Yeah, LaGrande is evil, just like guns are evil. Give me a break. Intel is providing an additional tool for software developers to do what they like with it. Quit with the paranoid fantasies. Intel has no love for MS, and has no plans to make a processor that with only work with Windows. There is no incentive for them to do this. It only makes things riskier for them to limit the applications of a Pentium chip.
A couple of months of deregulation hardly counts as a test to see whether or not a free market can work. It would have been better to have nothing at all than to confuse people into thinking that deregulation can't work using such tactics. The govt. got scared and pulled the plug without giving it a chance. Of course the prices are going to rise drastically initially. That's what provides the incentive for other people to get in the game, the opportunity to make a lot of money. This can't happen over night however. It takes a fair amount of time to construct power plants etc. It would have worked, but the govt. didn't give it the chance.
I agree. There's no way any politician's going to risk his political career on full deregulation. The near term result will be bad for consumers, since the prices will skyrocket until new players start competing with the existing monopolies and bring the prices back down to a fair market value
"OK. Now that is breathtakingly naive. It is one of the most essential roles of government to set the rules under which business is done. To make the simplest example, if you sign a contract with a company, that contract is only useful because you both know that the government will enforce it for you. Now suppose we didn't have those pesky government rules about contracts -- how would you do business? The answer is, you couldn't."
I don't advocate anarchy. I never said the govt. didn't have a right to enforce contracts, not criminally, but in a court of civil law. I.E. the govts.' job is to interpret a contract that was agreed upon mutually by 2 entities, and determine damages in the event of a breech. The govt. does not have the right to dictate the terms of any contract for a company like MS, however, which is what antitrust laws give them the power to do. I also agree that Russia's problems are due, in part, to the fact that their govt. is corrupt, and therefore individual freedoms are compromised. It's not free market that's hurting Russia, but lack of a free market.
"So although the more mindless conservatives like to talk about government regulation like it's the plague, the fact is that business absolutely relies on it. The tricky part is, they have to be the right rules."
Enforcing contracts is not govt. regulation. Your example doesn't support your premise. The govts. job is to protect the freedoms of individuals, including the right to negotiate a binding agreement, as long as both parties agree voluntarily. This is not the case in the proposed MS settlement.
"If one half of the energy that has went into trying to defeat MS from a legal standpoint had went into trying to make Linux mature faster, we would be a lot farther along than we are." My 1st thought was that was the most interesting statement I read on this topic. Unfortunately, although the govt. is willing to spend a lot of tax dollars paying lawyers to fight MS using unjust laws that infringe on the freedoms of MS shareholders, they seem less willing to pay anyone to develop a competing OS. Linux is doing well anyway, and may still win in the long run.
How do you define free? Putting conditions on the way MS is allowed to sll their product or negotiate contracts doesn't sound very free to me. Companies that can't compete in a free market using the force of govt. to aid them sounds a bit like tyranny to me. MS never used force, they only negotiated contracts. The whole concept of antitrust legislation is an attack on freedom.
"In 10 short years it has been reduced to a smoking ruin, ruled over by a despot" MS has no power to make or enforce any laws. They offer a product. People have the free will to choose to buy it, or to not buy it. Why are you complaining about MS when your company forces you to use MS? Shouldn't you be complaining about your company for making that decision?
For the record, here's what the moderators said.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=1, Troll=1, Interesting=4, Overrated=2, Total=8.
I think the score went from 1 to 0 to 2 and finally back to 1. I don't see how posting a pro business comment counts as trolling just because it is an unpopular opinion on slashdot. I didn't realize it was the job of moderators to quash dissent, but I have seen this often on slashdot.
You obviously have no understanding of how the computer industry works. People don't like uncertainty. If MS closes shop, the computer industry will colapse. Sure in a year or 2, another OS will pick up the slack, but in the meantime there will be chaos becasue of all the compatibility issues of switching to a new OS. There are billions of dollars worth of software that needs Windows to work. You can say, "just run linux or BeOS", but the reality is it takes a lot of time. I'd advise against calling people names until you can improve your skills in logic and arguement. They're not very good.
