IANAL either, but I've heard from several sources that if Microsoft and the DOJ settle, everything which happened in the trial so far basically gets thrown out, including the Findings of Fact.
This is why I hope the DOJ does *not* settle.
The thing I believe Microsoft is trying to avoid at all costs is having to officially acknowledge their guilt, because this will open them up to a *lot* of additional lawsuits. They don't want the court to officially stamp a 'guilty of wrongful behavior' label on them, but they also don't want any settlement with the DOJ to have to include any admission of guilt on Microsoft's part.
I will be terribly, terribly disappointed if a settlement is announced with the words 'Microsoft takes these actions without admitting any guilt.' However, it appears obvious that the judge is going to delay any ruling as long as he can in the hopes that a settlement will happen, and then I predict it's no more than two or three years before Microsoft tries worming its way out of the letter of the law again. Bleah.
I'm looking at the first cryptograph and its solution on "http://www.bokler.com/eapoe.html", but I don't see a one-to-one correspondance between the symbols in the cryptograph and the letters in the solution. For example, if spaces aren't represented in the code and the first few characters are "THESOULSEC", then a comma stands for a 'T' the first time and an 'S' the second time.
Would someone please explain the key to this cryptograph? Is it one-to-one, or something more complex?
If the open sourcing is done to the extent that Wine can be offered in a reasonable form... then we've gotten a big gain.
No one said anything about open-sourcing Windows; the only likely possibility I can see is that they would license the code to specific companies for a large fee.
Besides, don't you think Microsoft would write into the license that any company with access to the Windows source code would have to immediately stop all development on WINE or other Windows replacements, or be sued for copyright infringement?
Ignore this talk about Microsoft voluntarily opening the source code to Windows, and hope it never happens. Here's why:
- Settling the case this way would mean dropping all of the judge's Findings Of Fact, because the court case would be rendered null and void. Microsoft could turn around tomorrow and go back to its old thieving ways, and the only legal recourse would be to start another antitrust lawsuit all over again.
- Putting control of the distribution of Windows source code directly into Microsoft's hands would be like asking the fox to guard the henhouse. Who knows what sorts of restrictions they could put on their source code release to make it irrelevant and useless?
- Nothing in the CNet article mentions 'open source' specifically, and you've got to believe Microsoft isn't going to be so cavalier about giving up its crown jewels. Maybe Gates would choose two specific companies to give the code to, for two hundred fifty million dollars and one Non-Disclosure Agreement each...
- Or maybe the code to Windows 2000 will be offered, a month or two after Windows 2002 is released...
- And who says that Microsoft would accept any bug fixes or other enhancements to go back into Windows?
In short, this is just noise from Microsoft to make them look like helpful conciliators and to make the government look like heartless bureaucrats. Don't believe it, and don't read too much into the news story.
Ten different versions of Windows from ten different companies, hooray! You can bet your bottom dollar that all ten companies would strive to be as compatible and easy to support as possible, and the operating system would become a lot simpler by necessity.
Any company who sells an operating system which is widely regarded to be buggy and/or a pain to support, where there are other reasonably usable and compatible alternatives available, will be on the rocks very shortly. The only reason Microsoft has survived this long has been that there *haven't* been reasonably usable and compatible alternatives.
It can be argued that reverse engineering can be as much of a curse as it is a blessing. Why go to the trouble to put the R&D budget into innovating something if other people are going to legally reverse-engineer it and sell a workalike for a fraction of the cost, since it's much cheaper to copy than to create?
Up until a few years ago, the 'Star Wars' trilogy was magic to me. I loved to watch the movies, I loved to read the stories based on the movies. George Lucas was a god; I had a lot of respect for the man and his work.
This is no longer the case. After countless video versions, a prequel movie that's full of holes and weak on plot, and a senseless refusal to embrace DVD, Star Wars is now just another moneygrubbing franchise to me. It's a lot like what happened to Dilbert -- it was way cool at first, but now that it's merchandised all to heck, I've just lost my taste for it.
Y'know what? Forget about Star Wars on DVD. I'm not going to go beg to a studio. If Lucas doesn't want my money, there are plenty of other studios with good movies who are supporting DVD, and I'm quite happy to buy from them instead.
