not; but it looked like Go was aiming at the comptuer market anyways and not necessarily the portable market...
-everphilski-
Microsoft already purchased an indulgence from the DOJ.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Maybe, if Microsoft hadn't abused its market power there would have been more progress in the field of personal computing. Ever looked at it this way? It always amazes me how little fantasy some people have when it comes to computing. Maybe that explains why Windows users are so content with their working environment and why they think of the promised new features that Longhorn is told to bring them, as if it were the best since sliced bread. Yeah, I'm getting to sound somewhat trollish here, but I'm pretty serious.
Also breaking the OEM and MSFT monopoly would have been a nice idea. So you would have to buy the 'expensive' software off the shelf. That might have made people think twice about buying it.
That'd kinda be like selling appliances without power cords. Make people decide what source of power they want. I mean people could choose - wall sockets, solar power, nuclear reactor in their basement, hampster wheel, whatever. But you'd probably wind up with a lot of people who'd fry themselves trying to attach the default power method anyways, just like you would probably wind up with a bunch of people buying Microsoft products anyways. It's just not worth the trouble.
-everphilski-
Are Kaplan's complaints warranted, or is he just taking advantage of some recent Microsoft court losses and trying to get his cut?
Kaplan's complaints are warranted, based on the history of Go. And now that Microsoft's conduct has been laid bare by other lawsuits, he is trying to take advantage of that, because it does make his case simpler: it has been demonstrated clearly that Microsoft has a pattern of anti-competitive behavior, and a lot of useful Microsoft-internal information has come to light.
Taking advantage? Either a crime has been comitted or not. A crime is a crime, dipstick. The annoying part is that Microsoft has brainwashed(some might say trained) so many geeks that they seem to be reaching critical mass. Their constant claims of victimization on the part of MS is getting a little tiresome. I had one ASS come to our office and blame all our computer problems on the fact that we didn't exclusively use MS programs. He had taken no time to examine our system either. Typical idiot.
I mean a google search for Go PC operating system gives this as the first result...
I'd say something is fishy...
Get your Unix fortune now!
This has been argued before. Simply put, it is not necessary for NO alternatives to be available for a monopoly to exist.
To phrase it without the double negatives
Pretty damning stuff.
People, don't just RTFA, RTF book. If you read Jerry Kaplan's Start Up, you see that he was on the receiving end of Microsoft's illegal practices e.g. forcing OEMs to pay licenses even on machines that did not have Windows installed. Go was a real company, not some opportunistic "my business model is a lawsuit" bunch of asshats. For all the obvious reasons, challenging Microsoft in a court of law was hardly an option.
The fact that Microsoft shafted them in the early nineties and it's only now that Go is suing is irrelvant (not sure when Kaplan got the rights back from AT&T/Lucent to do so), the fact that pen computing did not take off back then, all these are irrelevant facts. MS broke the law to ruin other people's businesses. Now that they have been convicted of doing so, it's open season for a few years yet for anyone with strong evidence that they were a genuine victim.
StartUp is kind of a heart breaking read as a technologist. When Go is unable to get proper funding or business deals (here's where MS's business practice screws them, for instance), and the company dies even as part of AT&T, MS quietly shuts down its own pen computing division, apparently happy that another potential competitor has been crushed before it could be a problem. The idea is we're supposed to be able to try and get innovations tried by the marketplace, not blocked by people with the vested interest to do so.
If MS is found guily or settles out of court, then that would be entirely appropriate. Yes, there are so many complaints like this that it's a cliche. Doesn't mean there aren't genuine cases, and given there's a published book on the facts from 1995 - well before anyone knew MS could be successfully to court - I would say this is one of them.
The guy said he was preparing to sue since 20 years, but only now was able to buy the shares back and getting the right to sue. AT&T or Lucent didn't feel like sueing MS for some reason or other.
Isn't there a statute of limitations regarding this? I mean wasn't that like 10 years ago or something? I think the guy is just out to try and recoup some of his losses from a failed business (not that I doubt MS tried to put him out of business).
Hmm...
... you sound JUST LIKE all the sysadmin's I deal with. Every day, it seems like a better and better idea to get rid of the "AC" ability to post.
"Um I actually run a server farm for a living."
"shut your fucking ignorant loudmouth up before you embarass yourself more."
"Go soil yourself, retard"
Uhh, yeah
Go was sold to AT&T Corp. in 1994, which closed the company in July of the same year.
So, the company has ceased to exist for 11 years now. Can a dissolved company file a lawsuit?
________________________________________________
suwain_2
If Mickeysoft did do it then they should pay.
It was standard procedure from them. The government didn't do anything under the do-nothing Republicans.
Which brings up the Justice departments ridiculous penalty or slap on the hand . Why didn't anyone mention to the DOJ that Mickeysoft should release 'driver source code'.Hardware makers should have been forced to release technical details or not use Mickeysoft's OS. Anything that dealt with 'lockin' should be opened.
