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Caldera Trial Update
In yet another decision from the Caldera vs. Microsoft trial,
a judge has ruled that Caldera can sue Microsoft for "alleged violations outside the United States", because
Microsoft apparently has a global impact. With any luck, the pretrial
will start in August. You know, I'm beginning to wonder who
has the bigger legal team these days.
Its very freudian, but I do love it when
microsoft keeps getting shafted in court.
Its a satisfying repayment for all those frustrated days of re-installing, worry if my disertations would survive and backing up every
bleedin hour. IT is stressful day to day without the added pressure of systems falling over.
Im sure someone in america will sue soon for MS stress related health problems.
Yes caldera you have my blessings, its nice to know the schoolyard bully is being kept in check.
Brad
More warmed over Ayn Rand. Whoop te doo.
Ah, I see, so if I choose to copy MS Office from a friend MS would not use force on me, neither by themselves of by calling on the monopolist of physical force?
Or is a monopolist of physical force against freedom if it takes measures by itself (by DOJ calling court) or if it is called by, say, Caldera, and defending freedom if it is called by MS to use force against me?
The capitalism=freedom => Big Bucks=maximum freedom syllogism is sth I am reluctant to buy.
I guess that will teach Bill for producing a graphical patch to DOS rather than a Decent os that is DOS compatible.
I can sort of understand why they wanted people to use msdos with Windows, ignoring the profit side of things can you imagine how even more unstable Win9x would be if it had to support other flavours of dos!.
If the facts of this case are true however then Billy boy has been a very naughty boy.
I agree to the utmost. Say what you want about MS, but business IS still business, and this is not flattering for the community. Another leech who wants a piece of the pie. This smells like MS-strategy, and it's pathetic.
Heh, I'm betting that MS's lawyers are all over the place, rather than focusing on one issue. You can only hire so many lawyers before it starts to drain your blood supplies ;)
The number of big cases hitting MS these days, coupled with the little tiny annoyance suits I'm sure are a constant pest must be putting a serious strain on the legal team.
I agree with most of what you said in your post. However, I'm not sure that some of their lisencing agreements with ISPs and computer manufactures don't violate laws which exhisted at the time they broke them. I'm not a lawyer, and this is only my opinion. It's also my opinion that in the long run Antitrust Laws may do more harm than good. Unless a monopoly has control of a limited resource such as Oil, they will still have to satisfy the majority of the consumers or lose their monopoly eventually. They can create barries for competitors to enter the market, but eventually someone will produce something the customers want more, and find a way to market it to them. Consumers may not get the best deals or most suitable products for a while (several years even) until a sutiable competitor forces it's way back into the market. Such is the nature of competition.
Personally, I'd like to pay less for software, and have more viable options. But I don't like the current trend in this great country of mine where whineing and litigating is the solution to every problem that arises. I personally don't have any intention of producing software which competes with Microsoft's core business, so I'll do what any consumer does. Wait for something better, and vote with my money.
But what will you use for the time being. Waiting around is all well and good. But businesses cannot shut up shop and wait for new products simply because they dont like the ones currently dominating the market. Most are in a position where they have their backs to the wall. Use MS stuff they need, or perish.
Talking about future competitors does not get away from the fact that today at this present time MS dictate to the world what to use.
Brad
Needs to be corrected.
Sounds like the old guy in "the shining".
Brad
For the benefit of those who don't get your reference, your point is??
Cheer!
I completely agree. Excellent comment. Although perhaps you should have changed "hand in the cookie jar" to "hand down his pants".
There was no point, other than a visualisation of bill gates being "corrected" popping into my head.
I guess your one of those people who have a serious attitude all the way through life until you die.
Try and smile once in a while.
Brad
> ...beginning to wonder who has the bigger legal team these days.
No matter the size of your legal team, it's hard to defend the
indefensible.
Have y'all seen this: Microsoft juggled books, '96 suit alleged?
What's next for MS? IRS audit, anybody?
If a lot of companies "need" somthing Microsoft doesn't produce. Someone else will make it. I'm not disagreeing that in a market where there a "monoploy" exhists that there is some harm to consumers. However the solution is often worse than the problem. You end up with Congress or the Judicary trying to decide if the actions of the monopoly are really harming the consumer. Even worse a federal Judge which doesn't most likely doesn't have the background to understannd all the issues in the market is forced to try and find a solution to the problem.
Monopolies are naturally occurring things in a free market economy. They aren't inherrantly evil. The problem is that once a monopoly exhists it's actions greatly influence it's competitors in it's marketplace. Anything Microsoft does will adversly affect a number of other software companies. Any bugs in Microsoft code will adversly affect people (and all large software packages have bugs). If the solution to this is for those companies which are affected is to sue Microsoft, Microsoft loses the ability to innovate. Just because they are the market leader, the govenment shouldn't freeze them in place until they're toppled from their monopoly position.
If there is a monopoly in the market, it is much harder for competitors to break in to the market. But if their product is considerably better for a reasonably large percentage of the market they can do it.
