>Richard Hawkins seems to be the one pushing for a >horizontal breakup
yep
>that would lead to the problems you describe and >I think he's wrong and you're right.
I see what happens with a horizontal breakup as taking a drasticallly different course. I'm not suggesting a literal breakup (on the horizontal level), but auctioning multiple copies of rights to the source. I wouldn't stop there, though. The license would include compulsory cross-licensing from ms of all new code for the next couple of years, and either a prohibition against changes in the API by ms without sufficient advance warning to the licensees to include the changes, or a mechanism for standards setting for extensions to the API.
I don't see API drift between the vendors as happening--it would be suicidal, and vendors might not write to all of the APIs. If the APIs rapidly drift apart, I would agree that this would not be an effective remedy.
Another variation would be to leave a single OS variation and developer, but rather than the developer selling it, have multiple wholesalers, who would be forced to compete on price.
hawk, esq.
A vertical breakup, however, would NOT lead to a fracturing of standards. The OSes (NT, 98, CE) would all come from one company which would want standards.
But all of those companies know that there's a lot of folks who will toss in personal bids of $101. and $500. And that the competitors will only bid $100, so they decide to cheat and offer $101. But the other firms know they'll defect, and offer $102 . . .
There's just too many firms that *could* buy it to rig the auction with a cartel--and cartels are unstable for the reaons above.
>Surely the answer to this is that they would have >a common set of shareholders? Bill Gates and > co. could set the individual companies' policies >to cooperate with each other - to the >shareholders' mutual financial gain. And why not?
>Would the existing MSFT shareholders have to >decide which new Baby-Bill they get shares in? >(If I had any MSFT shares (and I don't) I don't >think I'd be happy to get them exchanged for >shares in the Online Services company.)
Here you answer your own question:)
It's not the common shareholders that matter, but the common management. Prohibitions on shared executives and board members would certainly be part of any split.
The typical split would give a share in each of the new companies for each share in the old company. In your case, you'd sell the online shares, and buy something else; others would choose differently. Soon, the shareholders are largely different.
Not much impact on this case. The only opportunity for political influence on this case is indirectly through pressure on the anitrust divison of DOJ.
As for their influence in general, answers vary wildly.
My own idea of campaign finance reform is to remove all limits on contributions to candidates, require disclosure by name and amount of all contributors over $1000 (or $100. whatever:), and to limit contributions to "natural persons"--no PAC's, no corporations, no unions, etc.
>They asked him to do something that he was not >contractually obligated to do, that he was >not being paid to do, and he did it anyways... >and he's a thief?
No, he wasn't contractually obligated--at the time he was asked. Once he began the work, it modified the contract (more technically: the company offered a contract modification, and he accepted it by performance).
Once he undertook the duty, he was obligated to due so correctly.
The company did *not* try to get something for nothing. They requested a service at the rate he was already receiving. He took the money to do so. And stole the work that he was paid to perform.
> Screw system performance. What most people are >interested in is "eye candy". The jump from DOS >to Macintosh in 1984 was proof of that.
Nope. They were competeing with 4.7 (?)mhz 8088s (though you could get 8mhz 8086's at the time, which were about twice as fast).
The mac was *significantly* faster than the dos machines, even after spending most of its power on the graphical system.
We put my 128k mac next to an 8088, running the same number crunching operation (numerical integrations, iirc) in microsoft basic. The mac was graphing the solutions it calculated faster than the 8088 could do the calculations--and aside from the plotting, the code was identical (we typed my code into tony's machine. He was shocked; he had been convincedhis machine was much faster).
>The American system, for all it's much-vaunted >independence from England, based it's >Constitution on a simplified version of the Great >Charter, because it works!
???
There is no independence of the "system" from the British system. The separation came from the colonists demanding the Rights of Englishmen, to which they were entitled but that Crown and Parliament denied them. The state constitutions, the Articles of Confederation, and the Consitution of the United States were *about* implementing the British system which we had been denied. The Constitution even refers directly to the Common Law.
