Actually, there is a reason that the telcos were forced to open their markets to newcomers. They were monopolies. They control an essential facility. They have to provide access to that facility for a fee. What happened here is that the telcos are getting rid of the newcomers that came in and used the telcos' own "reciprocal compensation" rules against them. This means that the ISPs that were getting the cut-rate deals from these companies will now end up paying the full rate that the telcos charge. You still think you won't see a price increase?
As usual, anyone in possession of a bigger clue than myself is welcome to correct this post. We all need to quickly learn what really happened and what it will ultimately mean to us. This post reflects my current understanding of the situation, which is always open to adjustments.:)
Have you noticed the kind of hardware that the military is packing these days? Do you really think that even an assault rifle and a case of grenades would do you one bit of good if they decided to come after you and any other gun-toting buddies you have? They could kill you before you ever saw them if they really wanted to. The probably wouldn't in most circumstances, but if the government decided to forcefully make you comply with some law that you don't agree with, do you really think that local groups of gun owners could make a difference? Nope.
Guns are fine for self-defense, but the whole thing about an armed population being insurance against a corrupt government is a bunch of bs now. It might have worked 50 or 100 years ago, but not today. The only hope you could have is that the soldiers in the military would revolt as well. Other than that, you're screwed.
I wouldn't give them much of a chance at winning on appeal. They've even admitted things that could get the appellate court's decision on the IE integration issue (the one that overturned Judge Jackson's preliminary injunction) overturned. With so much evidence against them and so many damning admissions and lack of credibility of the witnesses, I wouldn't be holding my breath for an appeal win.
True. Much of the evidence is still unreleased. Microsoft has managed to keep alot of things under wraps. The evidence against Microsoft could be even greater than what we've seen. Then there's the reeeaaaallllly bad things that they managed to destroy rather than let the DOJ get their hands on it. I love a good conspiracy.:)
Actually, someone (former MS employee I believe) has already accused MS of destroying evidence. I wonder if anything will come of it after the trial is over.
When this suit was first filed, I didn't think the DOJ had much of a chance. They were going on and on about the Netscape thing when it was really just a symptom of the real problems. I think the DOJ educated itself pretty quickly on the other aspects of Microsoft's business tactics and learned from it's previous mistakes. Number one, make sure you get some people who understand the technology to review what you're going to present in court so that you don't end up looking stupid and Microsoft can't play games with technical jargon. Number two, don't believe a word that comes out of Redmond. They screwed the DOJ with the consent decree, and I think the DOJ didn't want to let that happen again. Overall, I think they are doing a rather amazing job of tearing through the layers of BS that make up the depositions of the Microsoft execs.
The book costs about $14. It isn't produced in the mind-numbing quantities of a Grisham novel. They can't be profiting hugely from it. The reviews are by people who have read the book. If they enjoyed it, then the praise is warranted and due Mr. Katz. He wasn't forcing anyone here to buy the book./. readers are supposed to be independent thinkers and able to make judgements for themselves. He posted a chapter here and people read it and bought the book. What is wrong with him communicating directly with people he wants to reach with his book?
It's Rob's site. If he thinks Katz' excerpt was appropriate for the site, then who are you to argue with that? If you don't like it, then don't read it. Hundreds of people here obviously did like it because they bought the book. I don't see that as manipulation by Katz. I see that as his way of getting around the problem of not being a big-name author that has publishers falling all over themselves to cater to and market for.
He writes many articles for free here. Nobody makes him do it. Plenty of people here like his articles. If you don't, then again, don't read them. They are clearly marked so you have no excuse. I'm glad Rob posted the excerpt from his book. I'm glad people liked it and bought it. That's the way things should work here. No arm twisting. No corruption. If it's appropriate for the site, it will be posted. If you don't like it, then don't read it and don't buy it. That's all there is to it.
1) Can I inquire how pointing out that the statement "Attorney Boies then produced evidence from BeOS substantiating his announcement" is factually false, is somehow putting a 'pro-MS spin' on things.