Also breaking the OEM and MSFT monopoly would have been a nice idea. So you would have to buy the 'expensive' software off the shelf. That might have made people think twice about buying it.
Nope.
This has nothing to do with stolen code. This has nothing to do with Intelectual Property or Copy Rights. GO is not claiming infringment, nor theft (though they imply it) This is an AntiTrust lawsuit. GO is claiming that Microsoft used it's Monopoly like power to control the market and other vendors in a delibret effort to cause their company to fail. The problems they'll have is that the whole thing took place in the late 80's, long before Microsoft was originally found guilty of abusing it's monopoly like powers. The other challange they'll have is proving MS was delibretly trying to snuff them. They can show the coinsidence in time lines for development, but they'll be hard pressed to come up with a smoking gun or 20 year old memo that says "Saturate pen market, destroy GO!" -Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
If you find a way to make a buck at software, or with a platform that might make people give their money to a company other than Microsoft, they will find out about it. You will soon find that MS does not like for people to give money to other businesses, and they will enter (or annoiunce plans to enter) your product space and bring their resources to bear in competition against you.
That's the marketplace. If people want financial SW, MS sells them MS Money. If they want hand-helds you get PocketPC.
Now, telling Andy Grove not to invest in Go is pretty naughty. But having a pen-computing unit to compete with (and crush) Go is the nature of business when the stakes are that high.
There's never enough money to share. We all want all of it.
F.
My Heart Is A Flower
Personally, I always wondered why the government didn't use the Go story in its antitrust case; it's a tidily packaged narrative that hits many of the low points in the patterns of Microsoft's behavior. OTOH, they had so much material to work with...
As a struggling startup, Go didn't stand a chance in any possible legal action at the time, and AT&T didn't have the will (even if it did have the means) after Go was forced into selling out. Suing now may look opportunistic, but Jerry did only recently reacquire what's left of the company, and if he can demonstrate that illegal behavior by Microsoft contributed to the delay in his ability to pursue legal action, maybe he'll get his day in court.
Disclaimer: I had occasion to work with Jerry for a while before he started Go, although that doesn't really predispose me to take his side.
Even if they are just looking to make a fast buck, I don't see the problem. If that buck comes off MS, good. I'm no fan of making money the easy way, over the back of others, but for MS, I'll gladly make an exception.
The articles states clearly that Kaplan was the FOUNDER of Go. When go went under, the remains of the company were acquired by ATT, and passed to Lucent.
Kaplan re-acquired the rights to sue on Go's behalf - not the whole company - in April. The litigation was years ago, but if these emails and memos weren't properly produced during discovery - if MS did, in fact suppress them - then they are definitely still in trouble, 20 years later or not.
The question here is not whether Go was ever a viable company, or even if they would have lasted in the marketplace... it is whether they were forced from the market by collusion and anti competetive practices.
To be honest, a written request by then CEO of MS to the CEO of Intel to reverse a planned endorsement of a potenital competitor, and one that carries the tacit threat of reprisals fits that bill. At worst, it's compelling enough to give Kaplan his day in court, and let the courts decide if history has moved too far to attempt to judge the impact of this action.
Even if the judge allows it, damages are unlikely what MS haters would like to see. Go was a pioneer, and far before it's time. However, it should be simple enough for Microsoft to demonstrate that the novel elements of his OS (handwriting recognition) would have required more horsepower, and more refined technologies than were available during that period to be truly competetive.
It is often the lot of the innovator to be eclipsed by those with less vision, less imagination, and a bigger marketing budget.
Microsoft took action against Go.
It doesn't matter if the tech would have worked or not. It is Microsoft's actions that are the point of the suite.Why? They seem to have a case.No. Junk lawsuits happen all the time.
This suite appears to have some basis. There is nothing wrong with someone with a basis for a complaint taking the case to court.SCO's execs have made certain very specific claims in the media. If their case has merit, then it should go forward.
So far, they haven't shown any evidence that their case has merit.Probably not long.
Your point?
The world does not operate on the fairness principle. Just because you do not sue someone you have a case against does not mean that someone else will not sue you if they have a case against you.Have you read the article? They have email from Bill Gates himself.
If Microsoft has heard of Go Computer, Inc, then they're one of a privileged few, as the only results on Google were two links that mentioned this suit, and one for portable MP3 players. Might make for a better imfringement case if someone out there has actually seen what it is that you're selling.
Anyone who sits here and tries to play the role of someone they are not will get a toungelashing.
Eliminate the AC and I'll just create an account that is just as anonymous and disposable.
Maybe we could just eliminate lantenon's ability to post. One less retarded poster to have sit here and wank to his own image.
BTW, I'm still waiting impatiently for Apple's post-Newton PDA offering. I've got $500 set aside, Steve.
Speak truth to power.
