He hasnt done a damn thing. He's Black thats it. He received an award for being black. Thats the only rational way ANYONE could ever make any sense out of this.
I'm not particularly an Obama fan. I have hope that he will eventually get some economic reforms pushed through congress, but I understand he's a politician with limited political capital and significant motivations I disagree with. That said, I think you're completely wrong.
He was given this prize partly because of the steps he's taken and partly because many people want to encourage the US to continue on the path it has started over the last few months and there is hope this will provide Obama with more political capital to get it done. The things I'm talking about the world wanting to encourage are twofold. First, taking a better stance on human rights and being less "scary" to the rest of the world. Second, being diplomatic and facilitating discussions and cooperation with countries the US has been refusing to even talk to as a prelude to potentially solving our problems.
He has failed on Universal Health Care and have handed over our tax dollars to rich corporations while Americans lose their jobs, their homes and receive nothing in the form of a ballout or help from our government.
Obama is not the problem when it comes to healthcare. He's been pushing it as hard as any president ever has, maybe harder. Congress, on the other hand, has been stalling and hedging and most of it is still taking money and listening to lobbyists from a health concern somewhere.
As for economic recovery, pretty much everything this and the last administration has done has been emergency measures to stem the tide of our economic collapse. Nothing has been done longterm that will solve the fundamental problems, but healthcare is one of those basic changes that (implemented well) can lead to economic recovery. Paying for it by increasing taxes on the extreme high end (where they've been drastically cut over the last 10-20 years) rather than racking up more national debt is another and these are both things Obama has been pushing hard for, but which he is having trouble getting through congress because he simply does not have the political capital. He can stand up an say we need universal healthcare and individual congress people want to be re-elected and know their constituents want it and they can't openly oppose it regardless how much of their campaign money comes from health insurance companies. So a significant number publicly agree and then try to undermine the process and stall and create weakened and ineffective solutions and nothing effective gets done.
Part of the motivation for giving Obama the Nobel Peace Prize is to make it harder to pretend when he is specifically calling out congress on an issue. And I can understand that as a pretty valid motivation for giving it to him.
And what has he done of the things he can actually do directly? He made an official policy banning torture in all its forms by any government employee. He has started talks with countries that have been our enemies around the world. He has made it clear that the US will not act out of religious motivation and try to push a version of christianity on other countries and some of the believe it (which very few believed a few years ago). He instituted policies making it a lot harder to hide what is going on in the day to day business of the government and started programs to make said information available to end users. His commitment to these policies has not been strongly tested and obviously they will not want everything public, but it is a significant improvement.
He's robin hood for the wrong team.
Actually, most of the money Obama actually pushed for has been going to smaller community projects and cities and the like than, well almost anything to make it through congress in years. There was a lot of pork tacked on, for certain, but that's something he public
If a bundled web browser is an antitrust issue... then why isn't bundled "office" software?
It depends upon how it is sold to OEMs mostly. A company interested in obeying antitrust law would sell these to OEMs as a completely separate interaction than licensing Windows, using different contacts from a different division of the company and make it perfectly clear that OEM licensing will not be affected by whether or not that company decides to ship a version of MS Office.
MS, is unlikely to do that based upon their previous track record, and may do just the opposite. Everything they do to tie the two sales pulls them closer to an actionable antitrust offense.
There's a second antitrust issue here too. Depending upon how the markets are defined by the courts, MS could be running into antitrust issues within different segments of the office suite market (unlikely) or prices fixing problems. You see, MS has never ben declared by any court I know of to have a monopoly on office suite software, but they have handed out some very large private settlements during the 11th hour of civil suits that would have established that had they lost. So while it is not proven in court, MS probably has monopoly influence on that market, which makes differential pricing of "versions" of their office suite aimed at extracting the most money from each subgroup of society a potential antitrust issue.
Yeah, now if only you understood why we have antitrust laws you might reconsider that opinion.
Any law which so blatantly harms consumers, is insane.
But without those antitrust laws IBM could have killed MS right away and they would never have made any of the products you seem so enamored of. You do know IBM was under antitrust restrictions at the time, right?
It's basically saying that once a product vendor hits a certain "level of influence", they are legally prohibited from improving their product, should any of those improvements already be provided by third parties.
No, it's saying they have to improve their product in a competitive fashion. If some company sells an Add on for Windows, MS can do the same. They just have to sell it separate from Windows just like their competitors have to. They can make Windows modular if they want to make the task easier. Also, they can add any feature directly into Windows if that feature is actually an innovation and there is not an already existing market for it. Finally, they can improve their product by making it better at fulfilling the role it already does.
