The government should not have access to the court system as a plaintiff.
Why is that? Who else in this country has enough money to sue Microsoft? Who else can come up with the resources necessary for an investigation of this magnitude? The anti-trust laws are designed to protect consumers from the power that the government gives to corporations. Why shouldn't the government be the one to ensure that the power they give is not misused? They are held to the same standard as any other plaintiff. They have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant broke the law. Microsoft had the high ground from the start, but they've gotten so cocky due to getting away with murder in the past that they seemed to just get sloppy. Of course, they probably are very guilty and therefore the system would seem to be working in this case.
Microsoft hasn't committed a crime and yet they are having to defend themselves from a government with virtually unlimited funds. NO CRIME!
Who are you to decide whether or not they've committed a crime? How would you know in the first place? We haven't even been able to see all of the evidence yet. Many things were shown and kept behind closed doors (mostly at Microsoft's request, although I'm pretty sure that MS would not legally be allowed to make some of it public). The evidence and testimony we have seen, (quite a bit of which was email written by Microsoft execs) strongly suggests that Microsoft most certainly did violate the Sherman Act. That is a law. It looks like they broke it. The judge is the one who will decide for sure. Not you. Not me.
Give me 60 million dollars and I'll take you to court and "prove" that you've done something wrong too.
First of all, your figure doesn't look to be anywhere near what the DOJ has spent on the case. From what I've read, they've spent less than 10 million altogether. Congress took a good look at what they've spent when Microsoft's pet senator demanded that they call off the DOJ. Who is he to decide who is and who is not subject to the law? Second, Microsoft has spent a hell of a lot more on this case than the government has. If money is going to decide this thing, I would think that Microsoft would have the DOJ beat hands down. Third, if you truly believe that money can buy a conviction, then perhaps you should devote your time to trying to change the legal system for all of us instead of trying to defend the most powerful corporation in existance.
This isn't going to ruin Bill's life. It may hurt his company a bit, but he'll survive and he'll never want for anything for the rest of his life. If the system is so screwed up, perhaps you should save your defense for real people with no corporate entity to protect them. Real people who's lives will be destroyed for real. If things are as you say they are, then they are the ones who are in the most desparate need. I'll shed no tears for Microsoft.
I don't agree with the way the legal system works any more than many others here do, but if it can't be fixed to be fair, then it should at least be consistant. Microsoft is subject to the law just as I am, or as any corporation that I run would be. Why should they be given special treatment? One of the biggest problems is that even the most powerful corporations and most of the powerful non-commercial organizations will not go to bat for all of us in order to have the system fixed. They just fight to get themselves excused from it. Maybe the whole self-interest thing doesn't work as well as some people think it does.
Being successful cannot be converted into a crime.
And nobody is saying that being successful is a crime. There are tons of successful people and companies out there.
And when the Government can use our money to sue unpopular public figures in civil courts, the concept of self-determination is obliterated.
Man, you're scary. Where do you come up with this crap? Since when is Gates unpopular? He's one of the most idolized men in this country. Millions of sheep worship him. Oh, and btw, our government isn't suing him due to his popularity level. They're suing him for breaking some laws.
The one thing you will find burried in reports and hardly mentioned is that nobody has found any crime that has been committed. No laws were broken.
That has not been officially determined, so I have no idea what you're basing your statement on. The only legal thing we have to go by at this point is the FoF, and from the looks of it, the judge believes that Microsoft has, in fact, broken anti-trust laws. For some strange reason, you seem to think that Microsoft should be immune to those laws.
It's extortion. It shouldn't be applauded. It's downright scary.
The only extortion I've seen was done by Microsoft. It is scary, and I certainly would not applaud it. The government is, unfortunately, the only thing that stands between us and the corporate mandate to increase profits by any means possible. Since the government gives these corporations their power, it bears the responsibility for keeping them in line and making sure that the best interests of the people of this country are being served. If the power we give to corporations did not benefit consumers, we would have no reason to give them their power in the first place.
The government has every right to take action against companies for breaking the law, no matter what form the infraction takes.
You seem to think that Microsofts actions should be ignored because they consisted, in part, of deciding "what bits" to ship on their CDRoms. I don't see why technology should make them less liable for anti-competitive behavior. It's not like the judge didn't have huge amounts of evidence to support his conclusions. Hell, Microsoft's own dictionary states that a browser is a separate application. How much proof does he need in order to draw that conclusion himself?