10 seconds... http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnin quiry.asp?ISBN=0805057552&pdf=y
And before you argue that BN doesn't have it in stock... either does Amazon, they will search for it though.
No matter how many times the evidence gets posted, there are still people who seem ignorant of Microsoft's criminal behaviour. Of course, we also know that Microsoft has been caught paying people to write articles and post in forums, so we never know what a given poster's motivation is.
Cases like Go's lawsuit are _NOT_ frivilous attempts to get money out of Microsoft. On the contrary, Microsoft has had a series of losses in court BECAUSE MICROSOFT WAS GUILTY.
In just the last few years, Microsoft was found guilty of criminal behaviour by the DOJ, and has had to make massive payouts to Sun, Novell, IBM, Apple, and others. Those are not companies that got rich through frivilous lawsuits.
Microsoft's standard method of operation has been well documented over the years. As happened with DR-DOS, Java, and Netscape, among other examples, Microsoft:
1. Allows their own product to stagnate for years.
2. Finally notices when another company starts to succeed with a new or improved technology.
3. Copies the new or improved technology (sometimes buys it, but often steals it, hence the lawsuits).
4. Fails to succeed with their often-second-rate copy.
5. Finally resorts to sabotaging the other company, through FUD, payoffs, polluting standards, and so on.
6. Gets a slap on the wrist from the courts. Pays a fine. Profit!
Microsoft's greatest innovation is their strategy for stealing technology. Microsoft always starts out by forming a partnership, or at least entering into negotiations with the other company, before stealing that company's technology. That way, the criminal courts never get involved, and no one at Microsoft ends up going to jail. Instead, the case always goes to civil court, where the worst Microsoft is likely to face is a fine. Microsoft is a master at manipulating the law.
I said that the evidence is frequently posted. Here is where you can read some of it:
The DOJ case against Microsoft - Findings of Fact:
For example, this quote showing how Microsoft blackmailed Apple:
> Gates informed those Microsoft executives most closely involved in the negotiations with Apple that the discussions "have not been going well at all." One of the several reasons for this, Gates wrote, was that "Apple let us down on the browser by making Netscape the standard install." Gates then reported that he had already called Apple's CEO (who at the time was Gil Amelio) to ask "how we should announce the cancellation of Mac Office...."
Or these quotes from Microsoft's James Allchin:
> I don't understand how IE is going to win. The current path is simply to copy everything that Netscape does packaging and product wise. Let's [suppose] IE is as good as Navigator/Communicator. Who wins? The one with 80% market share.
> Pitting browser against browser is hard since Netscape has 80% marketshare and we have 20%.... I am convinced we have to use Windows -- this is the one thing they don't have.... We have to be competitive with features, but we need something more -- Windows integration. If you agree that Windows is a huge asset, then it follows quickly that we are not investing sufficiently in finding ways to tie IE and Windows together.
Also, read the parts about the ways Microsoft "encouraged" companies to break their contracts with Netscape, about how Microsoft threatened Intel to get them to stop working on Java, and so on.
Sun's lawsuit against Microsoft over Java:
This is a classic case of Microsoft attempting to copy/steal another company's product, then sabotaging that company's version of it.
For example, there is this memo about a meeting with Bill Gates:
> When I met with you last, you had a lot of pretty pointed questions about Java, so I want to make sure I understand your issues/concerns...
why? What is wrong with amazon? if you don't like them you can always grab the isbn number and go to your libraries system to reserve a copy, go to broders, go to barnes and noble or even a store owned locally. The world isn't owed a favor to any degree and your suggestion that it is owed is offensive.
Remember the Compaq Concerto? 'Nuff said.
I have several NCR 3125 NotePad computers that originally ran PenPoint OS.
These devices were what Microsoft now calls "Tablet PCs".
When they first came to market, Microsoft panicked and announced "Pen Extensions for Windows" (which added very little to Windows 3.1) and claimed that a buch of new systems were coming out to use it. Typical Microsoft vaporware tactics... everyone decided to wait for the wonderful new MS product instead of buying the PenPoint devices, and the market for them collapsed.
Considering that it took them this long to actually produce a product, they obviously only made the annoucement to kill any potential competitor from gaining a foothold.
Call it a conspiracy theory if you wish, but it's a court-proven tactic that MS loves to (ab)use and is quite famous for.
The handwriting recognition in PenPoint was actually very impressive, by the way.
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
I hope he tears MS a new asshole over this. I would suspect for every one individual f*ucked by MS who actually finds incriminating evidence via other cases discovery, there are 4, 5 more out there who don't.
go GO
nooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!
actually most interesting comments come from AC's I have the impression, like this one
By that logic every restaurant that failed in the 70's has a chance to sue McDonald's.
1. Some guy comes up with idea for restaurant, opens one location, starts to develop it, wants to open a second location
2. Need money, so make publicity, attract investors
3. McDonalds opens a restaurant in town
4. Investors think: why should I invest in this guy, when McDonalds' is so much cheaper and they have that fun playground for the kids?