I love it where Microsoft says "Windows and IE are not separate products, therefore we never forced anyone to buy a separate product." Even after saying they're taking the judge's findings of fact as truth for the sake of argument, they still dispute them. I understand that Microsoft has to do all this posturing, because they can't afford to admit to even one iota of wrongdoing lest their whole house of cards collapse... but this is getting old.
I'm also very amused by their continued assertions that the only reason they tied IE to Windows was to improve Windows. What's their schedule, then, for building MS Word into Windows? Isn't it a natural conclusion that Windows would be a much more useful product if it came with an integrated full-featured word processor?
I've felt all along that what Microsoft should have done was to bundle a bare-bones browser for free with Windows -- just like they already bundle a bare-bones word processor and paint program -- and then sell the full-featured IE as a separate product. That way they succeed at enhancing Windows's capabilities without so obviously stifling competition. The fact that they dumped millions of dollars into a full-featured browser as part of the OS, *without* doing so for any other kind of application (word processing, graphics, spreadsheet) is a clear sign that they were out for nothing more than to shut down their competition in a specific market.
Hear, hear! While everyone else was either flocking to mass media events or shutting themselves in for the evening, we were members of a select group of professionals who were entrusted with the job of making sure the world kept working smoothly after the clocks rolled over.
I'm rather proud of it, actually. Anybody can go get drunk off their keester while dancing to loud music, but it takes a certain level of skill to know how to make Y2K a non-issue.
You started up a company, worked on some really cool ideas, struck it rich, and found a way to follow your dreams.
Two decades later, Silicon Valley millionaires aren't hard to find. It seems that if someone can choose just the right startup, it's not too difficult to exchange hours for dollars.
But in the frenzy of Silicon Valley life, where 'day' and 'night' often have no meaning, where the phrase 'working hours' has become a joke, where trips to Fry's help convert that pesky disposable income into toys and gadgets... it's easy to lose sight of what really matters in life.
I'm looking to you for advice, since you've been here: how do you find out what's really important? How do you get off the Silicon Valley rollercoaster, and make the transition from creating the future to creating a home and family?
I struck it rich at Netscape, and I'm currently working sixteen-hour-days on a Steve Jobs project at Apple. I have dreams of bailing out, building a house, and raising a family, but there's a side of me that sees that as quitting, and I don't know how I'll ever be able to look at technology from the other side of the fence. I do know that I can't maintain this pace forever, though...
If you know what you're doing, Fry's is a great place to shop. They've got everything a geek could want, from disks to Doritos, cache memory to cell phones, Leatherman knives to Lego Mindstorms to Linux, radio-controlled race cars to video and computer games to computer systems and parts to TV's and sound systems to printing supplies and label makers. Think Office Depot mixed with CompUSA mixed with your local drugstore... it's immensely convenient and a fun place to browse through.
If you don't know what you're doing, though, Fry's is a den of wolves. The salespeople are clueless or, worse, sources of incorrect information. They're also skilled at sensing when a customer needs them, carefully avoiding eye contact, and scurrying in the opposite direction... unless they see you pushing a shopping cart full of expensive gear, in which case they'll 'help' you in return for getting a commission on the things you found yourself. On top of this, they routinely reshelve returned products (I've heard of software purchased there which came with a warranty card already filled out!), their demo computers are all in a pitiful state of misconfiguration, and a frightening amount of merchandise on the shelves has been already torn open by shoppers. A few weeks ago they had a display of about twenty stereo headphones with a motor built in to rumble your head when low bass kicks in -- cool! -- but all twenty boxes had been opened, and several of them were missing their included batteries or instruction manuals, and the headphones had been stuffed back into the boxes improperly.
When I shop at Fry's, I know what I'm getting myself into. I comparison-shop online first, I make sure I've decided on something before I enter the store, and I resign myself to the knowledge that I may have to wait in a returns line for a half hour (and this has happened to me a few times). I *never* ask a salesperson for *anything*, because that's a complete waste of time; I know the products and the store layout better than they do. I shudder, however, when I see people getting advice from a salesperson on what computer system to buy...
True story: The last time I asked a salesperson for help at Fry's was when I wanted to know whether they had any Celeron 300A CPU's. "No," replied the salesperson. "Do you not carry them, or are you just out of stock?" I asked. He thought for a moment, then repeated, "No," shaking his head.
I wonder how long it'll be before an independent Palm Pilot company gets bought out by a bigger fish? It's rumored that Apple, in particular, has had its eye on Palm for quite some time now...
