Bill Gates Takes the Stand In WordPerfect Trial

Hugh Pickens writes "Remember WorldPerfect? Bill Gates took the witness stand to defend his company against a $1 billion antitrust lawsuit that claims Microsoft duped Novell into thinking he would include WordPerfect in the new Windows system, then backed out because he feared it was too good. Gates testified Monday that Microsoft was racing to put out Windows 95 when he dropped technical features that would no longer support the rival's word processor. He said that in making the decision about the code, he was concerned not about Novell but about one element of the program that could have caused computers to crash. That code, technically known as 'name space extensions,' had to do with the display of folders and files. Novell attorney Jeff Johnson concedes that Microsoft was under no legal obligation to provide advance access to Windows 95 so Novell could prepare a compatible version but contends that Microsoft enticed Novell to work on a version, only to withdraw support months before Windows 95 hit the market. 'We got stabbed in the back.'"

Comments

Re:Groklaw has a pretty good article.

[dskzero]

I have Windows 7, it is stable but what I don't like is every time I take an update it royally screws up my machine especially now because I don't use IE. There was even a time where I couldn't even get it to boot, it took my days to finally fix the configuration. This happens almost every time I take an update, yes, I know I can just refuse them, but I shouldn't have too. Plus I hate the tools it comes with, it's child like, but that could be because I've been using Linux and Mac more and more at work.

wat

Hey it's okay. I got royally screwed when I installed ubuntu last year on my laptop, changed the password, and then it just doesn't boot up correctly. I haven't even bothered to fix it or anything, but I'm pretty sure there is a fix: but it took me 2 months and dealing with the ocassionally not really helpful ubuntu community, and I got annoyed. I just kinda type up two commands to make it work. I've never had any problems with W7 (or XP, actually) that wasn't because of some faulty hardware. Sometimes I wonder what's the "real" hardcore OS.