5. Without money, restaurant folds
6. McDonalds' food gets steadily crappier
7. Culinary arts stop for years, the world is set back in this field by about 5 years
I think the whole thing is fallacious. With a good product and the right connections you can attract venture money even in a crowded market. That was as true back then as it is now.
Microsoft's mere existence did not squash Go, nor did the field of handwriting recognition get set back by 5 years when Go folded. MS does some illegal and questionable stuff at times, but as far as I can see this suit is not about that -- it's just a guy getting in line for some free money.
I don't care for opportunism, but it's legal.
Collusion to suppress competition is not.
I don't understand how breaking the law is OK if the victim is unsavory or distasteful. That smacks of putting emotion ahead of reason.
Dupe.
http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/topics/antitrus
The emphasis is mine.
The definition of monopoly in anti-trust suits in the US comes from US law on the matter, not the Webster definition that applies to general situations.
Maybe we can redefine ad0gg to jackass.
I don't think Kaplan's complaints are without merrit... because it happened to us.
I worked at a company making "digital delivery" ware - stuff that allowed try-before-buy and key-based product unlocking from CD.
Microsoft approached us with interest in the product. However, we could never get them to sign an agreement where they would commit to deploying the technology. They wanted absolutely every detailed spec including code for evaluation, without committing... it suffices to say after a few months with no agreement, we told them we would not release the jewels without an agreement where a product resulted.
Within two weeks, Microsoft announced their own vapour competetive technology. Its FUD department was publishing slander against our product (their security experts saying DES was better than FEAL, lol). Microsoft was lobbying NTT against us as well as some of our clients. Some new clients bailed because they said "We'll wait for that microsoft solution."
Does this sound like fair trade practice?
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Does anyone else have the impression that there's a hell of a lot of astroturfing going on here?
Microsoft is a monopoly by the only definition that matters, that of the courts.
What you think monopoly means doesn't matter in the least. Perhaps you should learn what monopoly means to the law, and to economists.
The key question to ask yourself is: Did Microsoft act to compete, or to prevent competition? Competition benefits consumers, anti-competitive acts harm consumers.
I'd like to see Microsoft be brave enough to compete on the basis of its products, and stop using strong-arm tactics against their partners and customers. Threatening Go investors sounds like something that the Mafia would do, except that the Mafia has learned to be more subtle these days.
IANAL, but iirc, the legal definition of a monopoly usually has to do with market power rather than market share.
I.e. if I have 95% of the market but if I raise my prices, I lose business (unlikely), then I lack the requisite market power to be a monopolist in the general sense. On the other hand, if I have 1% of the market share but can effectively set the price at which my goods are sold without having it adversely effect my sales (also unlikely), then that is another matter.
Obviously, the less market share a company has, the harder it is to argue market power.
If this sounds wierd, it is partly because Congress passed a really vague law (The Sherman Act) with the idea of letting the courts work it out. The courts have tried to come up with sensible and fair tests with they largely have done. But that means that since IANAL, it is very hard for me to make sense of it....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
They requested to look at Go's code so that Windows could 'support it better'. After that, they announced a vaporware version of Go, and as soon as Go was out of business dropped their own pen product.
So they clearly used their OS monopoly (you needed your pen to work on windows) to feed their application group code to make at least a rough version of the same product. Definitely abusing their os monopoly to further extend their application monopoly. Those are the facts of the case I'm interested, not a message from Bill Gates, but the actions of many separate divisions in MS consipiring against a potential competitor.
I suppose there's nothing at all wrong with patronizing a company if you don't have a problem with the theft of obviousness that has become a hallmark of many of its patents.
Eliminate the AC and I'll just create an account that is just as anonymous and disposable.
Maybe, but at least we would know you are a dick the second time you posted.
Not looking/sounding like the New York Times is a plus.
The tablet pc is such a hot item and so many people are writing directly on their monitors using Microsoft technology that, clearly, the reason Go failed was because of Microsoft bullying. The market for their this technology dwarfs even the cuecat.
Vote for Pedro
alleged improprieties, as this dates back to the Win3x days.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
MS has Billions of $ in the bank and brings in about 32 Billion more in revenue each year. Subtract out the costs of doing business and you have profit. How many Billion does MS pour into its lawyers/people who sue MS? Not enough to make a dent, that's for sure.
Some lawsuits are definitely legitimate, but just because MS has a lot of power doesn't mean that it's abusive. They got where they are by producing software that was "good enough" and selling it better than the competition.
Now that open source has come along, watch and see Microsoft get better at selling their software and spend more money trying to make it better than the competition to survive.
The Tablet PC is an example of this. Microsoft is actually doing some innovative stuff in their platform, although Longhorn seems destined not to ship.