More specifically, Atari (in the early 80's) forbade its programmers from hiding their names in the credits of video games for one primary reason: because it easily identified the best game programmers to headhunters, who would then know exactly who to lure away from Atari.
Problem is, when Atari made this rule, the best game programmers there got ticked off and left for companies who would give them recognition -- like Activision.
A possible breakup situation: -Microsoft Consumer OS -Microsoft Server Technologies (SQL Server, NT/2000, IIS, etc) -Microsoft Palmtop OS -Microsoft Data Products (SQL Server) -Microsoft Business Software (Office, etc) -Microsoft Consumer Software (a long list...) -Microsoft Web Technologies (Media Player, IE, etc) -Microsoft Media (the MS in MSNBC) -Microsoft Network (although this might be part of the media group considering the ongoing mergers of cable, phone, internet, etc) -WebTV
No, no, no! This would be a nightmare to deal with. Bill Gates would find some way to pull the most profitable and most powerful of these companies together (like, say, the Consumer OS, Web Technologies, and Business Software companies), while letting the less-important ones (like the Media company -- MSNBC hasn't done as well as they'd hoped) go off and do their own things. Bill would be divested of a lot of spare baggage so that he could focus on what parts of technology he really wants to control, while Microsoft shareholders would make out like bandits. The government won't be allowed to litigate nearly enough to prevent Bill from finding a way around any barriers they set up; people are already concerned enough about the government imposing laws on the software industry.
What I really want to see is for Microsoft to be split into two (or more) large companies, each with its own share of the original Microsoft's resources. Put Bill Gates in charge of one baby company, and Steve Ballmer in charge of the other, and let them duke it out in the marketplace. Any cooperation between these 'baby Bills' to share a market segment would be illegal collusion, and wouldn't be as profitable to the individual companies as going it alone. I'll bet you'd quickly see Windows prices drop, API's open up to developers, and much more flexibility in operating system configurations and licensing rules.
Here's what I don't understand about the whole trial: the DOJ's accusations and Microsoft's defense just don't match up.
The DOJ has trotted out ample evidence that Microsoft has abused the law rampantly in the past decade or so, that its competitors have suffered because of this, and that Microsoft's actions have directly resulted in a reduction of competition in the marketplace.
Microsoft, however, is largely ignoring the past and basing its entire defense on the notion that the industry has changed so much that Microsoft will never be in a position to do this again. It's a dubious assertion which would have been patently false if the trial had never happened in the first place... but it's like OJ Simpson defending himself by saying, "Your Honor, with all the attention drawn to me now, do you honestly think I'll ever be able to get away with killing anyone in the future?"
What I'm most worried about is that if Microsoft gets away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, it's a clear sign to Microsoft and other large industries that you can get away with *anything* as long as you tie your competitors up in litigation until what you did doesn't matter any more.
Or, to put it a different way: "Okay, your honor, so my client murdered the victim... but what good is it to punish him for it now, since she's already dead? Besides, she was probably going to die young of cancer or something, anyway."
This sounds as suspicious as the person who got Quake I to run on a Newton Messagepad on April 1, 1998. Has anyone actually downloaded, installed, and run these MAME camera binaries?
A lot of companies can't afford to develop for Mac at the same time as for Windows; they need to focus their efforts on bringing in the most money in the shortest amount of time, and that spells Windows. Once the Windows version is out, they have to choose between getting the remaining 10% of the market or preparing the Next Big Thing to battle the next wave of competition -- and that's usually a clear choice. It's only with a very large company making a very popular game that they can afford to release a Mac version. Simultaneous Mac/PC releases are virtually unheard of.
A game company can't scrimp on Mac ports of their games; they need to be feature-complete with the PC version, or else the Mac faithful will scream and yell and boycott the company. Half-Life's failure makes it clear that this is a very steep cliff to climb for very meager rewards (one tenth of the Windows take, at best), and that there just isn't a good return on the investment. Why put your effort into ten percent of the market when you could be putting it into ninety percent? A port is more than ten percent of the original amount of work...
So simultaneous releases are rarely feasible, and late ports usually aren't a sensible place for a game company to put their resources. Where's this leave the state of Mac gaming, then? Will we ever see the day when a majority of games are simultaneous Mac/PC releases, or when a hit game comes out first on the Mac?