If you can't see why that is fundamentally broken, then I'm afraid you're beyond help.
What you said was not true, so that's not an issue.
But lets cut the crap. You think you can do better? What's your proposal. Would you just get rid of all antitrust laws? Would you modify them in some way. What's your alternative proposal?
But they can't. Any feature they add (heck, added, since being ruled a monopoly - it's not like they could know until after the fact) that a third party already provided, is an antitrust violation.
That's your unsupported assertion, not mine.
Forcing people to go out and buy whole new software (and possibly hardware) stacks because their existing vendor is legally prohibited from giving them the improvements they want is "innovation and competition" ?
No forcing MS out of being able to ignore customers brings about innovation and competition. Why do you think capitalism works in the first place. We have five companies making a product instead of one with all sorts of duplicated work as a result. Surely socialism is the way to go to eliminate all that waste. But all that waste is inherent in multiple companies competing and that's what brings innovation. A commercial monopoly is the worst of all possible combinations.
You are arguing that any feature of Windows that was available from a third party beforehand is inherently an antitrust violation.
For the fourth time "Pre-existing separate markets". Any feature of Windows added after they gained a monopoly, that was available from a for profit company is an antitrust violation unless it is sold as a separate purchase from Windows to consumers. If MS wants to sell IE they can, they just have to pitch it to Dell and Lenovo and HP separate from Windows and not using the fact that those companies need Windows to gain them an unfair advantage over Mozilla or Opera.
It's your reasoning, not mine.
No it's your twisted interpretation of my quoting the law.
My reasoning says that your reasoning is obviously and blatantly harmful to consumers, therefore wrong, and therefore won't be held up by any court with some semblance of sanity.
Right then. I asked for a counter proposal. How would you fix antitrust law so it conforms with your economic and legal beliefs?
The question is, "can Dell license OS X for inclusion on their computer systems aimed at the home and corporate markets?
No, but that's not microsoft's fault.
No it isn't, but that isn't what MS is being convicted of. It's legal for Microsoft to have monopoly influence and have all this power over Dell. It's illegal for MS to abuse that power to gain in other markets.
An analogy would be a person convicted of murder for shooting a person. A lot of people are arguing they did not have a gun and so could not have committed the murder. The fact that Dell cannot license OS X speaks to the amount of power MS has and thus their ability to commit the crime. Since we know they bundled IE with Windows (unless you want argue that) that makes them clearly guilty. (This in continuing our analogy would be the murderer being seen by everyone to hold out their hand and point it at the victim while making a pulling motion with their finger).
First, wikipedia or any encyclopedia is not a valid source. Second, the DoJ filed a criminal suit against MS. The basis for that criminal suit was a consolidation of a series of civil suits. So the quote you cite is accurate, but doesn't say what you think it does.
There are those who like to say MS was "convicted" because it sounds more sinister, but the it's still wrong.
No I say MS was convicted of leveraging their desktop OS influence into the server OS space, because the EU convicted them of it.
just because the PC market revolves around Windows does not mean that the dell, gateway and other companies have a right to use the power of the government to tell microsoft what they can or cant do with there OS.
No it means the government can tell Microsoft what they can and can't do with their OS. Microsoft is a corporation, remember? They're a legal entity that exists because the government dreamed up such a thing and even if they weren't the government has the power to pass laws that regulate interstate commerce. Remember we the people are in charge and our democracy created these laws to stop the robber barons and trusts that were causing great harm. So we wrote laws and everyone has to obey them because it is rule by law. IBM had to obey them or MS would not exist. Now MS has to obey them. The EU basically copied the laws already on the books in the US and the US already took MS to court for this same act which MS has not stopped doing.
...they don't tell apple[sic] that OS X cant include sarafi[sic].
No they don't because that particular law does not apply to Apples bundling of OS X and Safari. The government can only punish people who break the law. Weird huh?
...the point is you shouldn't punish sucess[sic].
No, you shouldn't, but the successful are also powerful and power comes with responsibility. We don't punish companies that successfully acquire a warehouse full of dynamite, but they are subject to additional regulations because of the danger represented by the power they have. Monopoly influence on a market is like economic dynamite. It can destroy innovation in a different market if misused.
there are way to many anti trust suits against any company that does well coming from the socialist EU.