Isn't that what Daniel Wallace is alleging in his antitrust suit against IBM, Novell, Red Hat, and the FSF?
I think he only mentioned the bit about wanting to write an OS when his standing in the suit was questioned....
You can read more about this at Groklaw
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
'Since when "asking" is illegal?'
It's called consipracy....
I don't really know the law exactly, but if the person running a company that the goverment views as a monoply (ie M$), asks another seperate company to do or NOT DO something, based on thier postion as CEO of said company ( do you think Andy Grove would listen to you or me?) then that can be viewed as illegal. If they had serious discusions about it, say more that yes or no than that is Collusion and conspiracy.
All of this assumes the current Administration would actully do something about it, which they won't. So the guy probably has a case in civil court, too bad the goverment doesn't actully enforce the laws equally.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
Tons of Microsoft shareholders probably slant their opinions on here.
There's a chapter in that book specifically about Go Corp. The highlight of it is a passage where Microsoftie Marlin Eller (the book's author) and someone else at MS were discussing Pen Windows. I don't remember who said what, but one of them lamented that it was a failure. The other one insisted that it was a success, saying something like, "Pen Windows wasn't about 'grow the market,' it was about 'block that kick.' Go Corp spent $[big bucks] developing their product, and we spent $10(?) million shooting them down. They'll never sell their shit again."
I don't have the quote 100% right, but it's close enough-- I remember it so well because when I read it, I was completely stunned by the revelation that Microsoft whipped up a product for no other reason than to prevent a competitor's product from getting a foothold in the market.
If this case goes to trial, I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see the plaintiff call Eller to testify.
~Philly
I should point out that you've shown the criminal definition of Monopoly. The DOJ did not file a criminal case against MS, but rather a civil one. Thus, even if the DOJ had won (rather than settled) it would not have applied to the definitions you've listed.
Microsoft was sued for abuse of monopoly power, not for being a monopoly.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Go made two big mistakes. One was negotiating with Microsoft, and the other was partnering with AT&T. Back then, AT&T was trying to figure out what to do after deregulation. There was an AT&T PC (running UNIX, no less), AT&T minicomputers (running on 48VDC, just like telco gear), and for a brief period, AT&T retail computer stores. AT&T insisted that Go port their system over to some wierd AT&T CPU, which they did. Then they had some designer firm design a cool-looking but inconvenient case for the thing, with plastic plug-on modules on the side.
The prototype was better than the "production version".
...at least AFAIK. I read Jerry Kaplan's book and in there the company is called "Go Corporation," or "Go Corp" for short... NEVER is it called "Go Computer."
Search for either of those names or for "PenPoint" (the name of their first tablet and its OS) returns quite a few pages.
~Philly
In the book "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates," Marlin Eller, one of the original Windows programmers, describes in great detail how Microsoft developed their Pen Windows product. It includes such happy little details as a Microsoft employee surreptitiously taping a GO demo, with Microsoft then creating a *fake demo* that purported to show their software doing the exact same things (when in fact it could not).
The chapter ends with Marlin lamenting the poor product that was Pen Windows, and its poor market performance. I'll paraphrase the response he got from a fellow MSer:
Don't you get it? This was all about defense. We blocked that kick.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Then claim about the rules, not the competitors. If major league baseball allowed aluminum bats, would you complain about the players who used them or the people who allowed them?
My first thought is that MS didn't even qualify as a monopoly in 1994. This was when Windows 3.1 was out, and there were still a few different versions of DOS. MS was not the juggernaut it is now, no where near. Many PCs shipped with OSes other than MS. If MS wasn't a monopoly at the time (and I think it would be hard to say they were) there was nothing wrong with them asking Intel not to invest in Go. If it happened today, there would be no question of the legality (as in none). But assuming it was malicious and illegal then based on MS now is just wrong.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
"would have behaved"
I am not sure what the legal system would do in this case, but I feel that judging an entity on behavior one *thinks* might have happened if the circumstances were right is just morally wrong.
Perhaps using past evidenced behavior to predict future behavior would be okay in my book for some very limited cases (e.g. convicted murderer killed ten people in the same manner and was caught at step n-1 on an eleveth person, past behavior might warrent a conviction just short of an eleventh murder as harsh as we can muster). But to judge a past act that might be posited because of future acts, that's just wrong. (e.g. this person killed ten people from 1985 to 1990, and there's someone with an allegation from 1982, we must assume he planned to kill them).
This made no sense on paper, sorry. My point is yes, there is doubt on how MS would have behaved in their early years. We don't really know and shouldn't assume things even given how they acted post that time.
Go never made a profit. They spent hundreds of millions of VC money and then sank (thanks to being torpedoed by Microsoft).
K.
Also, you get the "It's been x minutes since you last posted error" even if x > 2 minutes.
And the 503 bug this morning.
And the fact every subdomain.slashdot.org has it's own cookies.