As for libertarianism, you've also shown that you don't understand that concept either, although I won't stoop to calling you a nitwit. A govt.'s job should be to protect individual rights. This includes the right to not be killed and the right to owning property without threat of theft. Similarly, you have the right to trade goods and services with others by mutual agreement, but not through threat of violence. This is all MS wants, but the govt., through force, thinks they can tell MS how to conduct business, which violates the rights of MS shareholders. The US antitrust rules are therefore immoral, and should be overturned. The govt. does not have the right to "act in the public interest", only to protect the rights of indivduals, if you want a free society. Look at the Soviet Union, North Korea, Iraq, Cuba, etc. for couterexamples, and see the effects on individuals.
People do NOT have a right to enslave other people. By copying someone's work without his permission, you are infringing on his property rights, and turning him into your slave, to work for your benefit, rather than his own benefit. If you think that is just or moral, you should consider moving to China or Cuba.
There's is plenty of info out there about candidates and their stances on various issues. If they choose to ignore this information, and vote based on commercials they've seen, that's their right as Americans. If you wish to start a fund/campaign to educate voters, I'd be all for it. People in the US don't pay nearly enough attention to politics.
"1) Ask someone in san Diego if their power bills were capped by the CA govt - they weren't, they got charged market rates ("pass-through") on the cost of powerr."
Now your just making stuff up. The govt. has always set the price for power in CA. Why do you think I get a 20% discount for saving power. That goes against all economic principles in a free market. If there had been a free market, there would have been incentive to build new power plant as CA power increased over the years, and we wouldn't have been screwed by Texas, because of our own short-sightedness on relying on a single source for power. We got what we deserved. And now the govt. blames the free market system because they're too incompetent to understand the ecomonic impact of their policies.
"2) microsoft does not let anyone use their "pipe" (OS) as they do, they would have to publish all the api's &/or source code to allow that. Under the licence conditions MS imposes I am not allowed to even find out how it works without paying MS big bucks, so I can't run wire to power my computer properly."
MS has no obligation to you to tell you anything about their OS if they don't want to. If you don't like it, buy from someone else. They have no obligation to you. They aren't your slave.
"3)"When MS sells you a copy of Windows, you get what they promise" - easy to use? user-friendly? - I am ROFLPML"
I'm talking about contracts. If you read what you agree to when you buy Windows, they don't promise you much of anything. If you don't like it, buy from someone else, but don't think you have the right to enslave MS because you don't like the way they do business.
As for point 4, yes we'd see a huge increase in the cost of power initially, but ultimately, it'd be cheaper when people see how much moenty can be made generating and selling power effeciently. US Steel can't even compete against foreign markets without govt. intervention. How are they going to take over the US economy?
MS never forced anyone to buy or use Windows, so there is no use of force by MS. In fact it's the other way around given that 80% of China uses Windows without consent by MS, for instance, so they've metaphorically taken Winows by force rather than traded for it. MS deals in trade, not force. Force means threat of physical harm. They gained their monopoly power through their own means without help from the govt. and they have the right to trade freely. If they pull Windows, another OS will take its place. There will be no "restoration of balance" because this particular market thrives on compatibilty, so another OS will simply become the new monopoly player. So your so-called utopia after MS's disappearance is an illusion. I'm not saying MS won't be harmed, but they should prefer to die free than live under govt. tyranny.
The price that the consumer is charged per Kilowatt in CA was always controlled by the CA govt. That is NOT deregulation, no matter what anyone tells you. Right now there are a lot of companies with long distance networks, and that has proven to provide a cheap source of long distance. The same could work with electric power if the govt. would STOP regulating.
Do I have to spell it out? Here's the impact. Dell, HP, Compaq, etc. sales go through the floor. Motherboard, hard drive, memory makers, etc. start going out of business. No one's going to buy pc's until there's some certainty about the next OS. As for your exploits comment, I won't even bother to point out how elitist and/or stupid it is. Gates has every right to be pissed at the govt. They have no right to tell him how to run his business, than they have the right to tell me what I can post here. Yet they pass laws to give them the authority regardless.