How is the EU more socialist that the US? We pay more in taxes to fund government programs than citizens in many EU countries. As for too many antitrust suits, the US has taken MS to court on this exact same antitrust abuse, our courts were just more easily bribed when MS donated piles of money to re-election campaigns and then after the election all the people running the prosecution were replaced and MS was given no real punishment. You're saying the EU should ignore their laws when companies commit crimes? Or are you saying they should be like the US and just accept "lobbying funds" and make the whole thing go away?
both microsoft and intel should just pull there[sic] products out of the EU and then see what they do. then they would come and begging for there[sic] products once they relize[sic] the other crappy options avalible[sic] to them.
Umm, yeah. That would be about the stupidest thing any corporate executive ever did. Ballmer would be fired in hours and replaced. What, exactly, do you think governments do when you break the law while directly challenging their authority? The EU would confiscate all the funds and assets of those companies for further antitrust violations and probably confiscate all their copyrights and patents. Technically the US would even be bound to honor the transfer of intellectual property rights by the treaties we've signed. Even if we didn't you want to bet China and the rest of the world bound by the same treaties would not? Suddenly all MS and Intel patents and copyrights are public domain everywhere but the US, that includes the source code. Even if the US government was a complete puppet, we'd be screwed since it would just mean US companies have to pay while the rest of the world outcompetes us with lower costs.
Yeah, I don't think you've thought any of your ideas through.
I think you're confused. As I've pointed out numerous times on Slashdot and the media has pointed out in just about any article about the US Antitrust case against MS it was a civil proceeding, not a criminal one and thus MS wasn't "convicted" of anything.
You're mistaken. The Clayton and Sherman acts are both criminal law. You're confused because most antitrust cases begin as civil suits, but are then taken over by the Department of Justice. The DoJ does not sue anyone, they prosecute them.
The European Commission is not a court, it the EU's executive branch that makes EU policy. The fines levied against MS are a matter of policy, not law.
It's true the EC is not a court. They are an executive body just like the DoJ is. They work things slightly differently in that the EC can levy fines directly, but those the fines are levied against can go to the court to contest them if they want to make a trial out of it. MS did appeal their last case to the court and was convicted. This case they did not bother to contest. You're right that the EC enforces policy, but it's policy like "we will aggressively go after criminals involved in money laundering" not some arbitrary enforcement of ill defined rules. They are enforcing the law and competition law in the EU is criminal law.
That blurs the issue. Opera is getting a free thing. Whether or not other browsers are getting it, doesn't matter. Opera filed the legal complaint, and they are getting free ads for doing so.
Yes, as part of the punishment imposed upon MS for breaking the law in a way that hurts Opera. I suppose you object to companies that commit fraud being forced to pay reparations to their victims after they are convicted too? And companies that commit libel being forced to issue a formal retraction as part of their punishment after being convicted?
You're a conspiracy theorist kook! Please educate yourself.
Yeah, now if only you understood why we have antitrust laws you might reconsider that opinion.
I imagine you'd have trouble finding a single feature added to Windows since its invention, that didn't exist in some piece of independent software beforehand.
That's irrelevant. For the third time "Pre-existing separate markets".
That, in essence, you're arguing Windows cannot exist in both a useful and antitrust-compliant fashion, should hopefully highlight the foolishness of it.
It absolutely can, they just need to structure themselves with compliance with the law in mind. But hey, if you think it's impossible, that's fine because an MS that has had their monopoly power removed by being split up is the best possible thing for innovation and competition. By all means, let's assume it is impossible MS will ever be able to comply and break them up so they can bundle anything they want.
You state that MS was "convicted" (your expertise is slipping) of leveraging their desktop OS to gain an advantage in the server OS space but you don't provide any evidence that indeed they did.
What you slept through the dozens of Slashdot articles and major news outlet coverage of the previous EU antitrust trial. Yes they were CONVICTED as antitrust law is criminal law in the US and EU. â497 million, the largest fine they'd ever handed out when MS stalled on complying with the order for years.
How much market share did competing products lose?
How could anyone say? What portion of the growth MS experienced was due to their criminal activities and what was due to honest competition? Would they have been losing market share if they were not breaking the law? No one will ever know for certain.
How much market share did competing products lose?
Linux lost about 7% and other UNIX versions about 13% the same over that time period. It's hard to get reliable numbers.
Is MS now the market leader in Sever[sic] OS's? Have they ever been?
By revenue, yes they do have the largest chunk of the market at about 38%.