And the stupid CAPTCHAs that make posting not logged in hard - someone will circumvent these I'm sure - then they'll just be an annoyance.
And the fact Funny doesn't raise karma.
Someone could get 20 Funnys and 20 Trolls, the post wouldn't necessarily hit the max or min score and lose 20 karma.
Someone could be at Karma 50 and get an Interesting and then a Troll mod on the same post and go down to 49 Karma.
Karma numbers are hidden even from yourself.
"Your Rights Online" is used for anything freedom based. Even if it has nothing to do with the Internet. Like if there was a new Patriot Act requirement that banks report more transactions to the Feds - might be legitimate news for Slashdot, but not YRO.
Apple lovers. Bashing Apple gets one modded down, even though they have sued many people.
Lameness filters. That's censorship - since they abort the post. Let the person post even at -1, but don't abort the post.
They can be circumvented too.
Not only that, they abort legitimate content.
Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech is blocked by Slashdot's filters. FIX THIS!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Go failed because their technology was not viable. Mouse based computing at the time was barely viable -- the computing power needed for pen-based computing didn't exist.
I'm sorry, did you just say that mouse-based computing was barely viable when Go was founded in 1987? Are you forgetting that Apple managed to make it work just fine on a puny 8MHz Motorola 68000 processor in 1984 and had a fairly respectable market share for their mouse-based computers by 1987? Furthermore, the Go devices were based on the 386. Without DOS/Windows overhead, the 386 is a pretty fast chip even today. The first Blackberry handheld had a 386 in it, and it was a joy to use. A lightweight, pen-based OS would have done just fine on processors from the late 80s.
I've read the books by Kaplan and (ex-Microsoftie) Marlin Eller, and they both lay out pretty clearly that Microsoft went after Go maliciously. Microsoft established a partnership with go to get their hands on Go's crown jewels, and copied plenty of stuff before calling things off. They sent people with video cameras to a PenPoint demo and then went over the tape with a fine tooth comb-- any features that drew positive crowd response were quickly copied for a smoke-and-mirrors Pen Windows demo given on mocked-up, non-functional hardware. As soon as Go was so badly wounded they were forced to sell out to AT&T, Microsoft killed their competing product.
If all that wasn't damning enough, we've got the new revelation that Gates personally acted to scare off Intel from making an investment in Go. Sure sounds like dirty pool to me.
Microsoft got the idea for the start button from who else?Go think about it isn't go similar to start?Think stop don't go. Thats exactly what M$ did.They didn't just stop GO they STOMPED Go.Microsoft is just as dirty as any big monopoly or oligopy.Looking to lie,cheat,steal buy senators etcetera to secure its bottom line.Not to mention the power to expand to other hot developing markets. I'd like to see anyone with a fair claim against any company with practices like microsoft win its case.
If you'd take a moment to familiarize yourself with current political climate, you'd know that there is a very strong leaning toward corporate favoritism. This is what has allowed the DMCA to pass, and this is what makes for continued lobbying by corporations like Disney for extended copyrights, or for increasingly restrictive use rights with respect to digital technology. This is where complaining has gotten us.
Complaining does no good. Action, however, can move mountains, if enough people pitch in and help.
Whether he wins the suit or not doesn't matter. With so many people slashdotting amazon to buy his book, Kaplan is bound to make some good royalty money.
I know I really get pissed when Microsoft builds in some OS functionality and gives it to me for free rather than me having to buy some 3rd party product. I'm cheap like that.
:)
And Amazon's patent practices suck, but they have everything and its cheaper than other stores.
-Xen
A1. OS/2 supported the same Win32s that Windows 3.1's win32s package supported.
"Better" means in a faster, more stable, and more efficent manner - all of which OS/2 did. As for OS/2 being "more resource intensive" - it actually _used_ the 386 with pre-emptive multi-tasking - unlike windows, in which the entire computer was at the mercy of the currently running program to suspend itself.
C. You apparently didn't even bother a cursory google for the information. You are competely wrong, sorry. Digital Research even had a succesfull lawsuit against Microsoft for the intentional, anti-competitive flaws added to windows.
feh. stuff.
Is that relevant? Without the Sherman Act, they would have had no grounds to file a civil suit.
Think OJ or Kobe Bryant. The criminal prosecution failed. The civil prosecution won (or led to settlement). OJ was being accused of being liable for the death of Ron Goldman, Kobe Bryant of rape. If rape and murder weren't illegal, I don't think you could file a civil case for it (or at least win). You can file a civil case against me for having bad fashion sense, but since that's not a crime you won't win. If you file a civil case against me for damaging your car, which is illegal, you can win.
Shuddupa you mouf //sing to whatever tune you like
Shuddupa you mouf
Shuddupa you face
Shuddupa you face
Shuddupa right now
Shuddupa right now
You big fat dumb cow
You big fat dumb cow
Le français vous intéresse?