I went to buy at about $2.75 US, but I didn't have a brokerage account, and didn't have time to fill out the forms--at the time, I was up against a deadline for my dissertation. I was taking a thousand shares . . . *sigh*
I was also holding out for $13.50 instead of $14 on apple--wanting a 50% return for liquidation at $20.
*sigh*
Someday I'll get the account ready when I don't have my eye on a stock . . .
No. But if you tell a particular person that a particular method of killing a particular victim would only leave them liable for manslaughter rather than murder, you've probablhy crossed the line.
Stating the law is not the practice of law. Advising on what the law means to a course of conduct by a particular person--such as the notetaking above--is the practice of law.
Also note that getting it wrong leaves you open for malpractice litigation, regardless of whether or not you charged for the bad advice.
>so if I take a class on C programming, I can't >use what I learned in that class to write and >sell a book on C programming?
This is second hand (I haven't verified it, but it is repeated throughout economics department), but supposedly Varian's first edition of "Microeconomic Analysis" was, err, a little too close to the course he took--that is, taken heavily from his own class notes. The end result: royalties on the first edition, and a second edition taken from scratch.
>Copyright may protect the text of a lecture >itself, but no way does it prevent a student from >expressing the content of a lecture in his or her >own way.
These are two different things. The content is the information. Notes are a representation of the lecture itself.
>And I don't see how a restriction >that class notes are not to be used for profit >can possibly be upheld - after all, I might be >taking that class so I can get a profitable job >using what I learned...and I might just refer >back to those class notes.
Again, that's different than publishing the notes.
I'm certainly not going to jump into the middle of the fray on this (about as smart as getting into a discussion as to why the GPL isn't free:), but my own policy for my classes is that I will sue any publisher that doesn't have prior permission to print them. On the other hand, I also provide my lecture slides in advance--with lots of white space for writing--as I see no point in students simply scribbling down rather than paying attention.
Keep in mind that Microsoft's interest isn't in explorer itself, but in preventing another browser from being a standard upon which applications could be based. This is why they spent a fortune to push it on Apple--netscape being standard on macs could have meant apps for netscape instead of mac, which could then run on netscape on hardware that MS wants to run windows.
If linux gets consumer market share, expect IE to be released for it simply to block netscape.
Economies of scopeare the gains from being in different markets that share (in this case) technology. Muchof what intel does is alsouseful for DSP's, making it less expensive overall for intel to make CPU's and DSP's than for intel to makeone, and someone else the other.
I have a 1994 era Sony that's just shy of 40 inches--my late father in law bought it to watch football.
It has a 700 line screen. Yes, 700. But the broadcast is only 525, of which 400-450 are usable. So it interpolates & extrapolatesto create the extra lines. Most things look ok, but diagonal lines and small text arehorrid.
And for some inexplicable reason,it hasno expansion slotto use it asa monitor or hdtv . . .
When I was editing my dissertation, I actually hauled in my 486 laptop to use it's 640x480 display instead of the 19" monitor onmy K6. It made a *huge* difference inhow my eyes felt at the end of the day . . .
While microsoft tried to make it appear to the public that that was the issue, andthe DofJ didn't fight that perception, that's not the problem. The FofF does not say that ms couldn't include IE with Windows. It's all of the actions that ms took to stop the distribution of navigator that is the problem.
> Actually, I thought it was more important that >the finding of fact showed that Microsoft >ordered intel to stop the development of NSP, >undermined Java with proprietary protocols, >-and- clobbered Netscape. IANAL and you are, but, >I thought it was the -pattern- of >anti-competitive actions that made an anti-trust >suit strong.
Yes, it's all of them, and particularly the pattern. I was merely pointing out specific examples to a troll who didn't read the document.