If Linux can better serve the needs of enough of the market, it will gain market share. Computer vendors want competition in the marketplace. If some vendors choose to be MS only, then other vendors will provide Linux solutions. You can't expect Microsoft to welcome competitors with open arms. They'd be sued by their stockholders for not looking after their investment.
You're wrong. What constitutes a monoploy is not formally defined in law; it is open to interpretation by the court. If the court choose to regard an act as monopolist, there is no objective way to predict this before the verdict is reached, and vice versa.
:-)
The Sherman Act is deliberately vague like this. While the letter of the law cannot act retroactively, the spirit can, and that's what drives the verdict.
That is why there is a trial you silly person! Don't you see that is would be extrodinarily hard to confine the definition of a monopoly to a few specific types of actions that would then put them under that heading?
Would you like to try to give a strict definition yourself? Then you cannot adapt it without changing the law and that would mean the law is retroactive, then the company can't be changed, then we are all stuck with garbage. Rather, if we define the law vaguely, we can decide, in court, weather or not it is a monopoly based on the circumstances of that market. Which does make for a longer trial/investigation period, but it would actually help the process and protect the world from monopolies a whole lot better.
Try showing up to work naked and see how far you get in business. Try speaking Swahili to all your clients. Try putting orange juice in your car instead of petrol.
While I have no idea where you get the argument about showing up naked to work...
You can't compare it as simple as "putting orange juice" in your gas tank. It would be more like trying to put 7-11 gas in a car (linux on a computer) when the computer only accepts Super America gas (Microsoft on a computer). We can't have 7-11 have a monopoly on their proprietary gas can we? Then we'd all have to get gas there rather then the wide range of choices we have now.
I would love to hear your reply
M
Morose@SPAM.ME.NOT.telebot.net
First of all, why is this a surprise? Second of all, why is it a problem?
It seems utterly reasonable that you could buy a company with no saleable product just to get its grounds for suit. If DR was failing to the point that Novell didn't want to keep it around, without a saleable product, it wouldn't have been able to sell it for anything. Since Caldera was expecting to make some big money on a lawsuit, that for whatever reason Novell didn't want to or couldn't pursue, they were able to pay Novell, compensating them for some of the loses Microsoft inflicted upon DR. Now, they get the chance to sue MS. What's the problem with this? Otherwise, maybe DR would have just failed, disappeared, and Novell would be left hoding the loss.
As for your moral grounds, was Caldera not started up by Ray Noorda, former CEO and Chairman of Novell? The President and CEO of Caldera and Caldera Thin Clients, Bryan Sparks, is also from Novell (recall that Novell bought DR while it was still trying to compete with MS). You seemed to be arguing that the action should have affected the victim in a personal, non-transferable (ie. non-monetary) way. In this case, what's wrong with Mr. Noorda and Mr. Sparks wanting to take their case against Microsoft with them?
Although suing MS was one reason Caldera bought DR-DOS, it is still actively marketed by them - DOS is still widely used for embedded systems. Think of 8088 to 80386EX systems with maybe 512K RAM and 512K flash memory, typically PC-104 based, controlling or monitoring equipment (companies selling these include Tern, Z World, T Systems, J-K, and more). DOS works fine, and Linux is too big (and more complicated - especially if you're already used to MS or Borland's 16-bit compilers). I saw Caldera's DR-DOS at the last embedded systems conference.
Remember, desktops account for only a small fraction of the 2.9 billion or so microprocessors sold every year.
Just being a 'large' company does NOT change the legal system for you. But being a monopoly DOES.
When, exactly, did Microsoft become a monopoly? The Caldera case goes back almost a decade. I certainly don't believe that MS was a Monopoly in 1992.
Furthermore, how is a company supposed to know when it's status changes? There has never been a legal ruling claiming that MS is a monopoly.
A double standard is fine, as long as there are clear cut definitions of how they are applied. One could say that Netscape had a monopoly on browser software up until about 2 years ago. As such, their bait and switch tactics of giving away their product and then charging for it later could be considered anti-competitive.
I firmly believe that it is completely unfair to sue someone for things they did BEFORE they were their legal status changed.
Over a year ago, when Sun vs. Microsoft re: Java trial had started and the DOJ trial was starting, I posted in the Javalobby that I hoped the trials would go on for a long time. The reason I stated for that was that while M$ was tied up in the courts, the rest of us would be playing on a level field.
:>) but I'd be willing to debate that with anyone. Granted, the open source model of Linux would have confounded their attempts to buy or break it, however they would have used their market share to force people (resellers, big business etc) to use M$. While tied up in the courts, they don't have this option.
M$ has been cranking out second rate software for a very long time. They've used their marketing expertise (and dare I say, illegal tactics?) to force people to use it, bundle it, ship it, etc. Whenever confronted with any competition, they've used whatever means possible to destroy it. If they couldn't squash it, they'd buy it. If they couldn't buy it, they'd try to break it. Ahhh, but I could go on for hours....