It's not a ban on lobbying that we need, it's just a ban on lobbyists funding their favorite political candidates. A earlier post above from a Dutch citizen pointed this out correctly -- a lobbyist making a large "donation" to a political figure is just a bribe, pure and simple, and it means that politicians can be easily bought by whoever has the deepest pockets.
Look at the whole flap over cigarette smoke. Phillip Morris was one of the largest contributors to various political groups, and even though evidence had been found that their company knew for a very long time of the dangers of smoking and yet chose to cover it up, their case took a very long time to work its way through all of the appropriate hearings. In this day and age, it's cheaper to put politicians in your pocket than to admit you're wrong.
I personally think that a politician who would accept a donation from a special-interest group is not worthy to hold office. As anyone who's a fan of 'Babylon 5' knows, once you accept a 'free gift' from someone, you're indebted to them for a very long time -- whether you like it or not.
Bill Gates has learned a lesson that Bill Clinton came very close to learning:
Never, EVER, admit ANY guilt. Period. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence to your guilt, still endeavor to find ways to bring the methods and motives of your accusers into question.
Bill Gates didn't put up that "Freedom to Innovate" page for us, although we're giving him a lot of free press by talking about it. (As P.T. Barnum once said, "Any publicity is good publicity -- as long as they spell my name right.") No, he put it up there for people who *will* be swayed by it, and for people in whom it *might* cast a reasonable doubt. These are voters who might be ticked off if their elected officials allow the government to take strong action against Microsoft -- and so Microsoft wins itself some safety.
Here's the most interesting thing to note, however: Notice that the Microsoft "Freedom to Innovate" page says that it was last updated on September 13. Do you honestly think that Microsoft would change anything if they honestly thought they were going to win the court case? Doesn't this thing sound like an effort to "rally the troops" and prepare for some expected damage control?
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IANAL either, but I've heard from several sources that if Microsoft and the DOJ settle, everything which happened in the trial so far basically gets thrown out, including the Findings of Fact.
This is why I hope the DOJ does *not* settle.
The thing I believe Microsoft is trying to avoid at all costs is having to officially acknowledge their guilt, because this will open them up to a *lot* of additional lawsuits. They don't want the court to officially stamp a 'guilty of wrongful behavior' label on them, but they also don't want any settlement with the DOJ to have to include any admission of guilt on Microsoft's part.
I will be terribly, terribly disappointed if a settlement is announced with the words 'Microsoft takes these actions without admitting any guilt.' However, it appears obvious that the judge is going to delay any ruling as long as he can in the hopes that a settlement will happen, and then I predict it's no more than two or three years before Microsoft tries worming its way out of the letter of the law again. Bleah.
I'm looking at the first cryptograph and its solution on "http://www.bokler.com/eapoe.html", but I don't see a one-to-one correspondance between the symbols in the cryptograph and the letters in the solution. For example, if spaces aren't represented in the code and the first few characters are "THESOULSEC", then a comma stands for a 'T' the first time and an 'S' the second time.
Would someone please explain the key to this cryptograph? Is it one-to-one, or something more complex?
No one said anything about open-sourcing Windows; the only likely possibility I can see is that they would license the code to specific companies for a large fee.
Besides, don't you think Microsoft would write into the license that any company with access to the Windows source code would have to immediately stop all development on WINE or other Windows replacements, or be sued for copyright infringement?
Ignore this talk about Microsoft voluntarily opening the source code to Windows, and hope it never happens. Here's why:
- Settling the case this way would mean dropping all of the judge's Findings Of Fact, because the court case would be rendered null and void. Microsoft could turn around tomorrow and go back to its old thieving ways, and the only legal recourse would be to start another antitrust lawsuit all over again.
- Putting control of the distribution of Windows source code directly into Microsoft's hands would be like asking the fox to guard the henhouse. Who knows what sorts of restrictions they could put on their source code release to make it irrelevant and useless?
- Nothing in the CNet article mentions 'open source' specifically, and you've got to believe Microsoft isn't going to be so cavalier about giving up its crown jewels. Maybe Gates would choose two specific companies to give the code to, for two hundred fifty million dollars and one Non-Disclosure Agreement each...
- Or maybe the code to Windows 2000 will be offered, a month or two after Windows 2002 is released...
- And who says that Microsoft would accept any bug fixes or other enhancements to go back into Windows?