When the NASDAQ falls through the floor and hundreds of companies go out of business, and thousands of people are laid off, maybe then you'll realize the govt. has no business telling people how to do business. It didn't work in the Soviet Union and it won't work here.
When MS sells you a copy of Windows, you get what they promise. No more no less. Just because a majority of people like something doesn't entitle them to make MS their slave. Copyrigt law is a separate issue which is a protection of individual property. I should not have any monopoly clauses if the US govt. truly values individual rights. As far as utilities goes, they are granted monopolies by local govt., which should be illegal. Anyone who wants to run pipes or power lines to your home should be able to get a permit to do so. Then we wouldn't need monopoly regulation of utilities, because there would be no monopoly. The CA power crisis was caused by the inept govt. officials running the power companies. If they allowed free market forces to take over, I'd see ads for companies trying to sell me power, not ads by the govt. telling me to stop using power.
If you want to buy a new computer, it won't come with Windows. You'd need to remove windows from your old computer to legally install it on your new computer. That is, on a global scale, the number of legal copies of windows on machines would stop increasing. You'd need to be pretty stupid not to grasp the impact on the tech sector this would cause. If you worked for 1 of the thousands of companies that go out of business when MS shuts its door, you might feel differently as well. Also, when you can't get a patch for a Windows exploit, because MS stopped doing business, you'd be vulnerable. Sure eventually people will switch to another OS, but Gates would probably enjoy the satisfaction of telling the govt. to shove it. Better to die free than live as a slave to the govt.
IF the US Govt. doesn't stop this nonsense, in MS's position, I'd simply stop selling Windows. MS doesn't owe the public anything. They should be a ble to negotiate any contract they want as long as it doesn't involve force (i.e. point a gun at someone). The US govt. thinks they can point a gun at MS, however, and say do business the way we want you to do business, completely ignoring the rights of the people who run MS. MS's best protest at this outrage is to simply stop doing business. Then maybe the govt. would think twice about what they consider "the public interest" and consider the rights of the people who run MS.
This brings up the issue about the constitutionality of antitrust legislation. IMHO, this socialist doctrine undermines the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that the US was founded on. What right has the govt. to interfere in the trade of individuals within the US? It's not like MS put a gun to anyones head and made him use their products through force? If I were Bill Gates, I'd simply move the company somewhere else where this bs doesn't pass as law. Then the US might find out the hard way the price of screwing with freedom through lost tax revenue. People in Washington state would actually have to start paying state taxes.
"Judge Jackson was also a Reagan appointee. And yet he took the time to "get it" (by which I mean that he managed to educate himself enough about the technology to see through the smoke screens Microsoft's lawyers put up)" Yeah, he knew what his ruling would be before the case even started.
I'm not saying what they did should illegal, although it probably is according to the Sherman antitrust legislation. I'm saying that when MS does these types of things, everyone complains about monopolistic practices. Yet Apple protects their monopoly in the same manner, and everyone's fine with it. People should at least be consistent in their arguements.
Imagine renting some time and setting up a multiplayer game on Medal of Honor and recreating D-day with thousands of players on one of their supercomputers. That might be fun.
"Really? Win95 had that awful bug where it couldn't stay up for more than 40 days due to an issue with a tick counter rolling over and crashing the box. Nobody noticed this for years, yet Mac OS 9 while not the fastest of webservers has shown decent stability according to Netcraft."
I couldn't even surf the web on a mac for an hour without crashing the machine when running MacOS 9. That's a lot shorter than 40 days. MacOS 9 had no memory protection, no real memory management, no preemptive multitasking, etc. It was a nightamre having to use those machines.
"I don't see how the Microsoft free jab applies here anyway since Apple is as bad as MS if not worse with their business practices."
Remember all those companies that used to make Apple clones? Apple refused to sell them MacOS for a reasonable price after Jobs took over, effectively putting them out of business. Also, a company called Exponential came out with a PowerPC chip for Macs. Apple didn't want it, but the clone makers did. Apple, however, refused to let the clone makers modify the bios to boot MacOS with the new PowerPC chip. Exponential went out of business shortly thereafter (Apple also breached their own contract with Exponential, as well).