The increasing popularity of Linux over the last year could not have been possible if M$ was not tied up in the courts. Supposition, I suppose
This isn't about removing a company's choice on how to run their business. Its about forcing M$ to run their business in a legal fashion. Hmmm...having said that, maybe it is about removing M$'s choice on how to run their business...:>)
Honestly, I don't give a rat's if M$ wins their court cases. I only hope the cases continue to go on for a long long time.....:>)
OS/2 didn't fall because it sucked (I didn't like it much, but I didn't like Windows either) ... it fell mostly because it didn't get shipped on OEM desktops.
While this is true, It wasn't MS's abuse of the OEM market which prevented it from being shiped on those desktops. although if all other factors were equal, that might have come into play as well. Unfortunately, all other factors are not equal and MS's control of OEM's wasn't a factor in OS/2's lack of success.
The largest factor in OS/2's lack of success is the fact that IBM is a competitor to all other OEM's. No OEM was willing to pay their competitor for an OS, especially since IBM would of course gain the OS for free and have a huge advantage over them.
Microsoft achieved it's dominance primarily because MS didn't sell systems and didn't compete with their customers. IBM did and thus had a hard time convincing the OEM's to help support their largest competitor.
Why do you think OEM's bought MS-Dos instead of PC-Dos? Why do you think OEM's bought MS's OS/2 instead of IBM's OS/2? (for what few shipments to OEM's there were back in the 1.x days).
I worked for a large OEM around the time of Windows 3.1's release and I can guarantee you that I heard the words "I'm not going to line IBM's pockets for anything" more times than I can count.
OS/2 had *ZERO* chance of success with OEM's regardless of Microsofts policies after MS abandoned it.
That's not to say that MS's policies didn't hurt other companies, but IBM didn't even get that far. It didn't matter what the policy was, NO OEM was going to help fund IBM.
No. Microsoft has no taken steps to reduce the choice. They've taken steps to make their offering more attractive than others. This is the nature of all competition, and is what good companies do in a capitalistic system.
People may hate MS for being so successful (what is it about the human psyche that results in this "root for the underdog, hate the guy on top" thing?), but they're right on legal grounds. I suspect that won't stop the DOJ and Caldera from twisting things their way, however, simply due to the above aspect of human nature. Sad.
>To think that any business does not have the
>right to practice business as they see fit, denies
>the owners of the company the basic right to
>decide how the company should be run. By
>setting the double standard you give rights to
>some while taking away from others, this is
>internsically wrong.
So do you believe that the owners of the company should be allowed to dump thousands of gallons of poison in rivers, or have their competitors murdered, if that's the way they see fit to practice business? A company may practice business as it sees fit within the laws of the land. A company may argue that the laws are wrong, and may seek to have them changed, but may not violate them.
Also, does a company have the right to conduct business as it sees fit, when that right intereferes with the "unalienable" right of its competitors to conduct business as they see fit?
A company has the unalienable right to conduct business as it sees fit, provided it does not cause harm to its employees, customers, or community. Anticompetitive acts harm all three.
Furthermore, almost everyone I've seen talking about this is unaware of the fact that the original antitrust laws had absolutely nothing to do with the harm done a monopoly's competitors or consumers. It has to do with the political power a monopoly can wield. A corporation should not have the power to dictate terms to the government and the people of a country, and that's exactly what the various trusts were doing in the 1890's. That's also exactly what Micros~1 would have the power to do without these laws.
> Communism=Gov't involvement.
Bullshit. Communism is the *ownership* of the economy and the means of production communally by the people. No government, no corporations. Just the workers.
Socialism is the *ownership* of the economy by the government. No corporations could exist.
Antitrust law does not fall into either category; it's government *regulation*, not government *ownership*. Does the government own you because they've told you you can't kill me? Nope. Nor are they attempting to own Micros~1 by telling them they're not allowed to use their monopoly position to put their competitors out of business, or to leverage their monopoly in one area into monopolies in many others.
--
No matter how hard you work to make something idiotproof, someone will always come along and make a better idiot.
It sure does sound odd, don't it, to say that MS shouldn't be held liable for actions undertaken in the US to dominate a global market, thus denying other software companies the chance to make $$$ on that market. Why should it matter whether they're only gunning for a monopoly in the US or worldwide? If Caldera's suit has merit when applied to profits inside the US, then it has merit when applied to profits outside the US.
I also like how MS's lawyers are always disagreeing on matters of what the law says with judges. It's one thing to say "we didn't do this", quite another to say "Even if we did do this, it's not actionable," which is what they keep saying in the face of ... errumph ... legally binding rulings to the contrary.
Maybe if these guys had spent more time in law school focusing on what the law is than planning what colour they want in their Beemer when they get a corporate job, they wouldn't get ruled against on these points so many times.
But perhaps we shouldn't blame the lawyers: after all, it's their job to protect MS's interests, even when MS has behaved illegally and left a paper and e-trail detailing their questionable actions ("We're good at making software, not videos" or whatever it was Ed Muth (or whoever) said when they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar at the DOJ trial -- what's a poor defense counsel to do with that?). GIGO is almost as much a principle in the law as it is with programming.