Well, I don't know if he produced the proof in court or not, but Be's CEO has said that he was contacted by Compaq back in November and was told that Compaq had divulged information to Microsoft that was under NDA. Here's the link:
Rose didn't seem to know much of anything when he was on the stand. Boies presented him with information on several contracts that Compaq had made with Microsoft and others, and he didn't seem to know anything about them. He is either a janitor that was recently promoted so that he could testify, or he is lying about not knowing about the contracts so that he won't have to answer any tough questions about them. Which do you think it is?
Be's CEO said that someone from Compaq had called him and admitted to divulging the info to Microsoft back in Novemeber. I doubt he would make something like that up. The fact that Compaq hasn't been adamantly denying this pretty much dispells any lingering doubt.
What's wrong with that? I'll tell you...
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Tetris Under Fire
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The problem with that is that it means companies will be much less inclined to take an idea and improve it. It means that we'll be stuck with some copyrighted piece of software and have no way to recreate it in order to add features or take it in new directions without risking a copyright suit. In short, it would be bad for Linux and bad for the software industry as a whole.
Face it. If companies had been this patent and copyright happy 20-30 years ago, we wouldn't have a Linux. We wouldn't have much of the software that we do have because someone else would have copyrighted some similar idea and nobody would have been able to write the software they wanted to write because they would have feared being sued.
Unfortunately, if you cannot express yourself anonymously, you can't be free of persecution. Governments persecute people for speaking their mind all the time. How can you be guaranteed the right to speak your mind freely without some way of protecting that right? I bet if someone decided they didn't like the French government and gave people a bunch of reasons why, the government would see that site shut down real quick. Again, it happens all the time. Maybe not as often in some countries as in others, but the point is that there is no guarantee of free speech.
Yeah, for the moment. It'll probably go away in the name of the war on drugs or common decency, or to protect the children or some other idiotic reason. Just give it time. I have lost most of what little faith I had in the government to get things right. If they screw up a few more times I think I'll have to find someplace else to live. That'll be tough. Too many screwed up places. US policy decisions seem to be contagious too.
I wonder if pro-choice advocates might start doing something similar to let people know who the people are that are inciting people to violence and harrassment. Maybe if they started writing down the plate numbers of the pro-lifers and posting them along with a list of doctors and patients who have been harrassed or killed, the lifers might get the point that it's not so much fun to be on the receiving end.
If they want the law changed, then they need to take it to washington. Until then, the people they are harrassing and killing are law abiding citizens and don't deserve to be harrassed or killed. Yeah you can dislike them or even hate them, but you shouldn't be able to incite violence against them.
Actually, I believe the EULA expressly forbids installing the OEM version on any machine other than the one the software came with. If I'm wrong about that, and someone can show the part of the EULA that says so, then this post is pointless.
Assuming that I'm right, then I would have to wonder if that means that you aren't allowed to change or upgrade any components in your machine? If not, then is the EULA tied to the processor? The case? The motherboard? I don't know. I doubt Microsoft knows either. They just want to leave things as open as possible to interpretation by their lawyers I think.
They tried returning Windows to the OEMs, but the OEMs said they can't do that. Since the agreement is between Microsoft and the end-user, with the OEM as a third party, going to Microsoft for a refund is the next logical step.
The OEM's argument that Windows is part of the machine is not valid. The EULA is not for the machine. It's for the software. It specifically says that if you don't accept the license for the software, that you should seek a refund from the OEM.
The OEMs are a third party to this agreement (meaning they gave their explicit consent to the terms of the EULA) and they are supposed to uphold the EULA as well, so there is a case to be made against them as well as against Microsoft.
I agree sort of.... the truth is what's needed..
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Windows Refund Wrapup
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We need to find a way to put some real pressure on the OEMs to reveal exactly what prevents them from giving refunds for Windows. If they reveal that their contracts don't allow them to receive any compensation for those copies that are returned, then they need to be forced to either eat those costs or change their deal with Microsoft.