This is about preserving the status quo in the server space, to reduce competition by holding back MS.
How is giving all servers a level playing field and letting all of them access Windows desktops the same way, holding MS back? Are you implying they can only win market share by artificially breaking other server OS's instead of by making the best server?
It's not about increasing competition it's about decreasing it.
Yeah in Bizaaro World letting monopolies leverage their monopolies into new markets increases competition. You're one of the worst MS apologizers I've ever heard. Even if you don't agree with the laws on the books, everyone has to follow them. MS wouldn't even exist if the same laws had not been enforced against IBM in the first place. Now MS should be allowed to break them at will? Frankly, I think you're an idiot or an astroturfer.
For example, if MS makes them pay for the cost of developing Internet Explorer and bundles that cost into the cost of Windows, when there was a preexisting market for web browsers, [...]
The primary tenuous assumption here being that there was ever a distinct market for web browsers.
That's not even slightly tenuous when you understand how the law defines markets. There does not have to be direct sales, just profit. Mozilla makes money today by creating a web browser.
The second being that the price of Windows would have changed if it didn't have IE.
Which is not something that is necessary or even needs to be proved to hold up in court. Unless the developers working on IE do so out of charity, it assumed a bundled costs by the courts otherwise it would always be impossible to prove such violations. Just because you call something "free" in marketing does not mean economists or judges accept your claim at face value. When you do a buy one get one free sale at the grocery store, you can still sue the maker is still liable for and damages because of the second product. The same is true here. It's bundled, but since it only comes with a purchased product it is bundling.
Unless, of course, you want to argue that every single aspect of Windows's functionality introduced with and since Windows 95, is an antitrust violation ?
We've had this discussion before. Pre-existing separate markets are the criteria for abuse. Not every feature added to Windows, only those added once MS had monopoly power that duplicated the functionality of products from pre-existing separate markets. That does include a lot of items MS has not been taken to court for yet, but that doesn't mean they are not illegal.
According to the SAMBA team, Microsoft has actually been fairly open (both in terms of providing docs and in terms of providing info/answers/clarification) when it comes to the protocols SAMBA deals with.
Yeah and it only took what, three years after they were convicted and ordered to open up the protocols, before they complied?
The only problems is lack of choice of hardware and paying a premium for another OS:
Not at all. Even if every computer Dell sold and every other OEM sold came with the option of Windows or Linux, that does nothing to lessen MS's power over Dell unless Windows actually lost market share significantly as a result. Until they lose the ability to leverage their large market share into other markets, they need to be effectively stopped by the courts from doing so. I favor doing this by directly eliminating their monopoly, but the EU will never do so for diplomatic reasons.
I think you'll find it's the customers who have Dell over a barrel. They would be the ones who dictate whether or not the computers Dell sells will be bought.
Sellers are always directly accountable to purchasers and this is normal and beneficial to the operation of a competitive market. The problem with monopolies is they break that. Dell as a purchaser should have the power over MS. If M meets their needs Dell buys from them. If not, Dell buys from a competitor. Except in this case Dell has no other realistic options for the mainstream because of lock-in to Windows. As a result, regardless of if MS does what their customers want, the customers still buy from MS. All of this is legal, but it places MS in a position of power over Dell and other OEMs and when a company is in such a position of power the law forbids them from using it to make other markets less competitive.
For example, if MS makes them pay for the cost of developing Internet Explorer and bundles that cost into the cost of Windows, when there was a preexisting market for web browsers, then MS is using their power in the desktop OS market to force Dell to do something they would not do in a competitive market. At the same time, MS is hurting other companies that profit from producing web browsers. If MS convinces OEs they will have their prices raised higher than their competitors if they uninstall IE or install another browser, they're doing the same. If they continue both practices while at the same time intentionally breaking compatibility with other Web browsers, with the intent of making the Web itself reliant upon their browser, they are certainly illegally leveraging their position, and that is exactly what documents discovered by the courts showed MS's strategy to be.
Yeah, because when I'm being protectionist I implement policies that promote four US companies in addition to one european one that isn't a member state of the European Union I work for. I further take care to word the decision such that if that one european competitor slips just a bit in market share they are removed entirely from the solution. Also, just to cover my tracks, spend a decade convicting european companies of antitrust violations on a regular basis and handing out big fines and remedies to them.
Nice attempt to deflect based on the idea that I'm not qualified to speak.