End of MS trial for me..... I can filter MS pieces on /., but not just legal stuff... new category? Maybe? :)
David
This sig left intentionally blank.
Posted by zyberphox:
microsoft won't achieve its goal easily this time.
>More warmed over Ayn Rand. Whoop te doo.
What do you expect from a bunch of wannabe slave-owners?
You chose not to buy there!
Why is this so difficult to comprehend? No-one forced you to buy! You are free to go anywhere else! To buy whatever you want, so long as you can afford it and the merchant is willing to sell to you.
The DOJ propose to use force against Microsoft, laws which are backed up by prisons and armed police.
If the /. crowd truly cared about freedom of the individual and of the mind, you'd all be fighting tooth and nail against the DOJ.
I seem to recall a time in Holland (IIRC) when the government changed the working conditions of medical doctors. Many of them wished to leave the country - so the government conscripted them all into the Army to stop them. The moral of this story is clear: The only power governments have is physical force, and one day they might use it on you.
me, neither by themselves of by calling on the monopolist of physical force?
You don't own Office, you only own a license to use it. You chose to accept the license terms when you first installed it, if you subsequently break them, then you have wilfully broken a contract you freely entered into - which makes you fair game for law enforcement.
It is clear that we each must deal with any other as that other would deal with us. Microsoft choose to deal by the laws of commerce which exist as and when they conduct their actions. You have choses to ignore contract; that makes you the initiator of force.
Nothing to do with SMP Wintel machines being cheaper than and easily outperforming G3 macintoshes for rendering then? Or the larger hardware acceleration market meaning the best graphics cards are available? Or the larger installed base meaning it's more economical for ISVs to port to NT?
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. If you thought NT was unstable, try MacOS with no protected memory or preemptive multitasking...
gets caught doing bad things and then has the audacity to get mad about it.
Antitrust law is retroactive, which means that even if something was perfectly legal when you actually did it, if it is subsequently declared illegal you are still liable.
This means that there is no way to tell if you are breaking the law when you do something, because the law doesn't exist yet! Microsoft's phalanx of corporate lawyers would never have broken existing laws, Bill is too smart for that.
software you can tell he believes all
software should come from him for some divine reason only he knows about.
As is the goal of all software development projects. If you were to take a straw poll on
Bill was never really a hacker in the first place like so many Unix
heroes were/are, he just funded projects and used other people's work to his
advantage
More FUD and lies. Bill's simply more successful than anyone else because he was the first to realise the truth: There is no such thing as a software project, there are only business projects with a software element.
Buying out every company with an idea and forcing companies to use only
your products isn't "Freedom to Innovate" Bill.
Force is the sole monopoly of governments. The only force here is that applied by the DOJ. Microsoft has no guns and no laws to compel people to obey, only the free judgement of the rational individuals who freely trade with them, everyone from the home PC user to megacorporations like Compaq and IBM. No-one has ever compelled you to trade with MS, you have always done do freely - it is a central fact that no-one has the right to buy whatever they want, only what they are offered for sale.
It has always been possible to buy components and assemble your own PC - even if you are incapable of doing so, you cannot demand the world adapt itself to your whims. You can only buy what is offered for sale - either a preinstalled box or take the time to find a niche manufacturer.
Microsoft's only crime is that they are the ALCOA of the 90's.
Clause 3: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." In
other words, ain't no such thing as retroactive law.
You're wrong. What constitutes a monoploy is not formally defined in law; it is open to interpretation by the court. If the court choose to regard an act as monopolist, there is no objective way to predict this before the verdict is reached, and vice versa.
The Sherman Act is deliberately vague like this. While the letter of the law cannot act retroactively, the spirit can, and that's what drives the verdict.
Right. Uh-huh. Now just TRY and get along WITHOUT using Microsoft products in
the corporate workplace. Just TRY to see how far you make it.
Try showing up to work naked and see how far you get in business. Try speaking Swahili to all your clients. Try putting orange juice in your car instead of petrol.
You see my point? Just because some things become
convention and some don't, that does not constitute coercion.
It may smell like MS-strategy, but MSFT needs to be corrected. Hopefully a large settlement here will help out on that point.
Hey, that is a nice way to liven up this "boring" topic. Maybe another way is to speculate on the size of the settlement. One billion, two billion anyone? However large it may be, maybe it will be a bit small compared to the DOJ remedy.
If you had any real arguments to support your favorite cause, I am sure MSFT would be using them.
Otherwise, the pattern of abuse by MSFT over many years is obvious. Now the only interesting questions involve the remedies.
Ideally, I would agree with you, for I too am against government intervention.
But in reality, we are dealing with a crisis that has been and is currently being perpetrated by Microsoft. There are probably many laws that are not enforced in normal situations. But this is an extremely abnormal situation, and I for one am glad that there are laws to give us hope of getting out of this crisis.