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, LaGrande is evil, just like guns are evil. Give me a break. Intel is providing an additional tool for software developers to do what they like with it. Quit with the paranoid fantasies. Intel has no love for MS, and has no plans to make a processor that with only work with Windows. There is no incentive for them to do this. It only makes things riskier for them to limit the applications of a Pentium chip.
A couple of months of deregulation hardly counts as a test to see whether or not a free market can work. It would have been better to have nothing at all than to confuse people into thinking that deregulation can't work using such tactics. The govt. got scared and pulled the plug without giving it a chance. Of course the prices are going to rise drastically initially. That's what provides the incentive for other people to get in the game, the opportunity to make a lot of money. This can't happen over night however. It takes a fair amount of time to construct power plants etc. It would have worked, but the govt. didn't give it the chance.
I agree. There's no way any politician's going to risk his political career on full deregulation. The near term result will be bad for consumers, since the prices will skyrocket until new players start competing with the existing monopolies and bring the prices back down to a fair market value
"OK. Now that is breathtakingly naive. It is one of the most essential roles of government to set the rules under which business is done. To make the simplest example, if you sign a contract with a company, that contract is only useful because you both know that the government will enforce it for you. Now suppose we didn't have those pesky government rules about contracts -- how would you do business? The answer is, you couldn't."
I don't advocate anarchy. I never said the govt. didn't have a right to enforce contracts, not criminally, but in a court of civil law. I.E. the govts.' job is to interpret a contract that was agreed upon mutually by 2 entities, and determine damages in the event of a breech. The govt. does not have the right to dictate the terms of any contract for a company like MS, however, which is what antitrust laws give them the power to do. I also agree that Russia's problems are due, in part, to the fact that their govt. is corrupt, and therefore individual freedoms are compromised. It's not free market that's hurting Russia, but lack of a free market.
"So although the more mindless conservatives like to talk about government regulation like it's the plague, the fact is that business absolutely relies on it. The tricky part is, they have to be the right rules."
Enforcing contracts is not govt. regulation. Your example doesn't support your premise. The govts. job is to protect the freedoms of individuals, including the right to negotiate a binding agreement, as long as both parties agree voluntarily. This is not the case in the proposed MS settlement.
"If one half of the energy that has went into trying to defeat MS from a legal standpoint had went into trying to make Linux mature faster, we would be a lot farther along than we are." My 1st thought was that was the most interesting statement I read on this topic. Unfortunately, although the govt. is willing to spend a lot of tax dollars paying lawyers to fight MS using unjust laws that infringe on the freedoms of MS shareholders, they seem less willing to pay anyone to develop a competing OS. Linux is doing well anyway, and may still win in the long run.
How do you define free? Putting conditions on the way MS is allowed to sll their product or negotiate contracts doesn't sound very free to me. Companies that can't compete in a free market using the force of govt. to aid them sounds a bit like tyranny to me. MS never used force, they only negotiated contracts. The whole concept of antitrust legislation is an attack on freedom.
"In 10 short years it has been reduced to a smoking ruin, ruled over by a despot" MS has no power to make or enforce any laws. They offer a product. People have the free will to choose to buy it, or to not buy it. Why are you complaining about MS when your company forces you to use MS? Shouldn't you be complaining about your company for making that decision?
For the record, here's what the moderators said.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=1, Troll=1, Interesting=4, Overrated=2, Total=8.
I think the score went from 1 to 0 to 2 and finally back to 1. I don't see how posting a pro business comment counts as trolling just because it is an unpopular opinion on slashdot. I didn't realize it was the job of moderators to quash dissent, but I have seen this often on slashdot.
You obviously have no understanding of how the computer industry works. People don't like uncertainty. If MS closes shop, the computer industry will colapse. Sure in a year or 2, another OS will pick up the slack, but in the meantime there will be chaos becasue of all the compatibility issues of switching to a new OS. There are billions of dollars worth of software that needs Windows to work. You can say, "just run linux or BeOS", but the reality is it takes a lot of time. I'd advise against calling people names until you can improve your skills in logic and arguement. They're not very good.