Either way, the truth needs to be made very public. Everyone needs to see this so that people will stop whining about how the government is just after Microsoft because it's big and successful. It would be a violation of the spirit of the consent decree, but not the letter of the decree since Bill asked for changes to the wording and the DOJ was dumb enough to make those changes. Once it is made clear to people that there is a violation here, maybe they'll wake up and realize that Microsoft is not the innocent victim here.
Yeah.. real bright there. Let's all go get a life and let Microsoft do as it pleases. Who cares about the law anyway? Why should a big successful company like Microsoft have to honor it's agreements with insignificant consumers? C'mon.. you need to ditch the apathy. You're officially part of the problem and another reason that Microsoft is allowed to get away with this kind of stuff.
Hmm.. that's a really good idea. You would have to educate them a bit I think. Would they buy a computer specifically to see if they could return Windows? Would they be fooled by the OEM telling them that Windows is part of the computer? Would they know not to even turn the computer on until they have a Linux boot disk in it? I think it could work, but only if you got a really good reporter that could understand this stuff.
Linux users advocating software piracy is not something I'd like to see on the news. In this case, however, I think people will see it for what it is: a sign of frustration that Microsoft refuses to honor (or tell OEMs to honor) what is practically the single responsibility taken on by Microsoft and it's distributors in the EULA. If they can't even honor this one point in the EULA, why should they expect anyone else to honor their responsibilities under the EULA?
IMO Microsoft is every bit as bad as the biggest software pirates out there. Neither one of them will live up to their responsibilities. It just looks worse when Microsoft does it because it's hypocritical as well as immoral, irresponsible, and illegal. By refusing to honor their agreement to give refunds to those people who do not want the software and refuse to agree to the EULA, Microsoft is stealing from those people. They can't sit on their high horse and tell the world how software piracy is theft while they are doing the same thing to us. They wrote the damn EULA, they should live up to it.
Be could send someone to be a rebuttal witness for the DOJ. They could discredit Microsoft's claims that NetPositive is integrated, and as an OS maker, they could offer up evidence that there is no real reason to integrate a browser in the manner in which Microsoft has done other than to prevent competition. Perhaps they could help on other issues where Microsoft is claiming technical victories because the DOJ doesn't have the best grasp of the technology. In other words, Be could have someone act as another computer science expert that also works for an OS maker and is therefore familiar with the issues being discussed.
I believe it was one of Microsoft's witnesses that said that the only real way to compete with an OS like Windows was to be compatible with it. Since they are the ones who have admitted this, I say that they should have to open up the code so that other OSes can make themselves as compatible as they like. It would help the Wine team immensely I'm sure.
Suddenly the application barrier would be virtually eliminated and there could be open competition among the various OSes. Sure, native versions would still be needed eventually, but at least people could switch to the OS of their choice immediately and developers could see where the market is and produce applications for that market.
This may or may not work as well as I hope it would, because developers may just figure that since every OS can run Windows programs, that's all they should make. But I think that if they saw that 50% of users were running Linux or BeOS, they might be inclined to write native versions that take advantage of the strengths of that OS.
What the DoJ should request is that if MS, or any company, wishes to produce both the operating System and the applications that they allow competition equal access to the API. Full licensing of source code seems a tad bit extreme.
I think I agree with you.. mostly. I believe that if there is to be true competition, an OS company should allow others to have full access to all APIs and the OS maker should not be allowed to make any application unremoveable. We would also need to define what an OS is and what it is not. IE is not an OS. It is an application or shell for the OS. There is no reason it should be permanently integrated into the OS. We may need to update the antitrust laws to account for the capabilities of software companies to obfuscate their actions with technical jargon so the courts can stop trying to use stupid metaphors to explain what is going on.