You act as if the government can just dictate willy-nilly what companies can and cannot include in their product. That's BS. This decision was made with a large amount of evidence to back it up. These sorts of things cannot be done carelessly or easily.
Other governments have taken a great interest in filing their own suits. The DOJ has talked them into holding off until their suit is finished though. If the outcome of the DOJ suit doesn't succeed in satisfying the other governments, they will likely file their own suits.
What are your yammering about? Have you ever tried using WindowMaker, Gnome, or KDE? Somehow I doubt it or you wouldn't have been spewing that crap in a post here.
People have had a lot of hope over the last year due to the fact that the DOJ actually seemed to have wised up a bit. They realized that Microsoft laughed off their consent decree and they apparently decided to try and do it right this time.
This has given many companies the courage to do something besides dance to Microsoft's tune. Were it not for this suit, Linux would have much more bleak prospects than it currently does. I doubt we would have seen the investments from the likes of IBM and Intel if the suit hadn't happened. People have had reason to show confidence in Linux' chances of becoming a real competitor to Windows. Much of this is only possible because of the DOJ case.
So now it's a tiny fraction? Yesterday it was 'Linux is doubling every day, 15,000,000 Linux users' etc.
It's been stated that the number of Linux installations doubles approximately every year. That's hardly the same as every day. 10-15 million may or may not be accurate. I've seen different numbers, but 10 million or so seems fairly consistent.
It's been posted here in the past that Linux has a substatial portion of the server market and is growing on the desktop
This case is not about the server market. It's about the desktop market. Specifically it's about the x86 desktop OS market (I guess I should have stated that in my post for people who haven't bothered to read the relavant paragraphs in the FoF). That excludes a very large number of Linux installations simply because they are not serving as desktops and/or they are not installed on x86 hardware.
but now that it's in your favor to portray Linux has as tiny niche OS that's what it is? What a load of crap.
Try reading it again before you make any more stupid comments
Yes, he mentions these things. But the good Judges task was to decide whether or not Microsoft was a MONOPOLY.
That was certainly the most important issue he had to decide, but it was far from being the only one. He had to determine (after the trial proceedings and a review of all the evidence) what the facts of the case were. The facts, as he's determined them, say not only that Microsoft is a monopoly, but that they used that monopoly in ways which will almost certainly be deemed illegal when they get around to the findings of law portion.
He laid out many facts that will be of much help to other companies and individuals who have brought (or will soon bring) suits against Microsoft. Caldera is a perfect example. This will be a great boost for their case since they will not have to prove that Microsoft is a monopoly since Judge Jackson already determined that they are.
All in all, this is a very bad thing for Microsoft. Yes, they will appeal it as long as possible. But the DOJ has a nice advantage after this point. These facts can't be appealed. Only the findings of law can be appealed. I think the facts are damning enough that they won't have much luck with their appeals. If some useful injunctions are put in place while the appeals process goes on, and they are actually enforced this time, then perhaps something good was accomplished by this suit.
In case you hadn't noticed, only a very tiny fraction of people use those OSes on x86 hardware, which is where Microsoft was ruled to have a monopoly. Consumers in general cannot receive the benefit of these "fine technologies" if Microsoft uses it's very significant power to keep OEMs from offering them or using other tactics to undermine them. One of the big reasons Linux is enjoying the popularity and attention that it's getting now is that Microsoft has been under heavy scrutiny for quite a while and hasn't been able to make any overt moves to harm competition.
True, many did upgrade, but that was because it's Microsoft! They expect to have to upgrade! Very few of them have ever heard of StarOffice. Even fewer would be willing to try to install it when they already have MS Office. You would be considered to be the incompatible one. They would want you to "upgrade" to the standard. Not the other way around.
How would this help? The new features would have to be open source and Microsoft could simply make an open source plugin for IE. Then IE users don't need to switch.
An explanation of why something is bad or wrong does not necessarily have to include FUD. FUD tends to come about when you don't have enough legitimate gripes about something.
Oh yeah... another thing. Even if an entire office was using an office suite other than MS Office, would their clients be happy when they sent documents to that office that couldn't be read? I'm sure something could be worked out between them, but it does create an extra hassle for the clients, which is never a good thing.
I don't think you understood him. He said that if Microsoft or anyone else could convince people that they're new pet feature is cool enough, people won't care that other OSes and browsers don't support the feature.