In short, this is just noise from Microsoft to make them look like helpful conciliators and to make the government look like heartless bureaucrats. Don't believe it, and don't read too much into the news story.
Yup, and what happened to the Unix world in the 90's as a result?
Survival of the fittest. May the best survive... but woe be if only one is left.
Ten different versions of Windows from ten different companies, hooray! You can bet your bottom dollar that all ten companies would strive to be as compatible and easy to support as possible, and the operating system would become a lot simpler by necessity.
Any company who sells an operating system which is widely regarded to be buggy and/or a pain to support, where there are other reasonably usable and compatible alternatives available, will be on the rocks very shortly. The only reason Microsoft has survived this long has been that there *haven't* been reasonably usable and compatible alternatives.
It can be argued that reverse engineering can be as much of a curse as it is a blessing. Why go to the trouble to put the R&D budget into innovating something if other people are going to legally reverse-engineer it and sell a workalike for a fraction of the cost, since it's much cheaper to copy than to create?
Up until a few years ago, the 'Star Wars' trilogy was magic to me. I loved to watch the movies, I loved to read the stories based on the movies. George Lucas was a god; I had a lot of respect for the man and his work.
This is no longer the case. After countless video versions, a prequel movie that's full of holes and weak on plot, and a senseless refusal to embrace DVD, Star Wars is now just another moneygrubbing franchise to me. It's a lot like what happened to Dilbert -- it was way cool at first, but now that it's merchandised all to heck, I've just lost my taste for it.
Y'know what? Forget about Star Wars on DVD. I'm not going to go beg to a studio. If Lucas doesn't want my money, there are plenty of other studios with good movies who are supporting DVD, and I'm quite happy to buy from them instead.
Oh wait.
Um, neither have I.
"Cyrano Sciences"? Making devices which can smell? I love it! :)
:)
(For the literary-impaired: Cyrano de Bergerac had a big nose.
I love it where Microsoft says "Windows and IE are not separate products, therefore we never forced anyone to buy a separate product." Even after saying they're taking the judge's findings of fact as truth for the sake of argument, they still dispute them. I understand that Microsoft has to do all this posturing, because they can't afford to admit to even one iota of wrongdoing lest their whole house of cards collapse... but this is getting old.
I'm also very amused by their continued assertions that the only reason they tied IE to Windows was to improve Windows. What's their schedule, then, for building MS Word into Windows? Isn't it a natural conclusion that Windows would be a much more useful product if it came with an integrated full-featured word processor?
I've felt all along that what Microsoft should have done was to bundle a bare-bones browser for free with Windows -- just like they already bundle a bare-bones word processor and paint program -- and then sell the full-featured IE as a separate product. That way they succeed at enhancing Windows's capabilities without so obviously stifling competition. The fact that they dumped millions of dollars into a full-featured browser as part of the OS, *without* doing so for any other kind of application (word processing, graphics, spreadsheet) is a clear sign that they were out for nothing more than to shut down their competition in a specific market.
http://www.ix.de/ix/artikel/E/1997/04/03 6/
"Me fail English? That's unpossible!" (Ralph Wiggum)
"George would love to do something special with the DVD release, but he won't do it until he has time to concentrate on it."
Ah, so then the videotapes won't be anything special, they'll just be quick dumps of the movie to tape, right?
Okay, so I'm not missing anything by skipping the videotape release and getting a pirate DVD of the movie, then.
Hear, hear! While everyone else was either flocking to mass media events or shutting themselves in for the evening, we were members of a select group of professionals who were entrusted with the job of making sure the world kept working smoothly after the clocks rolled over.
I'm rather proud of it, actually. Anybody can go get drunk off their keester while dancing to loud music, but it takes a certain level of skill to know how to make Y2K a non-issue.
You started up a company, worked on some really cool ideas, struck it rich, and found a way to follow your dreams.
Two decades later, Silicon Valley millionaires aren't hard to find. It seems that if someone can choose just the right startup, it's not too difficult to exchange hours for dollars.
But in the frenzy of Silicon Valley life, where 'day' and 'night' often have no meaning, where the phrase 'working hours' has become a joke, where trips to Fry's help convert that pesky disposable income into toys and gadgets... it's easy to lose sight of what really matters in life.