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Actually, there is a reason that the telcos were forced to open their markets to newcomers. They were monopolies. They control an essential facility. They have to provide access to that facility for a fee. What happened here is that the telcos are getting rid of the newcomers that came in and used the telcos' own "reciprocal compensation" rules against them. This means that the ISPs that were getting the cut-rate deals from these companies will now end up paying the full rate that the telcos charge. You still think you won't see a price increase?
As usual, anyone in possession of a bigger clue than myself is welcome to correct this post. We all need to quickly learn what really happened and what it will ultimately mean to us. This post reflects my current understanding of the situation, which is always open to adjustments. :)
If the phone companies or ISPs end up paying more, you think they won't pass those costs along to us?
Have you noticed the kind of hardware that the military is packing these days? Do you really think that even an assault rifle and a case of grenades would do you one bit of good if they decided to come after you and any other gun-toting buddies you have? They could kill you before you ever saw them if they really wanted to. The probably wouldn't in most circumstances, but if the government decided to forcefully make you comply with some law that you don't agree with, do you really think that local groups of gun owners could make a difference? Nope.
Guns are fine for self-defense, but the whole thing about an armed population being insurance against a corrupt government is a bunch of bs now. It might have worked 50 or 100 years ago, but not today. The only hope you could have is that the soldiers in the military would revolt as well. Other than that, you're screwed.
I wouldn't give them much of a chance at winning on appeal. They've even admitted things that could get the appellate court's decision on the IE integration issue (the one that overturned Judge Jackson's preliminary injunction) overturned. With so much evidence against them and so many damning admissions and lack of credibility of the witnesses, I wouldn't be holding my breath for an appeal win.
True. Much of the evidence is still unreleased. Microsoft has managed to keep alot of things under wraps. The evidence against Microsoft could be even greater than what we've seen. Then there's the reeeaaaallllly bad things that they managed to destroy rather than let the DOJ get their hands on it. I love a good conspiracy. :)
I don't think they'll want him to write "Zen and the Art of Monopoly Maintenance" anymore. :)
Actually, someone (former MS employee I believe) has already accused MS of destroying evidence. I wonder if anything will come of it after the trial is over.
When this suit was first filed, I didn't think the DOJ had much of a chance. They were going on and on about the Netscape thing when it was really just a symptom of the real problems. I think the DOJ educated itself pretty quickly on the other aspects of Microsoft's business tactics and learned from it's previous mistakes. Number one, make sure you get some people who understand the technology to review what you're going to present in court so that you don't end up looking stupid and Microsoft can't play games with technical jargon. Number two, don't believe a word that comes out of Redmond. They screwed the DOJ with the consent decree, and I think the DOJ didn't want to let that happen again. Overall, I think they are doing a rather amazing job of tearing through the layers of BS that make up the depositions of the Microsoft execs.
The book costs about $14. It isn't produced in the mind-numbing quantities of a Grisham novel. They can't be profiting hugely from it. The reviews are by people who have read the book. If they enjoyed it, then the praise is warranted and due Mr. Katz. He wasn't forcing anyone here to buy the book. /. readers are supposed to be independent thinkers and able to make judgements for themselves. He posted a chapter here and people read it and bought the book. What is wrong with him communicating directly with people he wants to reach with his book?
It's Rob's site. If he thinks Katz' excerpt was appropriate for the site, then who are you to argue with that? If you don't like it, then don't read it. Hundreds of people here obviously did like it because they bought the book. I don't see that as manipulation by Katz. I see that as his way of getting around the problem of not being a big-name author that has publishers falling all over themselves to cater to and market for.
He writes many articles for free here. Nobody makes him do it. Plenty of people here like his articles. If you don't, then again, don't read them. They are clearly marked so you have no excuse. I'm glad Rob posted the excerpt from his book. I'm glad people liked it and bought it. That's the way things should work here. No arm twisting. No corruption. If it's appropriate for the site, it will be posted. If you don't like it, then don't read it and don't buy it. That's all there is to it.