BTW, you claim that their fall is inevitable. Sure, but when is "inevitable"? Five years from now, after even more damage is done? Even if Microsoft ends up winning all of its cases, their behavior being put under the microscope has done wonders for the normal competition that we should have had all along. Others have pointed this out, and I agree that it is a victory by itself.
Of course, their chances are still way out there, but I'm starting to think that Caldera is actually going to get a settlement. I hope that they do, they deserve every penny that they get. I think that it's funny that the Microsoft Lawyers would even question that FACT that MS products have a global effect. Does anyone understand what the thing that is going to happen in mid-august is?
Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming. -Brian Kernigan
I thought no law was allowed to be retroactive (the Constitution says that here in Norway, at least), but with the American legal system, you never know :-)
/* Steinar */
(This comment is of course GPLed.)
Umm, seems to me you had no trouble finding the choice that didn't involve buying Microsoft.
I may not agree with sql*kitten's other statements, but he's dead on with regard to force and choice. See, even MCSE's can be right sometimes...
My internal e-mail sig reads:
I have used this sig for the past three years. Two of those years were spent as a software salesman, and I have never had any problems, nor objections, from anybody internal nor customers.As the twig is bent, so the tree inclines - sometimes I think M$ got where they are today due to US fear in the early 80's about Japan and Germany, all the rhetoric about the US being 'globally competitive' seemed to justify the creation of a domestic monopoly, M$ political supporters allowed them to get away with questionable tactics as long as it created jobs, paid taxes, etc even tho some economists warned:
a domestic monopoly is a monopoly is a monopoly, it's just bad bad bad and isn't capitalism; patriotism and nationalism but not competitive capitalism.
But I could be hallucinating.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I know it's difficult to cut thru the politics but it's not at all a matter of 'I like this' and 'I hate that' - facts are facts and the cases must be decided on that basis, not on a popularity or vilification contest. The issues is, did/does Microsoft use illegal/unethical tactics to tie in and promote their products and shut out potential competitors, in their hubris arrogantly thinking they are too smart or too good to get caught at it? The analysis of the AARD code says to me: YES, they did/do. A civilized marketplace cannot allow one opportunistic monopolist to become so obsessed with success that they think they're somehow exempt, special or above the laws that the rest of us are held to.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
There is a very good reason why there is a 'double standard'. First, let me address some of the bugs in your argument. One: The change in legality does not occur between 'small' and 'large' companies. Just being a 'large' company does NOT change the legal system for you. But being a monopoly DOES. See the difference?
Now, there are good reasons why monopolies need to have special rules applied to them. Libertarians would judge all companies alike, in the sense that they ARE companies, and they should be held to the same set of standards. The problem is, any ideology, taken to an extreme, is folly. When a company becomes a monopoly, it becomes more than a 'normal' company because it suddenly is the supplier, and therefore controller of a WHOLE SEGMENT of the economy. It is a known fact that monopolies have a much easier time keeping competitors out of their market (undercutting prices, etc.)
Thus, when a company is a monopoly, it has special responsibilities, more so than a normal, non-monopoly company. These responsibilities is what antitrust law reflects. Antitrust law is needed because without it, the system can easily go awry, and lead to a select group of monopolies running the ENTIRE economy, completely killing competition. Without competition, the capitalist system is USELESS and inefficient. Antitrust law is needed to protect the market. YES, it IS government intervention in the economy, and it IS needed. Without it, there is no hope for the capitalist system.
Libertarians who naively beleive in the free laizzes faire market myth dont realize that without antitrust, their wonderful capitalist economy will become a pseudo-communist-oligarchist system. With the economy (and therefore country) controlled by a set of megacorporations, who are themselves controlled by rich investors. It is a complete corruption of the capitalist system.
Laxative
The legal definition of a monopoly doesn't come out of the American Heritage dictionary. I don't think you need to have 100% of the market to be considered a legal monopoly.
Even so, while MS might not have 100% of the whole computer market, they definately have 99% of various submarkets. Consider mainline corporate desktops (for US organizations > 500 employees) - how many secretaries are *not* running Windows?
Another submarket is consumer desktops less than the cost of a iMac (~= $1000). Even if you want to pretend that Linux is a good consumer OS, you'd have a fair amount of trouble finding a preinstalled, low-end Linux system in CompUSA.
Of course, the marketplace is still wide-open for servers and engineering workstations and the like. But if Microsoft could successfully threaten IBM, the worlds largest computer company and owner of several operating systems, to downplay OS/2 - that tells you that Windows is pretty much the only game in town as far as the general market goes.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
It is clear that we each must deal with any other as that other would deal with us. Microsoft choose to deal by the
laws of commerce which exist as and when they conduct their actions.
It is also plainly clear that the majority, no vast majority, of people believe that it is just to deal with Microsoft in the way we are. I presume that they believe (I certainly do) that it would be just for someone else to deal with me in the same manner.