I agree that the judge definitely wants Microsoft and the DOJ to work something out. But given Microsoft's attitude in the past, I wouldn't hold my breath on this one.
I also agree that Microsoft should be made to publish a standard (publicly visible) price list with no deviation possible. I was thinking that volume discounts would be ok, but that could provide MS with a loophole. They might still be able to play with the prices that the OEMs pay by looking at the volume of each OEM and deciding how to set their prices so as to have the maximum detrimental impact on any OEMs that aren't playing by the MS rules. I wouldn't want to see any discounting whatsoever unless the government can guarantee that Microsoft will not be able to exploit loopholes like they did with the previous consent decree.
Microsoft should also be prevented from using MDAs (Market Development Agreements) to reward those OEMs who help MS shut out the competition. If MDAs aren't prevented, nothing will change.
First of all, he shouldn't be recommending ANY remedies in the findings of fact document. He will simply state what he believes to be true in the case and why. That should be it. The remedies phase comes later. If the judge has determined that Microsoft has broken the law, this gives them some time to sweat and come to the table to work out a deal with the DOJ. If no deal can be struck, then the next phase will begin and a remedy will be decided by the court.
While I truly hate most EULAs, this is not the time to take them on. Stopping only one company from using them is not what needs to be done. What should be done is to prevent Microsoft from using Windows prices as a club to beat on the OEMs and keep the competition shut out as much as possible. That would go a long way towards letting competition return to the industry.
On the ones I used, the confirm/cancel buttons were done correctly, but the transaction type screens were different and one of them had an extra screen before the transaction type. Do the ATMs up north prompt you for English/Spanish text?
ATMs (at least in the US) use a standard menu structure and the same configuration of buttons.
Not so.
I've been to 3 ATMs in the last 2 days. All of them had different screens and a different menu layout. I don't see how a blind person could deal with this without having someone read the menu for them.
This is more of a curiosity to most people here. It has little effect on anything. Technically, I believe that Texas is the only state that could secede and have a legal leg to stand on. I could be wrong. There's probably a lot of legal issues that would be unworkable if this was attempted which is why I believe that it matters very little these days.
BBQ is the food of gods
Well, I like BBQ, but it's not ambrosia.
Executing people should be a sporting event
We've got our share of people for and against it just like everywhere else. It is legal here and it is used. We aren't the only ones though.
They have to have a bigger truck than everyone else
Hmm.. there are a lot of trucks here, but most of them are just SUVs and pickups. Not all that many that are bigger than normal. I drive a Toyota Corolla, so I'm definitely not guilty of having a big truck.
Btw, I was born in Massachusetts. I lived part of my young life in Ohio as well. I've been in Texas for the last 16 years though. It's not all that bad a place and I'll probably be here for a while.
To make one person suffer injustly to stop two or more people from suffering injustly is a good thing.
That depends on the situation. It also depends on who gets to decide who will suffer.
My real point is that it's easy to just dismiss any problems with the system as being a necessary evil rather than try to fix them if you've never been a victim of those problems.
First of all, a university is not the same thing as a public jr. high school. The kid is required to go to school there. Universities can kick you out for all sorts of reasons even if you don't violate a law. Second, the story was written at the request of the teacher. If she didn't want the kids to use real names in it, she should have told them that. They're kids! They're supposed to be learning!
This wasn't a "savage and tasteless piece of fiction," although many horror stories could fit this description depending on whose opinion you ask. Even if it was, they were asked to write a scary story and should not be reprimanded for doing so. Kids are kids and say and do things that aren't appropriate sometimes. It's part of growing up and maturing. They should not be treated the same as an adult in college. They haven't had the same amount of experience and guidance yet. Perhaps the teacher and administration should explain the rules before punishing someone for breaking them.
I don't know the kid personally, so I'm no more qualified than anyone else here to determine whether he is unstable or not. Even if they thought he was, they should have had him see a couselor or had his parents take him to a professional to try to find out if there really is a problem. This was a gross overreaction on the part of a bunch of people trying to cover their own asses at the kid's expense. I will say that it's got a lot to do with the fact that so many people in this country fly into a panicked hysteria rather than actually think when something bad happens.
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The government should not have access to the court system as a plaintiff.