1) Can I inquire how pointing out that the statement "Attorney Boies then produced evidence from BeOS substantiating his announcement" is factually false, is somehow putting a 'pro-MS spin' on things.
Well, I don't know if he produced the proof in court or not, but Be's CEO has said that he was contacted by Compaq back in November and was told that Compaq had divulged information to Microsoft that was under NDA. Here's the link:
http://cnnfn.com/digitaljam/9902/19/ microsoft/
Rose didn't seem to know much of anything when he was on the stand. Boies presented him with information on several contracts that Compaq had made with Microsoft and others, and he didn't seem to know anything about them. He is either a janitor that was recently promoted so that he could testify, or he is lying about not knowing about the contracts so that he won't have to answer any tough questions about them. Which do you think it is?
Be's CEO said that someone from Compaq had called him and admitted to divulging the info to Microsoft back in Novemeber. I doubt he would make something like that up. The fact that Compaq hasn't been adamantly denying this pretty much dispells any lingering doubt.
The problem with that is that it means companies will be much less inclined to take an idea and improve it. It means that we'll be stuck with some copyrighted piece of software and have no way to recreate it in order to add features or take it in new directions without risking a copyright suit. In short, it would be bad for Linux and bad for the software industry as a whole.
Face it. If companies had been this patent and copyright happy 20-30 years ago, we wouldn't have a Linux. We wouldn't have much of the software that we do have because someone else would have copyrighted some similar idea and nobody would have been able to write the software they wanted to write because they would have feared being sued.
Unfortunately, if you cannot express yourself anonymously, you can't be free of persecution. Governments persecute people for speaking their mind all the time. How can you be guaranteed the right to speak your mind freely without some way of protecting that right? I bet if someone decided they didn't like the French government and gave people a bunch of reasons why, the government would see that site shut down real quick. Again, it happens all the time. Maybe not as often in some countries as in others, but the point is that there is no guarantee of free speech.
Yeah, for the moment. It'll probably go away in the name of the war on drugs or common decency, or to protect the children or some other idiotic reason. Just give it time. I have lost most of what little faith I had in the government to get things right. If they screw up a few more times I think I'll have to find someplace else to live. That'll be tough. Too many screwed up places. US policy decisions seem to be contagious too.
I wonder if pro-choice advocates might start doing something similar to let people know who the people are that are inciting people to violence and harrassment. Maybe if they started writing down the plate numbers of the pro-lifers and posting them along with a list of doctors and patients who have been harrassed or killed, the lifers might get the point that it's not so much fun to be on the receiving end.
If they want the law changed, then they need to take it to washington. Until then, the people they are harrassing and killing are law abiding citizens and don't deserve to be harrassed or killed. Yeah you can dislike them or even hate them, but you shouldn't be able to incite violence against them.
Actually, I believe the EULA expressly forbids installing the OEM version on any machine other than the one the software came with. If I'm wrong about that, and someone can show the part of the EULA that says so, then this post is pointless.
Assuming that I'm right, then I would have to wonder if that means that you aren't allowed to change or upgrade any components in your machine? If not, then is the EULA tied to the processor? The case? The motherboard? I don't know. I doubt Microsoft knows either. They just want to leave things as open as possible to interpretation by their lawyers I think.
Go read this post:
http://slashdot.o rg/comments.pl?sid=99/02/16/0827245&pid=884#1676
They tried returning Windows to the OEMs, but the OEMs said they can't do that. Since the agreement is between Microsoft and the end-user, with the OEM as a third party, going to Microsoft for a refund is the next logical step.
The OEM's argument that Windows is part of the machine is not valid. The EULA is not for the machine. It's for the software. It specifically says that if you don't accept the license for the software, that you should seek a refund from the OEM.
The OEMs are a third party to this agreement (meaning they gave their explicit consent to the terms of the EULA) and they are supposed to uphold the EULA as well, so there is a case to be made against them as well as against Microsoft.