As for libertarianism, you've also shown that you don't understand that concept either, although I won't stoop to calling you a nitwit. A govt.'s job should be to protect individual rights. This includes the right to not be killed and the right to owning property without threat of theft. Similarly, you have the right to trade goods and services with others by mutual agreement, but not through threat of violence. This is all MS wants, but the govt., through force, thinks they can tell MS how to conduct business, which violates the rights of MS shareholders. The US antitrust rules are therefore immoral, and should be overturned. The govt. does not have the right to "act in the public interest", only to protect the rights of indivduals, if you want a free society. Look at the Soviet Union, North Korea, Iraq, Cuba, etc. for couterexamples, and see the effects on individuals.
People do NOT have a right to enslave other people. By copying someone's work without his permission, you are infringing on his property rights, and turning him into your slave, to work for your benefit, rather than his own benefit. If you think that is just or moral, you should consider moving to China or Cuba.
There's is plenty of info out there about candidates and their stances on various issues. If they choose to ignore this information, and vote based on commercials they've seen, that's their right as Americans. If you wish to start a fund/campaign to educate voters, I'd be all for it. People in the US don't pay nearly enough attention to politics.
"1) Ask someone in san Diego if their power bills were capped by the CA govt - they weren't, they got charged market rates ("pass-through") on the cost of powerr."
Now your just making stuff up. The govt. has always set the price for power in CA. Why do you think I get a 20% discount for saving power. That goes against all economic principles in a free market. If there had been a free market, there would have been incentive to build new power plant as CA power increased over the years, and we wouldn't have been screwed by Texas, because of our own short-sightedness on relying on a single source for power. We got what we deserved. And now the govt. blames the free market system because they're too incompetent to understand the ecomonic impact of their policies.
"2) microsoft does not let anyone use their "pipe" (OS) as they do, they would have to publish all the api's &/or source code to allow that. Under the licence conditions MS imposes I am not allowed to even find out how it works without paying MS big bucks, so I can't run wire to power my computer properly."
MS has no obligation to you to tell you anything about their OS if they don't want to. If you don't like it, buy from someone else. They have no obligation to you. They aren't your slave.
"3)"When MS sells you a copy of Windows, you get what they promise" - easy to use? user-friendly? - I am ROFLPML"
I'm talking about contracts. If you read what you agree to when you buy Windows, they don't promise you much of anything. If you don't like it, buy from someone else, but don't think you have the right to enslave MS because you don't like the way they do business.
As for point 4, yes we'd see a huge increase in the cost of power initially, but ultimately, it'd be cheaper when people see how much moenty can be made generating and selling power effeciently. US Steel can't even compete against foreign markets without govt. intervention. How are they going to take over the US economy?
MS never forced anyone to buy or use Windows, so there is no use of force by MS. In fact it's the other way around given that 80% of China uses Windows without consent by MS, for instance, so they've metaphorically taken Winows by force rather than traded for it. MS deals in trade, not force. Force means threat of physical harm. They gained their monopoly power through their own means without help from the govt. and they have the right to trade freely. If they pull Windows, another OS will take its place. There will be no "restoration of balance" because this particular market thrives on compatibilty, so another OS will simply become the new monopoly player. So your so-called utopia after MS's disappearance is an illusion. I'm not saying MS won't be harmed, but they should prefer to die free than live under govt. tyranny.
The price that the consumer is charged per Kilowatt in CA was always controlled by the CA govt. That is NOT deregulation, no matter what anyone tells you. Right now there are a lot of companies with long distance networks, and that has proven to provide a cheap source of long distance. The same could work with electric power if the govt. would STOP regulating.
Do I have to spell it out? Here's the impact. Dell, HP, Compaq, etc. sales go through the floor. Motherboard, hard drive, memory makers, etc. start going out of business. No one's going to buy pc's until there's some certainty about the next OS. As for your exploits comment, I won't even bother to point out how elitist and/or stupid it is. Gates has every right to be pissed at the govt. They have no right to tell him how to run his business, than they have the right to tell me what I can post here. Yet they pass laws to give them the authority regardless.
When the NASDAQ falls through the floor and hundreds of companies go out of business, and thousands of people are laid off, maybe then you'll realize the govt. has no business telling people how to do business. It didn't work in the Soviet Union and it won't work here.