Why is that? Who else in this country has enough money to sue Microsoft? Who else can come up with the resources necessary for an investigation of this magnitude? The anti-trust laws are designed to protect consumers from the power that the government gives to corporations. Why shouldn't the government be the one to ensure that the power they give is not misused? They are held to the same standard as any other plaintiff. They have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant broke the law. Microsoft had the high ground from the start, but they've gotten so cocky due to getting away with murder in the past that they seemed to just get sloppy. Of course, they probably are very guilty and therefore the system would seem to be working in this case.
Microsoft hasn't committed a crime and yet they are having to defend themselves from a government with virtually unlimited funds. NO CRIME!
Who are you to decide whether or not they've committed a crime? How would you know in the first place? We haven't even been able to see all of the evidence yet. Many things were shown and kept behind closed doors (mostly at Microsoft's request, although I'm pretty sure that MS would not legally be allowed to make some of it public). The evidence and testimony we have seen, (quite a bit of which was email written by Microsoft execs) strongly suggests that Microsoft most certainly did violate the Sherman Act. That is a law. It looks like they broke it. The judge is the one who will decide for sure. Not you. Not me.
Give me 60 million dollars and I'll take you to court and "prove" that you've done something wrong too.
First of all, your figure doesn't look to be anywhere near what the DOJ has spent on the case. From what I've read, they've spent less than 10 million altogether. Congress took a good look at what they've spent when Microsoft's pet senator demanded that they call off the DOJ. Who is he to decide who is and who is not subject to the law? Second, Microsoft has spent a hell of a lot more on this case than the government has. If money is going to decide this thing, I would think that Microsoft would have the DOJ beat hands down. Third, if you truly believe that money can buy a conviction, then perhaps you should devote your time to trying to change the legal system for all of us instead of trying to defend the most powerful corporation in existance.
This isn't going to ruin Bill's life. It may hurt his company a bit, but he'll survive and he'll never want for anything for the rest of his life. If the system is so screwed up, perhaps you should save your defense for real people with no corporate entity to protect them. Real people who's lives will be destroyed for real. If things are as you say they are, then they are the ones who are in the most desparate need. I'll shed no tears for Microsoft.
I don't agree with the way the legal system works any more than many others here do, but if it can't be fixed to be fair, then it should at least be consistant. Microsoft is subject to the law just as I am, or as any corporation that I run would be. Why should they be given special treatment? One of the biggest problems is that even the most powerful corporations and most of the powerful non-commercial organizations will not go to bat for all of us in order to have the system fixed. They just fight to get themselves excused from it. Maybe the whole self-interest thing doesn't work as well as some people think it does.
Being successful cannot be converted into a crime.
And nobody is saying that being successful is a crime. There are tons of successful people and companies out there.
And when the Government can use our money to sue unpopular public figures in civil courts, the concept of self-determination is obliterated.
Man, you're scary. Where do you come up with this crap? Since when is Gates unpopular? He's one of the most idolized men in this country. Millions of sheep worship him. Oh, and btw, our government isn't suing him due to his popularity level. They're suing him for breaking some laws.
The one thing you will find burried in reports and hardly mentioned is that nobody has found any crime that has been committed. No laws were broken.
That has not been officially determined, so I have no idea what you're basing your statement on. The only legal thing we have to go by at this point is the FoF, and from the looks of it, the judge believes that Microsoft has, in fact, broken anti-trust laws. For some strange reason, you seem to think that Microsoft should be immune to those laws.
It's extortion. It shouldn't be applauded. It's downright scary.
The only extortion I've seen was done by Microsoft. It is scary, and I certainly would not applaud it. The government is, unfortunately, the only thing that stands between us and the corporate mandate to increase profits by any means possible. Since the government gives these corporations their power, it bears the responsibility for keeping them in line and making sure that the best interests of the people of this country are being served. If the power we give to corporations did not benefit consumers, we would have no reason to give them their power in the first place.
The government has every right to take action against companies for breaking the law, no matter what form the infraction takes.
You seem to think that Microsofts actions should be ignored because they consisted, in part, of deciding "what bits" to ship on their CDRoms. I don't see why technology should make them less liable for anti-competitive behavior. It's not like the judge didn't have huge amounts of evidence to support his conclusions. Hell, Microsoft's own dictionary states that a browser is a separate application. How much proof does he need in order to draw that conclusion himself?
You act as if the government can just dictate willy-nilly what companies can and cannot include in their product. That's BS. This decision was made with a large amount of evidence to back it up. These sorts of things cannot be done carelessly or easily.