My point was simply that you should be accurate. I agree completely that the civil cases are based on facts presented at criminal trials in the cases you mention, but the MS case was never tried criminally. That's the difference.
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I realize that as of late (the past 3 years or so), the loss of PalmOS marketshare has been the combined fault of PalmOne (back to being Palm again) and PalmSource in failing to keep up with the times, but there has to be some incriminating emails at Redmond on their efforts to squash the platform.
I would venture to speculate that there has to be some correspondence between Microsoft and Gateway putting pressure on them to dump the Palm line from their stores and online offerings...probably an offer to Dell to design the original Axims too. But that's just an assumption...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
bandwagon of suing Ms.(pronounced: mizz).
After all-- ms. is a proven criminal enterprise who has not felt the full brunt of the advantages that go with that title.
I am personally preparing a suit, both with and without 'others' that will cost ms. millions.
And the suits should and will keep comming, until the Evil Dragoon is ded, period.
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
I always thought it was Nicholas Negroponte who said "information wants to be free"...
- It's a vehicle for the casual reader to contribute. Maybe some only read occasionally, and/or don't feel that they'd be in a position to contribute something very often, so they haven't bothered to create an account. There are times when an AC post is the among the most thorough and insightful in a particular discussion.
- It has legitimate uses for people with accounts, too, under the umbrella of protecting against gratutituous karma destruction, if not outright moderation abuse:
- For responding to a slight tangent, like here, without getting dinked by an overzealous moderator. I enjoy occasional interesting diversions from what is stricly the topic at hand. This a good place for geeks to make even side points, and socialize a little, among other geeks where we know there's a good chance we'll actually be understood. Some moderators are just much more uptight about this.
- For stating a valid opinion that is not necessarily aligned with politically correct thought as represented by the masses on this site. Unpopular opinions are still technically capable of providing insight, and I find often do here. So I read at -1, and have done so for a long time now. Remove the AC account and those of us who can actually tolerate divergent views, and sometimes even appreciate them, will be deprived of this preference and the attraction of this site will diminish among such. The hive mind here is already quite excessive, but if literally only PC opinions were allowed to be seen here, that's only the kind of people that would come here, and there'd literally be nothing but perpetual redundant "preaching to the choir".
- For posting something humorous, to protect against genetic defectives born without a sense of humor. A little light-heartedness can liven up and refresh a serious discussion. I like to laugh at just about anything, and can appreciate even humor that insults my politics or religion or my mother etc., IF it's funny. But some overly-sensitive malcontents with mod points are quick to fly into a rage over any little thing and down-mod something.
So I shudder when I see someone suggest getting rid of the AC account, kind of like when I hear it suggested that maybe we should just immediately abandon Iraq, or get rid of the Electoral College, or surrender more rights under the guise of homeland security. There are sometimes actually very good reasons for things being the way they are.Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
Are you sure your quotation marks are in the right place? Judging by what gets put in this subdomain, I'd say it's "Your Rights" Online. In other words, news pertaining to your rights posted and discussed in an online setting, rather than news about your rights while online. If you look at it that way, news about the Patriot Act fits in YRO perfectly.
"Apple lovers. Bashing Apple gets one modded down..."
And yet, bashing Microsoft does not. If the Internet for the free trafficking of ideas, why are Apple and Linux bashers "trolls" but Windows bashers are "insightful?"
I read Start Up and really enjoyed it. Dr. Kaplan sounds smart and a nice person to work with.
At the time, I was working at PI Systems in Portland Oregon. This company made a 'pen computer' nearly identical to the one produced at GO. IIRC, they never sold a single unit.
They, and all the other pen computer companies, were wiped out by the Apple Newton and by the inability of 1992 technology to actually deliver a handheld computer that actually did what the marketers were claiming that it would do.
Microsoft was operating on institutional paranoia at that time. If they had actually examined any of the pen computers availible, they would have quickly realized that none of them were ever any threat to Windows. Most of them didn't really work at all.
Palm bought all the technology from the 1993 era pen computer companies and fashioned it into a real machine about five years later when Moore's law actually made it possible to make and market a hand-held.
I used to work for EO, the company set up to make computers running GO's PenPoint software when GO itself was going to have a conflict of interest if it continued to make them as well as sell the software.
Microsoft really did stitch the company up. The product was far from perfect, but it was also far ahead of the competition at that time.
As others have said, read Jerry's book "Startup: a silicon valley adventure". It explains an awful lot.
Somebody could patent the process of using press-releases, product announcements and other FUD tactics to attack competitors.
Of course, there is plenty prior art, but I doubt someone will claim to have used or invented it.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Now we know why -- Go wasn't quite aware of all that Microsoft did to pull their legs out from under tham. They probably saw a bit, but the full impact of what they did, and why was probably not obvious to Go until the disclosures came out last year -- Then, they probably came up with the same question as I did.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
to steal the spoils of the successful. You hypocrites bitch about software patents, but allow these losers to do the same thing. I had an idea, but MS stole my ideas and my customers, so they owe me money. Pathetic.