I'm looking to you for advice, since you've been here: how do you find out what's really important? How do you get off the Silicon Valley rollercoaster, and make the transition from creating the future to creating a home and family?
I struck it rich at Netscape, and I'm currently working sixteen-hour-days on a Steve Jobs project at Apple. I have dreams of bailing out, building a house, and raising a family, but there's a side of me that sees that as quitting, and I don't know how I'll ever be able to look at technology from the other side of the fence. I do know that I can't maintain this pace forever, though...
If you know what you're doing, Fry's is a great place to shop. They've got everything a geek could want, from disks to Doritos, cache memory to cell phones, Leatherman knives to Lego Mindstorms to Linux, radio-controlled race cars to video and computer games to computer systems and parts to TV's and sound systems to printing supplies and label makers. Think Office Depot mixed with CompUSA mixed with your local drugstore... it's immensely convenient and a fun place to browse through.
If you don't know what you're doing, though, Fry's is a den of wolves. The salespeople are clueless or, worse, sources of incorrect information. They're also skilled at sensing when a customer needs them, carefully avoiding eye contact, and scurrying in the opposite direction... unless they see you pushing a shopping cart full of expensive gear, in which case they'll 'help' you in return for getting a commission on the things you found yourself. On top of this, they routinely reshelve returned products (I've heard of software purchased there which came with a warranty card already filled out!), their demo computers are all in a pitiful state of misconfiguration, and a frightening amount of merchandise on the shelves has been already torn open by shoppers. A few weeks ago they had a display of about twenty stereo headphones with a motor built in to rumble your head when low bass kicks in -- cool! -- but all twenty boxes had been opened, and several of them were missing their included batteries or instruction manuals, and the headphones had been stuffed back into the boxes improperly.
When I shop at Fry's, I know what I'm getting myself into. I comparison-shop online first, I make sure I've decided on something before I enter the store, and I resign myself to the knowledge that I may have to wait in a returns line for a half hour (and this has happened to me a few times). I *never* ask a salesperson for *anything*, because that's a complete waste of time; I know the products and the store layout better than they do. I shudder, however, when I see people getting advice from a salesperson on what computer system to buy...
True story: The last time I asked a salesperson for help at Fry's was when I wanted to know whether they had any Celeron 300A CPU's. "No," replied the salesperson. "Do you not carry them, or are you just out of stock?" I asked. He thought for a moment, then repeated, "No," shaking his head.
I bid him good day, and fled.
I wonder how long it'll be before an independent Palm Pilot company gets bought out by a bigger fish? It's rumored that Apple, in particular, has had its eye on Palm for quite some time now...
More specifically, Atari (in the early 80's) forbade its programmers from hiding their names in the credits of video games for one primary reason: because it easily identified the best game programmers to headhunters, who would then know exactly who to lure away from Atari.
Problem is, when Atari made this rule, the best game programmers there got ticked off and left for companies who would give them recognition -- like Activision.
-Microsoft Consumer OS
-Microsoft Server Technologies (SQL Server, NT/2000, IIS, etc)
-Microsoft Palmtop OS
-Microsoft Data Products (SQL Server)
-Microsoft Business Software (Office, etc)
-Microsoft Consumer Software (a long list...)
-Microsoft Web Technologies (Media Player, IE, etc)
-Microsoft Media (the MS in MSNBC)
-Microsoft Network (although this might be part of the media group considering the ongoing mergers of cable, phone, internet, etc)
-WebTV
No, no, no! This would be a nightmare to deal with. Bill Gates would find some way to pull the most profitable and most powerful of these companies together (like, say, the Consumer OS, Web Technologies, and Business Software companies), while letting the less-important ones (like the Media company -- MSNBC hasn't done as well as they'd hoped) go off and do their own things. Bill would be divested of a lot of spare baggage so that he could focus on what parts of technology he really wants to control, while Microsoft shareholders would make out like bandits. The government won't be allowed to litigate nearly enough to prevent Bill from finding a way around any barriers they set up; people are already concerned enough about the government imposing laws on the software industry.
What I really want to see is for Microsoft to be split into two (or more) large companies, each with its own share of the original Microsoft's resources. Put Bill Gates in charge of one baby company, and Steve Ballmer in charge of the other, and let them duke it out in the marketplace. Any cooperation between these 'baby Bills' to share a market segment would be illegal collusion, and wouldn't be as profitable to the individual companies as going it alone. I'll bet you'd quickly see Windows prices drop, API's open up to developers, and much more flexibility in operating system configurations and licensing rules.