When MS sells you a copy of Windows, you get what they promise. No more no less. Just because a majority of people like something doesn't entitle them to make MS their slave. Copyrigt law is a separate issue which is a protection of individual property. I should not have any monopoly clauses if the US govt. truly values individual rights. As far as utilities goes, they are granted monopolies by local govt., which should be illegal. Anyone who wants to run pipes or power lines to your home should be able to get a permit to do so. Then we wouldn't need monopoly regulation of utilities, because there would be no monopoly. The CA power crisis was caused by the inept govt. officials running the power companies. If they allowed free market forces to take over, I'd see ads for companies trying to sell me power, not ads by the govt. telling me to stop using power.
If you want to buy a new computer, it won't come with Windows. You'd need to remove windows from your old computer to legally install it on your new computer. That is, on a global scale, the number of legal copies of windows on machines would stop increasing. You'd need to be pretty stupid not to grasp the impact on the tech sector this would cause. If you worked for 1 of the thousands of companies that go out of business when MS shuts its door, you might feel differently as well. Also, when you can't get a patch for a Windows exploit, because MS stopped doing business, you'd be vulnerable. Sure eventually people will switch to another OS, but Gates would probably enjoy the satisfaction of telling the govt. to shove it. Better to die free than live as a slave to the govt.
IF the US Govt. doesn't stop this nonsense, in MS's position, I'd simply stop selling Windows. MS doesn't owe the public anything. They should be a ble to negotiate any contract they want as long as it doesn't involve force (i.e. point a gun at someone). The US govt. thinks they can point a gun at MS, however, and say do business the way we want you to do business, completely ignoring the rights of the people who run MS. MS's best protest at this outrage is to simply stop doing business. Then maybe the govt. would think twice about what they consider "the public interest" and consider the rights of the people who run MS.
MS can donate all the money they want, but as a company they can't cast a single vote on election day.
This brings up the issue about the constitutionality of antitrust legislation. IMHO, this socialist doctrine undermines the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that the US was founded on. What right has the govt. to interfere in the trade of individuals within the US? It's not like MS put a gun to anyones head and made him use their products through force? If I were Bill Gates, I'd simply move the company somewhere else where this bs doesn't pass as law. Then the US might find out the hard way the price of screwing with freedom through lost tax revenue. People in Washington state would actually have to start paying state taxes.
"Judge Jackson was also a Reagan appointee. And yet he took the time to "get it" (by which I mean that he managed to educate himself enough about the technology to see through the smoke screens Microsoft's lawyers put up)"
Yeah, he knew what his ruling would be before the case even started.
I'm not saying what they did should illegal, although it probably is according to the Sherman antitrust legislation. I'm saying that when MS does these types of things, everyone complains about monopolistic practices. Yet Apple protects their monopoly in the same manner, and everyone's fine with it. People should at least be consistent in their arguements.
Imagine renting some time and setting up a multiplayer game on Medal of Honor and recreating D-day with thousands of players on one of their supercomputers. That might be fun.
"Really? Win95 had that awful bug where it couldn't stay up for more than 40 days due to an issue with a tick counter rolling over and crashing the box. Nobody noticed this for years, yet Mac OS 9 while not the fastest of webservers has shown decent stability according to Netcraft."
I couldn't even surf the web on a mac for an hour without crashing the machine when running MacOS 9. That's a lot shorter than 40 days. MacOS 9 had no memory protection, no real memory management, no preemptive multitasking, etc. It was a nightamre having to use those machines.
"I don't see how the Microsoft free jab applies here anyway since Apple is as bad as MS if not worse with their business practices."
Remember all those companies that used to make Apple clones? Apple refused to sell them MacOS for a reasonable price after Jobs took over, effectively putting them out of business. Also, a company called Exponential came out with a PowerPC chip for Macs. Apple didn't want it, but the clone makers did. Apple, however, refused to let the clone makers modify the bios to boot MacOS with the new PowerPC chip. Exponential went out of business shortly thereafter (Apple also breached their own contract with Exponential, as well).