It's worth noting that at *no* point in the FofF does the judge find that the mrere inclusion of IE was a problem. It's the massive use of resources to target anything that could affect the windows API (at over $1B) that's the problem
>>monopoly price of $89 rather than competitive >>level of $49.
>Baloney. This is a very standard price for a >large software package for Windows.
Utterly irrelevant to the market power question
>Is Apple a monopoly too?
again, irrelevant.
What matters, as is explained at length, is that the price comes not from the market, but from monopoly profit maximization. That's illegal. If you don't like it, work to change the law.
>>refusal to deal with IBM--limiting consumer >>choices.
>Looks to me like IBM is selling Windows >computers.
After being forced to capitulate to the demands to remove products that were seen as a threat to the windows monopoly--an illegal use of monopoly power. If you had read the document, you would have found that the licences came 15 *minutes* before the release of W95.
>Besides, there are lots of other >companies that sell Windows-equipped computers. >Would it really be that big of a deal if one >company didn't have it?
If it's because that company was denied access to windows for providing choices and options that consumers wanted, yes. Which, those of us who read the findings found, is what happened.
>>blocking distributiona of netscape as a choice.
> Consumers can download Netscape in a matter of >minutes.
Like the rest of these, well documented in the FofF. This doesn't happen unless there is a compelling reason. Netscape doesn't need to be better, but amazingly better before any noticable share do this. In the meantime, blocking the initial access prevents the development of the API.
>> overriding consumer's choice of other browser >>and forcinguse of IE
>I haven't used Windoze much, but the few times I >used it Netscape seemed to work just fine. >At no point was I "forced" to use IE.
Once more, you are ignoring the contents of the document. IE is launched in some circumstances *regardless* of the choice made. Developers had to agree to use IE and it's help mechanism to get early access to needed technical information--that is, they had to agree to help lock out netscape. And an ms executive is quoted as saying that ms must make the use of any other browser a jolting experience. Again, information readily available to those of us who read the document rather than making up contents to attack.
>> revoking licenses of OEM's for accomodating the >>choicesdesired by consumers
> As I understand it, this practice has already >been curtailed,
This was not part of the earlier consent decree. And curtailing it after the fact doesn't change that at the time it was committed (Compaq's W95 license *was* revoked), it was an illegal use of monopoly power. >and it is arguably a net harm to >consumers over giving Windows indiscriminately to >all comers.
It's not about "indiscrimately." It's about "give the consumers a choice other than MS in browsers, and you can't sell windows."
>But isn't this within Microsoft's rights?
Only with radical changes to U.S. Law. Tying, leverage, refusal to deal . . .
>Besides, the only reason that this tactic worked >was because almost all customers *do* want >Windows.
So? It is illegal to use the power from a legal monopoly to charge a higher price, or to create another monopoly.
And it's not Windows that consumers want, but the applications that run under it. If there were a choice (the netscape API), consumers could behave differently. *This* is what ms is trying to prevent.
> And there are a few computer makers that will >sell you other OS's, so what's the problem?
Committing just about every single act prohibbited by antitrust law? Destroying a competitor for the sole purpose of protecting the windows monopoly? Forcing higher prices, lower reliability, lower performance, and less choices on the consumer (again, each of these is documented).
hawk, esq., making the cardinal mistake of arguing with a troll . . .
Slashdot Mirror
>Richard Hawkins seems to be the one pushing for a
>horizontal breakup
yep
>that would lead to the problems you describe and
>I think he's wrong and you're right.
I see what happens with a horizontal breakup as taking a drasticallly different course. I'm not suggesting a literal breakup (on the horizontal level), but auctioning multiple copies of rights to the source. I wouldn't stop there, though. The license would include compulsory cross-licensing from ms of all new code for the next couple of years, and either a prohibition against changes in the API by ms without sufficient advance warning to the licensees to include the changes, or a mechanism for standards setting for extensions to the API.
I don't see API drift between the vendors as happening--it would be suicidal, and vendors might not write to all of the APIs. If the APIs rapidly drift apart, I would agree that this would not be an effective remedy.