Vote for Pedro
And yet still, I don't owe you anything including respect for your opinions. Your personal issues with the way the world works is your problem. Your ideas that others need to conform to your worldview is disgusting. Telling someone not to say what they think because it offends you is _your_ problem, not his. It was helpful _even if_ you didn't want to support the store the information came from. The DMCA passed because no one cares about it. If you want to make people aware of the issue, fine. Telling people what to do because of your politics is just your ugly desire to control others, not to actually help them.
However, shareholders etc do tend to look at rapidly falling profit margins. If MS were to drop noticable in profitability this year over last they might show some concerns.
Wisconsin v. Behm
Wisconsin v. Thurston
In both cases, operating a vehicle while intoxicated is listed as a civil matter, not a crime, and discussed as a "civil conviction."
IANAL, but I make the wild assumption that appellate courts can use legal terms correctly.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
See Snow. v Brown
The case notes that the appeal to overturn the "civil conviction" in the wrongful death suit was rejected by the sixth circuit court of appeals. The document was written by the "Appellate Court of Ohio" which I assume can use Legal terms correctly.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Assuming you are U.S.citizen, it's too bad you can't share your brilliance with our nation's founders- they had some very serious "personal issues" with the way the world worked.
... monopoly is defined in economics terms (market share and what not) and has NOTHING to do with the actual technology behind a product.
This is/was not a "technology matter".
The founders of the united states had a clear understanding of personal responsibility and informed consent. You appear to have neither.
Where "better" is (as you note) defined as "more compatible with Microsoft's existing product". Where the competition was compatible, Microsoft changed their software to make it incompatible (this is not simply speculation, it's well documented by MS employees and in MS memos). Microsoft really DID have that kind of power to cripple a competing product back in 1987 (or the early '90s: Windows wasn't really usable until Windows 3.11 and the 386 came together).
But the key thing that you're missing is that the fact that "better" means "more compatible with DOS" means that Microsoft was starting the race at the finish line.
IBM bet the farm on innovation [OS/2]; Microsoft bet the farm on backwards compatibility [Windows 95]. Backwards compatibility won.
Motorola bet the farm on innovation [Iridium satellites], Nokia & Ericsson bet the farm on backwards compatibility [land-based cell towers]. Nokia & Ericsson won.
Intel bet the farm on innovation [Itanic & EPIC], AMD bet the farm on backwards compatibility [Opteron & x86-64]. AMD won.
Once in a while, innovation wins. But the vast majority of the time, backwards compatibility wins.
I.e. backwards compatibility is almost always better.
Backwards compatibility won.
Yeh, I get that. It's incomplete, though.
Backwards compatibility and preventing anyone else from being backwards compatible by repeatedly changing what they had to be backwards-compatible with won. Being backwards-compatible with MS-DOS 3.3 wasn't a problem. The problem was that while they were doing that, MS-DOS 5 came out with a bunch of undocumented interfaces that nobody else but Microsoft and a few applications vendors had access to. And then Windows 3 beta came out with checks that brought up obscure error messages when you tried running under any of the DOS 3.3 and DOS 5.x emulations, further reducing public confidence in the emulators.
It wasn't just backwards compatibility that won. It was backwards compatibility and dirty tricks.
You can read both the state and the federal complaints against Microsoft on Groklaw here, along with one exhibit, with more to come. It was at last year's class action against Microsoft in Minnesota that certain facts came to light -- letters, email and memos -- and that provides the basis for the suit now.
Damn ambiguous human languages. Many of us here are programemrs and geeks, so I'll go ahead and parse the logic.
>Are Kaplan's complaints warranted, or is he just taking advantage of some recent Microsoft court losses and trying to get his cut?
Why would we assume that those two are mutually exclusive?
What he wrote looks 100% accurate to me. In particular note the critical word "just" in the question. This divides it into two mututally exclusive alternatives, but it divides it in a diferent way than you assumed.
"X or just Y" is indeed mutually exclusive. On one side you have X present (true) and any factors Y or Z unspecified, on the other side you have only Y and any factors X or Z excluded.
As you say, X and Y can both be true. That is covered by the first half of the question "Are Kaplan's complaints warranted?".
So logically there is only a problem with the question if you want to suggest that there was some other unmentioned reason Z present while X was false. That the complaints are unwarranted (X=false) and that he might/might-not be taking advantage of some recent Microsoft court losses (Y=unspecified) and that there was some other substantial motivation behind it (Z=true).
Weeeee!
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Funny. Do you honestly think these guys did what they did all by themselves? Riiiiight.
...and don't forget the connection to Atari.
Slashbot refers to the editorial opinion of the site, along with the sheep who bleet it over and over.