Other governments have taken a great interest in filing their own suits. The DOJ has talked them into holding off until their suit is finished though. If the outcome of the DOJ suit doesn't succeed in satisfying the other governments, they will likely file their own suits.
What are your yammering about? Have you ever tried using WindowMaker, Gnome, or KDE? Somehow I doubt it or you wouldn't have been spewing that crap in a post here.
People have had a lot of hope over the last year due to the fact that the DOJ actually seemed to have wised up a bit. They realized that Microsoft laughed off their consent decree and they apparently decided to try and do it right this time.
This has given many companies the courage to do something besides dance to Microsoft's tune. Were it not for this suit, Linux would have much more bleak prospects than it currently does. I doubt we would have seen the investments from the likes of IBM and Intel if the suit hadn't happened. People have had reason to show confidence in Linux' chances of becoming a real competitor to Windows. Much of this is only possible because of the DOJ case.
So now it's a tiny fraction? Yesterday it was 'Linux is doubling every day, 15,000,000 Linux users' etc.
It's been stated that the number of Linux installations doubles approximately every year. That's hardly the same as every day. 10-15 million may or may not be accurate. I've seen different numbers, but 10 million or so seems fairly consistent.
It's been posted here in the past that Linux has a substatial portion of the server market and is growing on the desktop
This case is not about the server market. It's about the desktop market. Specifically it's about the x86 desktop OS market (I guess I should have stated that in my post for people who haven't bothered to read the relavant paragraphs in the FoF). That excludes a very large number of Linux installations simply because they are not serving as desktops and/or they are not installed on x86 hardware.
but now that it's in your favor to portray Linux has as tiny niche OS that's what it is? What a load of crap.
Try reading it again before you make any more stupid comments
Yes, he mentions these things. But the good Judges task was to decide whether or not Microsoft was a MONOPOLY.
That was certainly the most important issue he had to decide, but it was far from being the only one. He had to determine (after the trial proceedings and a review of all the evidence) what the facts of the case were. The facts, as he's determined them, say not only that Microsoft is a monopoly, but that they used that monopoly in ways which will almost certainly be deemed illegal when they get around to the findings of law portion.
He laid out many facts that will be of much help to other companies and individuals who have brought (or will soon bring) suits against Microsoft. Caldera is a perfect example. This will be a great boost for their case since they will not have to prove that Microsoft is a monopoly since Judge Jackson already determined that they are.
All in all, this is a very bad thing for Microsoft. Yes, they will appeal it as long as possible. But the DOJ has a nice advantage after this point. These facts can't be appealed. Only the findings of law can be appealed. I think the facts are damning enough that they won't have much luck with their appeals. If some useful injunctions are put in place while the appeals process goes on, and they are actually enforced this time, then perhaps something good was accomplished by this suit.
Perhaps we'll at least see some injunctions against some of their more insidious behavior.
In case you hadn't noticed, only a very tiny fraction of people use those OSes on x86 hardware, which is where Microsoft was ruled to have a monopoly. Consumers in general cannot receive the benefit of these "fine technologies" if Microsoft uses it's very significant power to keep OEMs from offering them or using other tactics to undermine them. One of the big reasons Linux is enjoying the popularity and attention that it's getting now is that Microsoft has been under heavy scrutiny for quite a while and hasn't been able to make any overt moves to harm competition.
True, many did upgrade, but that was because it's Microsoft! They expect to have to upgrade! Very few of them have ever heard of StarOffice. Even fewer would be willing to try to install it when they already have MS Office. You would be considered to be the incompatible one. They would want you to "upgrade" to the standard. Not the other way around.
How would this help? The new features would have to be open source and Microsoft could simply make an open source plugin for IE. Then IE users don't need to switch.
An explanation of why something is bad or wrong does not necessarily have to include FUD. FUD tends to come about when you don't have enough legitimate gripes about something.
Oh yeah... another thing. Even if an entire office was using an office suite other than MS Office, would their clients be happy when they sent documents to that office that couldn't be read? I'm sure something could be worked out between them, but it does create an extra hassle for the clients, which is never a good thing.
Maybe all documents should be made in HTML 4.0 (keeping to the standard). Anyone could see that.
All the more reason for Microsoft to fight to keep it from happening.
I guess that rules out any kind of national standard ATM menu interface.
