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DOJ To Oversee Windows 7 Development
MrKaos writes "Windows 7 is already being reviewed by U.S. government technical appointees. Under the terms of Microsoft's November 2001 Justice Department settlement, and final court judgment issued about a year later, a government-sanctioned 'Technical Committee' has been formed to oversee Windows development. The TC is responsible for ensuring that Microsoft complies with the terms of the final judgment, investigating complaints about Microsoft abuses and regularly reporting on the company's compliance."
does this not bother anyone else? Why is our government so powerful that it can involve itself in development of a commercial product by a private company? Do we not realize that by endorsing this, we are inviting government to get involved in more an more areas of out lives. Why not regulating what types of products you can build as a developer? This is insane. I cannot believe that my fellow slashdotters think this is ok. Government has gone too far.
The more I read about government oversight of operating systems, the more FOSS software I install... "America who isn't paranoid must be crazy" -- Robert Anton Wilson
I remember reading (long enough ago that I don't remember the source or exact words) something by Gates saying that he feared the worst case for Microsoft would be to end up like their partner IBM: big and slow, with lawyers wedged into every orifice impeding every move. Fast forward twenty/thirty years and now they're in pretty much the same situation. I don't envy them.
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This reminds me of Katrina...how do you make a huge disaster even worse? Throw some federal bureaucracy into the mix.
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Just wait until the first backdoor-so-that-the-govt-can-fight-terrorism is found... "doom" doesn't even begin to explain fallout.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
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If Microsoft had been split into separate competing companies back when they lost the original DoJ lawsuit then:
(1) Microsoft would collectively be bigger and more profitable than they are now.
(2) Microsoft would be largely free of this kind of oversight.
Why did they fight so hard to remain a regulated monopoly instead?
There fixed that for you. Bureaucracy in itself isn't bad. The problem with FEMA was that it was run by idiots who, over the years, drove away all the competent people. FEMA for the most part did a good job with the 1996 Midwest floods, Nor Cal earthquake, and Sept. 11. By the time of Katrina, who was in charge of FEMA: A lawyer who had no experience in emergency management, no experience running a large organization, and may have exaggerated or falsified his resume. Also the federal government in its wisdom decided to merge the previously small and independent FEMA into the huge conglomerate that is the Department of Homeland Security while reducing its funding.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
We can hate Microsoft but as a libertarian, I find this development scary. Getting the federal government involved in the design and manufacture of a product is unwarranted and is akin to precrime. The US Government should leave Microsoft's development of Windows 7 alone. If it turns out to have anti-competitive effects, then the government can punish Microsoft for it. Everyone may say that would be too little, too late, but preemptive strikes are un-American. (And besides, we can always break MS up if it keeps pushing out monopolistic products.)
As much as I would love to see a version of Windows that actually follows applicable laws before legal action is taken against it, I shudder to think of the precedent that this sets. If the government doesn't like/doesn't get enough kickbacks from a company, then all of a sudden their entire design and manufacturing process is subject to unwarranted government intervention.As a republican, I find this sort of increased government intervention frightening.
darkmeridian has a great point, too--we can always break Microsoft up if the monopolistic policies do not stop. It would likely even be easier to separate than Ma Bell was in the 80s--Microsoft peripherals, Microsoft software, Microsoft gaming, etc etc.
Just my $0.02.
$> man woman $> Segmentation fault. (Core dumped)
"We can hate Microsoft but as a libertarian, I find this development scary. "
That is okay I find libertarians scary.
This is part of the punishment that Microsoft received. A pretty ineffective one if you ask me but still one of them.
This isn't a precrime this is probation.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The only way to get a monopoly is to provide better service than the competition.
Hah! If that were true, there'd be no need for antitrust legislation. However, the issue isn't really how they got the monopoly in the first place (it was pretty much handed to them by IBM). The laws that they broke, and are being supervised to make sure they don't break them again, are laws that are intended to prevent a monopoly from abusing its monopoly status to either maintain or expand into other areas its monopoly without providing better service than the competition. You know, things like product-tying, questionable vendor pre-load contracts, etc.
-- Alastair
The US Government should leave Microsoft's development of Windows 7 alone. If it turns out to have anti-competitive effects, then the government can punish Microsoft for it.
Once someone has been convicted of murder, they're put in jail until society can be reasonably sure they aren't going to do it again. The convict necessarily loses most or all of his freedoms until he regains society's trust.
While not murder, Microsoft (the corporate entity) has been convicted of anti-competitive behavior. I think it is entirely just for society to monitor them for a while to ensure they don't do it again. Think of it as a convict's probation period. Would a judge let a convicted murderer who feels their last murder was justified go without jail time or probation?
Microsoft's board has not admitted or acknowledged that they've committed anti-competitive acts; I think they still feel they've been unjustly treated by the DoJ. Saying we should just leave them alone and wait until they turn out something else that's anti-competitive is akin to saying we're not going to jail unrepentant murder convicts, not going to monitor them, and if they kill again, then we'll just tell them again that they shouldn't do that. That's not a deterrent!
Not to mention that Microsoft understands that some ethical/law violations make good business sense. They make more money by ignoring a law and paying the fines from the profits they reap than they would make by following the law. When an individual shows no scruples, we put them away. Why should a corporate entity be any different?
bring us back to the ideals of the founding fathers of the country
Well, if those ideas are still good and pertinent ideas today, then bringing them back may be good. I don't give a hoot who came up with them though. If our founding fathers said that blacks should be slaves I would flatly disagree with them. Just because our founding fathers said something doesn't automatically make it worthy of being brought back.
But what scares me is political extremism. I don't think that *everything* should be privatized, nor do I think that businesses should have no government oversight or intervention (especially in the Day of Monopolies), though I have heard extreme libertarians say this stuff.
Extreme republicans and democrats are just as scary, IMO. Real solutions to real problems will not come from extremism, nor from blind acceptance of overbroad party-line solutions that apply quite well in economic/social/technological landscapes other than the one we have.