We need to find a way to put some real pressure on the OEMs to reveal exactly what prevents them from giving refunds for Windows. If they reveal that their contracts don't allow them to receive any compensation for those copies that are returned, then they need to be forced to either eat those costs or change their deal with Microsoft.
Either way, the truth needs to be made very public. Everyone needs to see this so that people will stop whining about how the government is just after Microsoft because it's big and successful. It would be a violation of the spirit of the consent decree, but not the letter of the decree since Bill asked for changes to the wording and the DOJ was dumb enough to make those changes. Once it is made clear to people that there is a violation here, maybe they'll wake up and realize that Microsoft is not the innocent victim here.
Yeah.. real bright there. Let's all go get a life and let Microsoft do as it pleases. Who cares about the law anyway? Why should a big successful company like Microsoft have to honor it's agreements with insignificant consumers? C'mon.. you need to ditch the apathy. You're officially part of the problem and another reason that Microsoft is allowed to get away with this kind of stuff.
Hmm.. that's a really good idea. You would have to educate them a bit I think. Would they buy a computer specifically to see if they could return Windows? Would they be fooled by the OEM telling them that Windows is part of the computer? Would they know not to even turn the computer on until they have a Linux boot disk in it? I think it could work, but only if you got a really good reporter that could understand this stuff.
Linux users advocating software piracy is not something I'd like to see on the news. In this case, however, I think people will see it for what it is: a sign of frustration that Microsoft refuses to honor (or tell OEMs to honor) what is practically the single responsibility taken on by Microsoft and it's distributors in the EULA. If they can't even honor this one point in the EULA, why should they expect anyone else to honor their responsibilities under the EULA?
IMO Microsoft is every bit as bad as the biggest software pirates out there. Neither one of them will live up to their responsibilities. It just looks worse when Microsoft does it because it's hypocritical as well as immoral, irresponsible, and illegal. By refusing to honor their agreement to give refunds to those people who do not want the software and refuse to agree to the EULA, Microsoft is stealing from those people. They can't sit on their high horse and tell the world how software piracy is theft while they are doing the same thing to us. They wrote the damn EULA, they should live up to it.
Be could send someone to be a rebuttal witness for the DOJ. They could discredit Microsoft's claims that NetPositive is integrated, and as an OS maker, they could offer up evidence that there is no real reason to integrate a browser in the manner in which Microsoft has done other than to prevent competition. Perhaps they could help on other issues where Microsoft is claiming technical victories because the DOJ doesn't have the best grasp of the technology. In other words, Be could have someone act as another computer science expert that also works for an OS maker and is therefore familiar with the issues being discussed.
I believe it was one of Microsoft's witnesses that said that the only real way to compete with an OS like Windows was to be compatible with it. Since they are the ones who have admitted this, I say that they should have to open up the code so that other OSes can make themselves as compatible as they like. It would help the Wine team immensely I'm sure.
Suddenly the application barrier would be virtually eliminated and there could be open competition among the various OSes. Sure, native versions would still be needed eventually, but at least people could switch to the OS of their choice immediately and developers could see where the market is and produce applications for that market.
This may or may not work as well as I hope it would, because developers may just figure that since every OS can run Windows programs, that's all they should make. But I think that if they saw that 50% of users were running Linux or BeOS, they might be inclined to write native versions that take advantage of the strengths of that OS.
What the DoJ should request is that if MS, or any company, wishes to produce both the operating System and the applications that they allow competition equal access to the API. Full licensing of source code seems a tad bit extreme.
I think I agree with you.. mostly. I believe that if there is to be true competition, an OS company should allow others to have full access to all APIs and the OS maker should not be allowed to make any application unremoveable. We would also need to define what an OS is and what it is not. IE is not an OS. It is an application or shell for the OS. There is no reason it should be permanently integrated into the OS. We may need to update the antitrust laws to account for the capabilities of software companies to obfuscate their actions with technical jargon so the courts can stop trying to use stupid metaphors to explain what is going on.