Bill has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. What really pisses me off is he gets caught doing bad things and then has the audacity to get mad about it. If you read anything he said from the 70's and 80's about software you can tell he believes all software should come from him for some divine reason only he knows about. I really hope this case is influencial in the DOJ case against M$. For too long they have been stomping out every other company thats had a unique idea simply so all software will come from them. Bill was never really a hacker in the first place like so many Unix heroes were/are, he just funded projects and used other people's work to his advantage. Buying out every company with an idea and forcing companies to use only your products isn't "Freedom to Innovate" Bill.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Ever notice how a lot of the increase in non-MS options came after the trial started? I don't think that's coincidence. MS is losing market share right now precisely because, with the trial going on, they can't use their position to threaten vendors into avoiding non-MS options without giving DoJ fatal ammunition to use against them.
The reason for the difference in treatment isn't company size, it's market control. When several companies are in the market and none of them has overwhelming control, what they do and how they play is less important because if one gets out of hand customers have an option to not deal with them. MS, however, is in a position where everyone effectively has to deal with them. It's similar to the difference between UPS and the power company. If UPS won't deal with you then you just go to a competitor, so how UPS decides which customers they want to serve isn't a critical matter. If the power company won't deal with you then you can't get electricity at all, so the power company is required by law to consider all customers equally as long as they can pay because if they don't the customer has no remedy.
A monopolist is in a position where the playing field is intrinsically not level. To claim that it should remain tilted in their favor because you don't want to tilt it in favor of would-be competitors ignores the current condition of the field. And if the DoJ sued RedHat for antitrust violations right now I'd condemn DoJ, not because I liked RedHat, but because anyone can go get SuSE or Debian or Caldera or any other Linux distribution and get exactly what RedHat is selling and run all the third-party software they could run under RedHat, hence RedHat is not in a monopoly position.
You're right, though. MS should not be destroyed. The worst fate that could befall them coming out of the trial is to be forced to themselves abide by the same APIs and methods they recommend everyone else use, and to publish interface and protocol specs for everything they use. For example, IE exposes a COM interface. MS itself tells anyone needing to display HTML to use the COM interfaces to create IBrowser objects and display through them. If MS is simply required to have Windows itself create and use IBrowser objects rather than bypassing their own APIs, the whole issue of browser integration goes away and any company that wants to can tie their browser into Windows as tightly as IE is, as long as they implement all the right functionality per spec.
I don't know how antitrust law works in the UK, but in the US this is simply wrong. See my other post for more details.
IANAL. As I understand US antitrust law, while there are certainly areas of interpretation where it may not be clear what constitutes antitrust behavior, in general it's possible to know if you are breaking the law or not.
It is not, in itself, a violation of US anti-trust law to gain a dominant market share constituting a de facto monopoly. (I'm going to ignore de jure monopolies like the public utilities.) What it is illegal to do is to use that dominant market position to
As for the "Bill and his phalanx of lawyers would never willingly break the law" argument --- ROTFLMAO! Sure they would! And they certainly would (and have) push the boundaries of the law as much as they deemed profitable. Anti-trust enforcement in the US has a history of being "too little, too late". So it makes good corporate sense (in a bottom-line, worshipping the almighty dollar and stock valuation way) to do precisely the amount of anti-trust violation that you think you can get away with.
Now, whether Bill and Co. have managed to walk that line (of attempting world domination without being so egregiously in violation of the law that they suffer a serious setback at the hands of the DOJ) successfully or unsuccessfully is still an open question (since we don't know the results of the trial yet). Given that previous actions by the Federal Government against MSFT for anti-trust violations have amounted practically to little more than a slap on the wrist, we shall see. Maybe Bill was too smart to obey the law, if MSFT gets off too easily ...
But please, let's not have any of these conservative/libertarian/Randist fantasies about how Microsoft is being persecuted for simply being successful. Microsoft is being prosecuted for violating the law. A law that they freely chose to ignore, or at least dance right up to the line and stick a couple of toes over, believing they wouldn't get those toes stepped on hard enough to matter.
All of the arguments in this and many other threads seem to be based in anti-trust law. This set of laws is an abomination. To make it legal for a company to one thing when they are small and then it is illeagle to do it when you are large is absolutely stupid. How can anyone call that a level playing field. I am posting this from Netscape under Linux. I use Linux because I have a choice. I do not want my choice taken away. MS is losing market share without the lawsuits, to me this means they are able to be beaten, on a fair playing fiels without the gov't becoming involved. Some of you out there in /. land seem o give up all principles when it comes to hating MS. Any other time you would be anti-gov't but because they are going against MS you root for them. Hate causes ratinal people to do irrational things. I do not hate MS, I do not like their products so I use something else. I have good friends who like MS, and they use it. They have a choice and they exercise it.
How do you claim to agree with removing a companies choice on how to run their business ? This is a ludicrous argument. You claim the consumer should have choice (which they do) but a company larger than a certain size should not. You are so blinded with hate that you cannot see the flaws in what you claim to believe. If the DOJ was suing Red Hat, there would be some supporters but not as many and some of you out there would side with Red Hat while siding with the DOJ in an MS case. This is a double standard. Enough for now.