Another variation would be to leave a single OS variation and developer, but rather than the developer selling it, have multiple wholesalers, who would be forced to compete on price.
hawk, esq.
A vertical breakup, however, would NOT lead to a fracturing of standards. The OSes
(NT, 98, CE) would all come from one company which would want standards.
But all of those companies know that there's a lot of folks who will toss in personal bids of $101. and $500. And that the competitors will only bid $100, so they decide to cheat and offer $101. But the other firms know they'll defect, and offer $102 . . .
There's just too many firms that *could* buy it to rig the auction with a cartel--and cartels are unstable for the reaons above.
>Surely the answer to this is that they would have
:)
>a common set of shareholders? Bill Gates and
> co. could set the individual companies' policies
>to cooperate with each other - to the
>shareholders' mutual financial gain. And why not?
>Would the existing MSFT shareholders have to
>decide which new Baby-Bill they get shares in?
>(If I had any MSFT shares (and I don't) I don't
>think I'd be happy to get them exchanged for
>shares in the Online Services company.)
Here you answer your own question
It's not the common shareholders that matter, but the common management. Prohibitions on shared executives and board members would certainly be part of any split.
The typical split would give a share in each of the new companies for each share in the old company. In your case, you'd sell the online shares, and buy something else; others would choose differently. Soon, the shareholders are largely different.
Not much impact on this case. The only opportunity for political influence on this case is indirectly through pressure on the anitrust divison of DOJ.
:), and to limit contributions to "natural persons"--no PAC's, no corporations, no unions, etc.
As for their influence in general, answers vary wildly.
My own idea of campaign finance reform is to remove all limits on contributions to candidates, require disclosure by name and amount of all contributors over $1000 (or $100. whatever
>They asked him to do something that he was not
.]
>contractually obligated to do, that he was
>not being paid to do, and he did it anyways...
>and he's a thief?
No, he wasn't contractually obligated--at the time he was asked. Once he began the work, it modified the contract (more technically: the company offered a contract modification, and he accepted it by performance).
Once he undertook the duty, he was obligated to due so correctly.
The company did *not* try to get something for nothing. They requested a service at the rate he was already receiving. He took the money to do so. And stole the work that he was paid to perform.
[overrated? at a default? hmm . .
If we take out your fancy dance around the subject, it becomes much simpler:
You're a thief.
You also deliberately sabatoged your employer's property. But, just like so many other criminals, you justify it to yourself with that babble.
I better not be dating anyone else; I'm married :)
> Screw system performance. What most people are
:)
>interested in is "eye candy". The jump from DOS
>to Macintosh in 1984 was proof of that.
Nope. They were competeing with 4.7 (?)mhz 8088s (though you could get 8mhz 8086's at the time, which were about twice as fast).
The mac was *significantly* faster than the dos machines, even after spending most of its power on the graphical system.
We put my 128k mac next to an 8088, running the same number crunching operation (numerical integrations, iirc) in microsoft basic. The mac was graphing the solutions it calculated faster than the 8088 could do the calculations--and aside from the plotting, the code was identical (we typed my code into tony's machine. He was shocked; he had been convincedhis machine was much faster).
Hmm, I think i just dated myself
CAPSLOCK ABUSE (-1)
Yes, a new category, so that those folks that insist on yelling at us will have their very own w to be moderated down.
:)
>what ad banners have you seen during your current
:) I've blocked pretty much all of the rest with junkbuster.
>surfing session?
Only the ones that don't blink
>The American system, for all it's much-vaunted
>independence from England, based it's
>Constitution on a simplified version of the Great
>Charter, because it works!
???
There is no independence of the "system" from the British system. The separation came from the colonists demanding the Rights of Englishmen, to which they were entitled but that Crown and Parliament denied them. The state constitutions, the Articles of Confederation, and the Consitution of the United States were *about* implementing the British system which we had been denied. The Constitution even refers directly to the Common Law.
hawk, esq.