I don't think you understood him. He said that if Microsoft or anyone else could convince people that they're new pet feature is cool enough, people won't care that other OSes and browsers don't support the feature.
I agree that the judge definitely wants Microsoft and the DOJ to work something out. But given Microsoft's attitude in the past, I wouldn't hold my breath on this one.
I also agree that Microsoft should be made to publish a standard (publicly visible) price list with no deviation possible. I was thinking that volume discounts would be ok, but that could provide MS with a loophole. They might still be able to play with the prices that the OEMs pay by looking at the volume of each OEM and deciding how to set their prices so as to have the maximum detrimental impact on any OEMs that aren't playing by the MS rules. I wouldn't want to see any discounting whatsoever unless the government can guarantee that Microsoft will not be able to exploit loopholes like they did with the previous consent decree.
Microsoft should also be prevented from using MDAs (Market Development Agreements) to reward those OEMs who help MS shut out the competition. If MDAs aren't prevented, nothing will change.
First of all, he shouldn't be recommending ANY remedies in the findings of fact document. He will simply state what he believes to be true in the case and why. That should be it. The remedies phase comes later. If the judge has determined that Microsoft has broken the law, this gives them some time to sweat and come to the table to work out a deal with the DOJ. If no deal can be struck, then the next phase will begin and a remedy will be decided by the court.
Did I miss or screw anything up in that?
While I truly hate most EULAs, this is not the time to take them on. Stopping only one company from using them is not what needs to be done. What should be done is to prevent Microsoft from using Windows prices as a club to beat on the OEMs and keep the competition shut out as much as possible. That would go a long way towards letting competition return to the industry.
On the ones I used, the confirm/cancel buttons were done correctly, but the transaction type screens were different and one of them had an extra screen before the transaction type. Do the ATMs up north prompt you for English/Spanish text?
ATMs (at least in the US) use a standard menu structure and the same configuration of buttons.
Not so.
I've been to 3 ATMs in the last 2 days. All of them had different screens and a different menu layout. I don't see how a blind person could deal with this without having someone read the menu for them.
Texas is it's own country
This is more of a curiosity to most people here. It has little effect on anything. Technically, I believe that Texas is the only state that could secede and have a legal leg to stand on. I could be wrong. There's probably a lot of legal issues that would be unworkable if this was attempted which is why I believe that it matters very little these days.
BBQ is the food of gods
Well, I like BBQ, but it's not ambrosia.
Executing people should be a sporting event
We've got our share of people for and against it just like everywhere else. It is legal here and it is used. We aren't the only ones though.
They have to have a bigger truck than everyone else
Hmm.. there are a lot of trucks here, but most of them are just SUVs and pickups. Not all that many that are bigger than normal. I drive a Toyota Corolla, so I'm definitely not guilty of having a big truck.
Btw, I was born in Massachusetts. I lived part of my young life in Ohio as well. I've been in Texas for the last 16 years though. It's not all that bad a place and I'll probably be here for a while.
To make one person suffer injustly to stop two or more people from suffering injustly is a good thing.
That depends on the situation. It also depends on who gets to decide who will suffer.
My real point is that it's easy to just dismiss any problems with the system as being a necessary evil rather than try to fix them if you've never been a victim of those problems.
First of all, a university is not the same thing as a public jr. high school. The kid is required to go to school there. Universities can kick you out for all sorts of reasons even if you don't violate a law. Second, the story was written at the request of the teacher. If she didn't want the kids to use real names in it, she should have told them that. They're kids! They're supposed to be learning!
This wasn't a "savage and tasteless piece of fiction," although many horror stories could fit this description depending on whose opinion you ask. Even if it was, they were asked to write a scary story and should not be reprimanded for doing so. Kids are kids and say and do things that aren't appropriate sometimes. It's part of growing up and maturing. They should not be treated the same as an adult in college. They haven't had the same amount of experience and guidance yet. Perhaps the teacher and administration should explain the rules before punishing someone for breaking them.
I don't know the kid personally, so I'm no more qualified than anyone else here to determine whether he is unstable or not. Even if they thought he was, they should have had him see a couselor or had his parents take him to a professional to try to find out if there really is a problem. This was a gross overreaction on the part of a bunch of people trying to cover their own asses at the kid's expense. I will say that it's got a lot to do with the fact that so many people in this country fly into a panicked hysteria rather than actually think when something bad happens.