Fine for you. You most likely only have to read through some file, in which case your method is all fine and dandy.
But suppose you're a consultant who is supposed to collaborate with a client who uses pretty much only Microsoft products--say, financial data, or graphic design work, or whatever. So long as you only want to "view" the work, your method is fine.
But if you want to *edit* and *collaborate* on it, you're stuck with either a larger hassle--converting the file back and forth--or something simply undoable. Which results in a frustrated customer who will go somewhere else...where they use Microsoft products.
The exact some process is why high-end graphics users are moving to NT away from Macs. Not because NT is better than a Mac for graphics, but just because they are more "compatible" with what clients are using (at least that is one of the more compelling reasons).
Let's face it--NT is such junk that this is the only explanation for why anyone would be so insane as to want to use it. You want a _real_ high-end workstation or server? Fine, use Unix/Linux/Solaris/IRIX. You want a _really_ decent desktop computer? Get an iMac with NetBoot.
Anyway...
cya
Ye Olde Webdesigner
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
You're wrong. What constitutes a monoploy is not formally defined in law;
You have missed totally missed the point of the court cases: Microsoft is not being sued for being a monopoly, but for abusing its position, which is quite a separate issue.
Your counterargument also does not refute the fact that there is no such thing as retroactive law in the United States. It is *not allowed*.
The Sherman Act is deliberately vague like this. While the letter of the law cannot act retroactively, the spirit can, and that's what drives the verdict.
So mere interpretation of the law is suddenly an application of ex post facto jurisdiction? Come on! Don't be ridiculous! Come be to the real world before you come with another counterargument...
Just because some things become convention and some don't, that does not constitute coercion.
Yes, they do, if they threaten my livelihood. If I am unable to earn money without resorting to using Microsoft products, AND all options to use other products are closed through the actions of Microsoft, that is as good a case of coercion as there can be. This is what we call...an abuse of monopoly.
Having a monopoly is not illegal in the US. Abusing one is.
cya
Ye Olde Webdesigner
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Sad. You start losing an argument, you you change the subject.
I'll assume that the lack of your trying to counter my arguments can be construed to mean that you _have_ no other arguments.
outperforming G3 macintoshes for rendering
*sigh* I don't "render" anything. I design it. If the system gets in my way, it's useless. NT gets in my way. Fuggedaboutit.
FWIW I use Macs and Linux. Both work fine and dandy and do exactly what I want them to (Macs as workstations, Linux for servers). Since you're apprently a Microsoft engineer or whatever, if that's what blows up your skirt, fine. Just don't try and foist it on me. I'd rather give up computers entirely than be forced to use NT.
And if you _really_ want a media system on Intel iron, try Be. NT is laughable. I take pride in the fact that I have an Intel- and MS-free shop anyway.
cya
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
This is flat-out false. Read the U.S. Constitution, bub. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." In other words, ain't no such thing as retroactive law.
This means that there is no way to tell if you are breaking the law when you do something, because the law doesn't exist yet!
You been reading Kafka too much?
Microsoft's phalanx of corporate lawyers would never have broken existing laws, Bill is too smart for that.
Ridiculous. Bill just interprets the law the way it suits him--until he gets caught bending the rules just a little too far. Reminds me of another Bill we all know.
If you were to take a straw poll on /. you'd find many people who believe that all software should only come from the open source community by divine right.
Does open source hold a monopoly? By definition, no. Open source is not a monolith--it's a process. Microsoft IS a monolith, and a monopoly. You simply can't compare the two.
Bill's simply more successful than anyone else because he was the first to realise the truth: There is no such thing as a software project, there are only business projects with a software element.
No one blames Microsoft for being successful. We do blame them for abusing their position. That's where they broke the law.
Force is the sole monopoly of governments.
Ah. A card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party, I see. Mmmm-hmmm...
Repeat that statement while someone is pointing a .357 Magnum at your head and demanding your wallet.
The only force here is that applied by the DOJ.
Baloney. Microsoft also forced numerous companies to either be subsumed by them or be forced out of the game (WebTV, Hotmail, DR-DOS, Netscape, etc. etc. etc.). My Lord, they even had Intel majorly worried, incredibly enough. If you try to claim Microsoft doesn't use "moral force" (to use that giddy Libertarian term), then your credibility is at around null.
Just because someone is in government does not make them inherently an abuser of "moral force"--and, conversely, just because someone is NOT in government does not make them incapable or unwilling to do so, either.
Microsoft has no guns and no laws to compel people to obey, only the free judgement of the rational individuals who freely trade with them, everyone from the home PC user to megacorporations like Compaq and IBM. No-one has ever compelled you to trade with MS, you have always done do freely - it is a central fact that no-one has the right to buy whatever they want, only what they are offered for sale.
Right. Uh-huh. Now just TRY and get along WITHOUT using Microsoft products in the corporate workplace. Just TRY to see how far you make it. Your customers will abandon you, because you're incapable of opening even the simplest MS-Works document when they communicate with you. If things get worse, soon your Mac/Linux/Sun box will be unable to communicate with the other computers because they're using MS-TCP...thus cutting you off from the 90% of desktop computers in the workplace that are running Windows.