I went to buy at about $2.75 US, but I didn't have a brokerage account, and didn't have time to fill out the forms--at the time, I was up against a deadline for my dissertation. I was taking a thousand shares . . . *sigh*
I was also holding out for $13.50 instead of $14 on apple--wanting a 50% return for liquidation at $20.
*sigh*
Someday I'll get the account ready when I don't have my eye on a stock . . .
No. But if you tell a particular person that a particular method of killing a particular victim would only leave them liable for manslaughter rather than murder, you've probablhy crossed the line.
Stating the law is not the practice of law. Advising on what the law means to a course of conduct by a particular person--such as the notetaking above--is the practice of law.
Also note that getting it wrong leaves you open for malpractice litigation, regardless of whether or not you charged for the bad advice.
Interesting. They're not only reprinting copyrighted material, but to get you to help, they're practicing law without a license :)
hawk, esq.
>so if I take a class on C programming, I can't
:), but my own policy for my classes is that I will sue any publisher that doesn't have prior permission to print them. On the other hand, I also provide my lecture slides in advance--with lots of white space for writing--as I see no point in students simply scribbling down rather than paying attention.
>use what I learned in that class to write and
>sell a book on C programming?
This is second hand (I haven't verified it, but it is repeated throughout economics department), but supposedly Varian's first edition of "Microeconomic Analysis" was, err, a little too close to the course he took--that is, taken heavily from his own class notes. The end result: royalties on the first edition, and a second edition taken from scratch.
>Copyright may protect the text of a lecture
>itself, but no way does it prevent a student from
>expressing the content of a lecture in his or her
>own way.
These are two different things. The content is the information. Notes are a representation of the lecture itself.
>And I don't see how a restriction
>that class notes are not to be used for profit
>can possibly be upheld - after all, I might be
>taking that class so I can get a profitable job
>using what I learned...and I might just refer
>back to those class notes.
Again, that's different than publishing the notes.
I'm certainly not going to jump into the middle of the fray on this (about as smart as getting into a discussion as to why the GPL isn't free
Sorry about that. It's an old gateway, and just *try* to get an upgrade or new part in a state university . . .
Keep in mind that Microsoft's interest isn't in explorer itself, but in preventing another browser from being a standard upon which applications could be based. This is why they spent a fortune to push it on Apple--netscape being standard on macs could have meant apps for netscape instead of mac, which could then run on netscape on hardware that MS wants to run windows.
If linux gets consumer market share, expect IE to be released for it simply to block netscape.
hawk, esq.
>I would define Operating System to be everything
:)
>that is needed to bring the System into an
>Operattional state,
So for windows, a small army of tech support folks are part of the operating system?
Economies of scopeare the gains from being in different markets that share (in this case) technology. Muchof what intel does is alsouseful for DSP's, making it less expensive overall for intel to make CPU's and DSP's than for intel to makeone, and someone else the other.
I have a 1994 era Sony that's just shy of 40 inches--my late father in law bought it to watch football.
It has a 700 line screen. Yes, 700. But the broadcast is only 525, of which 400-450 are usable. So it interpolates & extrapolatesto create the extra lines. Most things look ok, but diagonal lines and small text arehorrid.
And for some inexplicable reason,it hasno expansion slotto use it asa monitor or hdtv . . .
When I was editing my dissertation, I actually hauled in my 486 laptop to use it's 640x480 display instead of the 19" monitor onmy K6. It made a *huge* difference inhow my eyes felt at the end of the day . . .
>I for one am glad they included IE with Windows.
While microsoft tried to make it appear to the public that that was the issue, andthe DofJ didn't fight that perception, that's not the problem. The FofF does not say that ms couldn't include IE with Windows. It's all of the actions that ms took to stop the distribution of navigator that is the problem.
