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Opening Statements Begin in Microsoft - Iowa Case
cc writes "The Des Moines Register is reporting that opening statements have begun in the Microsoft-Iowa antitrust case. The Register reports that the Plaintiffs have shaped their case around nine stories involving competitors from IBM to Linux. Microsoft attorneys say Gates is expected to testify in January, and company CEO Steve Ballmer will likely appear in February. Both men are expected to be on the stand for about four days. Unlike previous antitrust cases against the software giant, the Iowa case is seeking additional damages for security vulnerabilities. Plaintiffs allege that Microsoft's bundling of IE with Windows caused harm to consumers by increasing the consumer's susceptibility to security breaches and bugs. The case is one of the largest antitrust cases in history, encompassing millions of documents and Microsoft's business practices during the last 20 years."
When will the editors learn? I about read this on ./ years ago...
Sssh! This is slashdot! We'll have none of your rational thinking here!
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So you go to Red Lobster (or your restaurant of choice) and order crabs... Its not the restaurant's responsibility to ensure that you are not allergic to them when they serve them to you.
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Microsoft will split into 20 different seperate corporations, each for a tiny part of the business that Microsoft does daily, and each of them will sue another other for patent infringement.
What a very merry christmas that would be.
*Attorneys getting millions,
*Patent reform instantly getting gallons of attention,
*The EU being able to smash the pulp of each company for a fraction of the fine, them being too small to withstand intense govermental legal pounding,
*States and Feds quickly getting cold feet about the stability of the Windows platform,
*Tech stocks going into a brief chaos generating freefall and then building up around Open Source, Apple, and Web 2.0,
*Richard Stallman laughing his living ass off,
*The MPAA and the RIAA going "Oh Shit!" when PlaysForSure and WMDRM falls under patent litigation and likely makes them litigants by the same logic that SCO can sue random companies using Linux,
*The State of Iowa becoming a hero in the 21st century, erecting a giant statue of every AG who helped the motion there and spreading out technical industry aside from being centered mostly in the West Coast and, to a lesser extent, the East Coast. (Sure, that's awesome, but it spreading out would benefit the national economy, even if Silicon Valley isn't the hottest place to say you live in anymore.)
Ah... One can dream...
The issue might be better viewed as bundling two products that are riddled with security holes together. Two bads = bad squared! You certainly can't claim the same of Apple.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
"Not to mention the fact that Windows is the most secure OS out there."
You spelled vulnerable wrong. I've never seen it spelled "S E C U R E" before.
Key difference: You can delete Safari, and Mac OS X doesn't break.
No difference. You can do the same in Windows. Deleting iexplore.exe is trivial and harmless.
There's be fewer posts to Slashdot if it wasn't so easy to write a far-stretching analogy.
But is it their responsibility if their waitress (a helpful service bundled with Red Lobster) misunderstands what you meant by "crabs"? Are they liable for compromising your systems and causing an infection?
I don't think they offer those kind of services at Red Lobster. Out in back of Hooters, maybe.
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