Here's what I don't understand about the whole trial: the DOJ's accusations and Microsoft's defense just don't match up.
The DOJ has trotted out ample evidence that Microsoft has abused the law rampantly in the past decade or so, that its competitors have suffered because of this, and that Microsoft's actions have directly resulted in a reduction of competition in the marketplace.
Microsoft, however, is largely ignoring the past and basing its entire defense on the notion that the industry has changed so much that Microsoft will never be in a position to do this again. It's a dubious assertion which would have been patently false if the trial had never happened in the first place... but it's like OJ Simpson defending himself by saying, "Your Honor, with all the attention drawn to me now, do you honestly think I'll ever be able to get away with killing anyone in the future?"
What I'm most worried about is that if Microsoft gets away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, it's a clear sign to Microsoft and other large industries that you can get away with *anything* as long as you tie your competitors up in litigation until what you did doesn't matter any more.
Or, to put it a different way: "Okay, your honor, so my client murdered the victim... but what good is it to punish him for it now, since she's already dead? Besides, she was probably going to die young of cancer or something, anyway."
This sounds as suspicious as the person who got Quake I to run on a Newton Messagepad on April 1, 1998. Has anyone actually downloaded, installed, and run these MAME camera binaries?
A lot of companies can't afford to develop for Mac at the same time as for Windows; they need to focus their efforts on bringing in the most money in the shortest amount of time, and that spells Windows. Once the Windows version is out, they have to choose between getting the remaining 10% of the market or preparing the Next Big Thing to battle the next wave of competition -- and that's usually a clear choice. It's only with a very large company making a very popular game that they can afford to release a Mac version. Simultaneous Mac/PC releases are virtually unheard of.
A game company can't scrimp on Mac ports of their games; they need to be feature-complete with the PC version, or else the Mac faithful will scream and yell and boycott the company. Half-Life's failure makes it clear that this is a very steep cliff to climb for very meager rewards (one tenth of the Windows take, at best), and that there just isn't a good return on the investment. Why put your effort into ten percent of the market when you could be putting it into ninety percent? A port is more than ten percent of the original amount of work...
So simultaneous releases are rarely feasible, and late ports usually aren't a sensible place for a game company to put their resources. Where's this leave the state of Mac gaming, then? Will we ever see the day when a majority of games are simultaneous Mac/PC releases, or when a hit game comes out first on the Mac?
It's not a ban on lobbying that we need, it's just a ban on lobbyists funding their favorite political candidates. A earlier post above from a Dutch citizen pointed this out correctly -- a lobbyist making a large "donation" to a political figure is just a bribe, pure and simple, and it means that politicians can be easily bought by whoever has the deepest pockets.
Look at the whole flap over cigarette smoke. Phillip Morris was one of the largest contributors to various political groups, and even though evidence had been found that their company knew for a very long time of the dangers of smoking and yet chose to cover it up, their case took a very long time to work its way through all of the appropriate hearings. In this day and age, it's cheaper to put politicians in your pocket than to admit you're wrong.
I personally think that a politician who would accept a donation from a special-interest group is not worthy to hold office. As anyone who's a fan of 'Babylon 5' knows, once you accept a 'free gift' from someone, you're indebted to them for a very long time -- whether you like it or not.
Bill Gates has learned a lesson that Bill Clinton came very close to learning:
Never, EVER, admit ANY guilt. Period. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence to your guilt, still endeavor to find ways to bring the methods and motives of your accusers into question.
Bill Gates didn't put up that "Freedom to Innovate" page for us, although we're giving him a lot of free press by talking about it. (As P.T. Barnum once said, "Any publicity is good publicity -- as long as they spell my name right.") No, he put it up there for people who *will* be swayed by it, and for people in whom it *might* cast a reasonable doubt. These are voters who might be ticked off if their elected officials allow the government to take strong action against Microsoft -- and so Microsoft wins itself some safety.
Here's the most interesting thing to note, however: Notice that the Microsoft "Freedom to Innovate" page says that it was last updated on September 13. Do you honestly think that Microsoft would change anything if they honestly thought they were going to win the court case? Doesn't this thing sound like an effort to "rally the troops" and prepare for some expected damage control?