> Actually, I thought it was more important that
>the finding of fact showed that Microsoft
>ordered intel to stop the development of NSP,
>undermined Java with proprietary protocols,
>-and- clobbered Netscape. IANAL and you are, but,
>I thought it was the -pattern- of
>anti-competitive actions that made an anti-trust
>suit strong.
Yes, it's all of them, and particularly the pattern. I was merely pointing out specific examples to a troll who didn't read the document.
It's worth noting that at *no* point in the FofF does the judge find that the mrere inclusion of IE was a problem. It's the massive use of resources to target anything that could affect the windows API (at over $1B) that's the problem
hawk, esq.
>>monopoly price of $89 rather than competitive
>>level of $49.
>Baloney. This is a very standard price for a
>large software package for Windows.
Utterly irrelevant to the market power question
>Is Apple a monopoly too?
again, irrelevant.
What matters, as is explained at length, is that the price comes not from the market, but from monopoly profit maximization. That's illegal. If you don't like it, work to change the law.
>>refusal to deal with IBM--limiting consumer
>>choices.
>Looks to me like IBM is selling Windows
>computers.
After being forced to capitulate to the demands to remove products that were seen as a threat to the windows monopoly--an illegal use of monopoly power. If you had read the document, you would have found that the licences came 15 *minutes* before the release of W95.
>Besides, there are lots of other
>companies that sell Windows-equipped computers.
>Would it really be that big of a deal if one
>company didn't have it?
If it's because that company was denied access to windows for providing choices and options that consumers wanted, yes. Which, those of us who read the findings found, is what happened.
>>blocking distributiona of netscape as a choice.
> Consumers can download Netscape in a matter of >minutes.
Like the rest of these, well documented in the FofF. This doesn't happen unless there is a compelling reason. Netscape doesn't need to be better, but amazingly better before any noticable share do this. In the meantime, blocking the initial access prevents the development of the API.
>> overriding consumer's choice of other browser
>>and forcinguse of IE
>I haven't used Windoze much, but the few times I
>used it Netscape seemed to work just fine.
>At no point was I "forced" to use IE.
Once more, you are ignoring the contents of the document. IE is launched in some circumstances *regardless* of the choice made. Developers had to agree to use IE and it's help mechanism to get early access to needed technical information--that is, they had to agree to help lock out netscape.
And an ms executive is quoted as saying that ms must make the use of any other browser a jolting experience. Again, information readily available to those of us who read the document rather than making up contents to attack.
>> revoking licenses of OEM's for accomodating the
>>choicesdesired by consumers
> As I understand it, this practice has already >been curtailed,
This was not part of the earlier consent decree. And curtailing it after the fact doesn't change that at the time it was committed (Compaq's W95 license *was* revoked), it was an illegal use of monopoly power.
>and it is arguably a net harm to
>consumers over giving Windows indiscriminately to
>all comers.
It's not about "indiscrimately." It's about "give the consumers a choice other than MS in browsers, and you can't sell windows."
>But isn't this within Microsoft's rights?
Only with radical changes to U.S. Law. Tying, leverage, refusal to deal . . .
>Besides, the only reason that this tactic worked
>was because almost all customers *do* want
>Windows.
So? It is illegal to use the power from a legal monopoly to charge a higher price, or to create another monopoly.
And it's not Windows that consumers want, but the applications that run under it. If there were a choice (the netscape API), consumers could behave differently. *This* is what ms is trying to prevent.
> And there are a few computer makers that will
>sell you other OS's, so what's the problem?
Committing just about every single act prohibbited by antitrust law? Destroying a competitor for the sole purpose of protecting the windows monopoly? Forcing higher prices, lower reliability, lower performance, and less choices on the consumer (again, each of these is documented).
hawk, esq., making the cardinal mistake of arguing with a troll . . .
But it also applies to a microsoft appeal. "any party" can file the application after a notice of appeal; ms can appeal, then DoJ removes to the SC
hawk, esq., not giving legal advice