U.S. Adds Years To Microsoft's 'Probation'

An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. Justice Department has added another two years to its agreement with Microsoft, extending the protocol licensing program that is part of the company's penance for anti-competitive activities. The organization feels Microsoft is providing documentation too slowly to its licensees." From the article: "At one time, the Justice Department and several state Attorneys General had sought a breakup of Microsoft in order to prevent it from abusing its Windows monopoly. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson at one point ordered such a move, though his ruling was later reversed on appeal. Ultimately Microsoft settled with the Department of Justice, agreeing to far more modest restrictions, including the protocol licensing program." Relatedly, regulators have cleared Vista of anti-competitive elements. They examined the OS on concerns an added search box may have given the company a home-field advantage.

Comments

Links to EU situation

[xixax]

Meanwhile over in the EU, Microsoft has been accused of exaggerating what is being asked for
  and the difficulty of providing it.

Xix.

Re:Parent is right - but no one listens

[KwKSilver]

The problem is that Microsoft succeeded by doing this, while the others did not.

The real problem is that MS broke the law in order to succeed. In the eyes of many, it is continuing to break the law whhile thumbing its nose at those trying to get it to obey the law. Or do you believe MS should be above the law? How is allowing MS to use illegal methods to exterminate the competition in any field going to help the consumer in the long run? When they have finished crushing everyone else, they will be able to charge $100, or $200 a month, or $500 a month for their OS, and there won't be anything you can do about it, except to pay up or quit using your computer!

Almost anyone can install Windows on almost any computer.

Oh really,how about a SPARC? or a ppc-Apple MAC? Seriously, hand Joe-Sixpack an OEM disk and ask him to install it on a blank hard drive, and get everything sound, video etc working right. Bring some sandwiches & a thermos of coffee... or a case of beer & a couple of pounds of pretzels... whatever floats your boat. Should be a full day of amusement. OTOH its 20 or 30 minutes with Mepis, Ubuntu or even PC-BSD. Chances are good ol' Joe won't have to know spit--or even be sober. Actually, the last time I installed FreeBSD took less time than the last time I installed XP, even including writing the .xinitrc file and enabling sound--both of which required less time than loading video or sound card drivers for XP.

Links to findings

[KwKSilver]

Jackson's findings of fact were not overturned. They are here. Penfield's Conclusions of Law and Order are here. The findings of fact were not overturned. Both are available as .html or .pdf or wpd files (but not, interestingly, as .doc [=MS Word] files).

Penfield's remedies are here. The gutted final judgement produced by the DOJ cave-in and the Appeals court kowtowing to MS is here here. It's a mere slap on the wrist. "Pretty please, play nice, now, or at least don't get caught flagrantly breaking the law." I wonder how much $jack the DOJ and US Appeals court judges cost. Less than an hour's profits, I'd bet. Ask your MS pals.

More on this and other MS litigation over here.

Re:They called Clinton crazy

[Trelane]

but there just has to be a middle ground between estabishing monopolies on the one side, and punishing success of the other side.

I had to address this too.

Microsoft is not being punished "for succeeding". Being a monopoly is never illegal. It is, however, illegal to use your monopoly status to leverage your way into new markets and to keep competitors out.

Thus, this anti-trust stuff is the middle ground you seek . It's perfectly fine to be a monopoly, but punishes abuse of the monopoly status (e.g. pushing OEMs to sign deals to exclude BeOS boy I wish that OEM licensing deals would see the light of day!).