This is why we HAVE antitrust law!
Jeez...
cya
Ye Olde Webdesigner
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Not only that, but it was quickly determined (in 1796 or so) that this clause of the constitution actually did have some teeth. Antitrust laws have some issues, but they're not ex-post facto in nature. Perhaps unconstitutionally vague or broad.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
This sounds right (rose is rose is rose
1) What is a monopoly? Says the American Heritage Dictionary, "An excluisive ownership or control, as of a given business activity." [emphasis mine.] Not just "the lion's share" (no argument, MS has that in certain markets), but exclusivity.
And even within that, there are at least two senses of exclusion that matter: 1) definitional and 2) normative. (Maybe a legal scholar can offer better words, but I hope these examples show what I mean:)
a) Definitional: If I have the only lemonade stand in the town, I have a monopoly, literally, but with no hard feelings. Maybe the town only has enough people to support one stand, and maybe my only competitor folded after a kick-back scandal. Whyever, I just am the only lemonade game in town.
b) Normative: If my dad is the mayor and I convince him to outlaw any other lemonade stand from opening, then have a normative monopoly. I don't care how many stands the town will support, I have the threat of law protecting mine.
2) When did Microsoft ever have a monopoly, domestic, international, or otherwise? A preponderance, yes, but never has Microsoft held a monopoly. (At least, whenever I ask the question I have never gotten a convincing answer that MS has held a monopoly.)
3) Can govt. regulators know better than competing companies which outcomes would be better for customers? (I pose this as a rhetorical question, but if anyone can make an argument that bureaucrats make better designers than entrepreneurs I'd like to see it.)
A really good book on the topic of monopoly / anti-trust is called (I think I have this title right): Antitrust: A Policy at War with Itself. (By Robert Bork, all-around smart guy.)
Just some thoughts,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I am not sure I agree with you and I am not sure that even MS would be able to keep their almost monopoly even if DOJ hadn't interacted.
Since late 1993 I chose not to use any MS product so that would be a monopoly minus one that had a choice, right? (this is excluding the thousands others at the time running Linux, *BSD, UNIX, etc.).
Peter
--
Caldera bought DR-DOS just a couple of years ago, well after it became an obsolete product with no sales potential. Then they filed a lawsuit against Microsoft based on something that happened to the product before they ever had any vested interest in its success or even in its very existence.
In their defense, I must say that Caldera has in fact been making at least a symbolic effort at marketing DR-DOS, calling it a "thin client solution." But there's not much one can do with DR-DOS that one cannot do using the DOS emulation already bundled under Caldera's own Open Linux. Why would Caldera compete with itself this way, when it could consolidate the two into a unified, robust product that can run not only any source-available Unix program ever written, but also any DOS-based binary application written before 1994? They own the source to a full-blown DOS; instead of competing with their flagship product, they could be using it to make their flagship product's DOS emulation bullet-proof and save themselves a bundle in marketing and future development costs.
They won't do that, though, because it is in their best fiscal interest to hang DR-DOS out to dry, to go through the motions of trying to sell it into a market that vanished years ago.
DR-DOS is, as of 1999, a useless product. That begs the question, why did Caldera buy it at all? The only answer I can come to is that they didn't buy an operating system: they bought the grounds for a lawsuit. I believe that Caldera purchased Digital Research's old MS-DOS clone in full knowledge that they would never be able to make any significant amount of money by selling or supporting the product to end-users, or by using its technology to improve any of its other future or existing products. Furthermore I believe their primary--if not their sole--purpose in the buy was to make a huge pile of money by suing the biggest player in the business over something that happened before Caldera was even incorporated.
Regardless of the target of Caldera's lawsuit, I believe their premeditated behavior in this matter is grossly unethical. It is morally bankrupt. It is litigous opportunism at its All-American worst: Caldera themselves were never hurt by Microsoft; they just bought someone else's pain and pretended it was their own. You will be hard-pressed to find a lawsuit which more clearly exhibits the near-total subversion of the United States' civil judicial system from a mechanism by which wrongs are remedied to one you use to make a fast buck.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to drive down to Florida now and buy a pack of cigarettes. Then I'm going to buy a buggy-whip concern and use it to sue GM.
--
This is not my sandwich.
Microsoft associate general counsel Tom Burt said he was disappointed in the decision, adding that Caldera's claim for European damages was "contrary to antitrust law."
I just love these kind of tidbits from the various M$ trials. 'Contrary to antitrust law' how, exactly? Perhaps the letter (does U.S. antitrust law only relate to the U.S., or have previous cases only been in the U.S.?), but certainly not the spirit of the law.
Grasping and straws, I'd say. And of course, such an attitude dovetails nicely with Bill's various comments about M$'s role in the global economy.
Oh well, if M$'s lawyers are going to react to these decisions in that hurt tone (as above), this should provide years of enjoyment....