What are you talking about? I asked you to make sure you actually understand the concepts of a topic before commenting on it, so I don't have to repeat for the hundredth time an explanation of how antitrust law works and why it exists. Why people feel they should express their opinion without being informed on this topic, when they would not do so on geophysics or Perl is beyond me.
"gaining an advantage" against a competing product is quite different than "eliminating" one.
Yes it is. But since both are detrimental and both are illegal if you're leveraging an existing monopoly to do it, your comment lacks relevance. Windows ME and Windows XP are quite different, but that doesn't have any bearing here, either.
But in some cases there isn't much evidence even for the lesser charge.
In some cases? Please be specific about what cases you feel are lacking in evidence because the whole thing is pretty open and shut from my perspective. MS did not even bother to contest the charges with regard to IE this time around after having been convicted in several other jurisdictions.
What server OS's have MS gained an advantage over because they dominate the desktop and how was it done?
MS was convicted of leveraging their desktop OS to gain an advantage in the server OS space by creating secret and nonstandard protocols for communication between the various Windows desktop OS's and their Windows Server product. Competitors were forced to reverse engineer these protocols in order to effectively provide services to Windows desktops. These API's and protocols included Active Directory which was specifically addressed. MS was ordered to fully document the protocols and APIs and license them to competitors. This is largely the reason SAMBA is so much more functional these days. MS was convicted in 2004 but did not comply until 2007. You might recall them racking up huge noncompliance fines in the interim. Note, MS was convicted of antitrust violation for tying in this instance, but it was not the specific form of tying that is bundling, which they are guilty of with regard to IE.
OK, so they are dominant in one area - the desktop OS market. Now which competitors have they eliminated and what specific MS actions caused that elimination?
The previous poster said they eliminated competition, not competitors. It's the same as eliminating competition by sabotaging a rival athlete's car so they can't get to the track meet or cutting their hamstring or rubbing grease on their shoes. You don't actually have to kill the rival in order to eliminate competition.
MS has dominance in the desktop OS market as you said. They have used that to gain an advantage in the web browser, media jukebox software, server OS, and several other markets. The method they used was tying, and for web browsers the specific method was bundling, the most common form of tying. Now to preclude any uninformed but common concepts you might bring up in reply: markets don't have to be direct exchanges of cash for laws or economic principals to apply; "free" is a marketing term, rather than an economics term in this case; the law applies to separate, existing markets at the time of the abuse regardless of how they are related; tying is defined in terms of markets, not of any other arbitrary grouping; tying is only detrimental and illegal when the tying is between a market with dominance and a separate market so it does not apply to OS X and Safari or Ubuntu and Firefox.
If you want more in depth discussion please make sure you understand what antitrust laws are, why we have them (historically and economically), and why markets are defined the way they are. These are basic facts you should know and understand before making arguments about specific antitrust cases.
Dell has been selling redhat on their business computers for a few years now.
Sure, for a very small, niche segment of their business customers. They cannot, however, replace Windows as the OS component on all their business PC's the way they can replace the soundcard component in all their business PC's, because if they do they will go out of business.
The end user IS the one with no power.
Not as a direct result of MS's market influence. MS sells Windows primarily to OEMs and enterprises. They sell very few boxed copies to end users. OEMs and site licensees define the market and are the ones who MS has huge influence over.
I would like to see as many os options available from a hardware vendor.
I'd like a solid gold beagle. What's your point? Is there some law you think should or does make our wishes law?
Was there something in the OEM licenses that prevented PC vendors from installing 3rd-party browsers? The "settlement" spends a lot of time talking about the ballot screen for selecting browsers. But I'm not sure why another vendor could not have made their own ballot screen if they wanted. Or just install whatever browser they like.
In the past there were but that is no longer necessary. The EU did poll OEMs and ask if they were being pressured by MS before they implemented this solution. Do OEMs feel they will be discriminated against in bulk licensing if they make a different browser the default or offer their own ballot? The results of this poll were not made public, but we can infer the response based upon the EU's solution. However, even if MS does nothing at this point market forces resulting from their previous abuses will push OEMs to install IE as the default browser. This is because MS's intentional breaking of standards ala the famous "embrace, extent, extinguish" memos have resulted in a significant number of Web pages that only function properly in IE. Further, previous findings of fact in other jurisdictions have concluded this was intentional and not an accidental result of MS's actions. As a result, the state of the Web itself motivates OEMs to make IE the default and that state is the result of previous crimes.
The EU chose to make the ballot the default to minimize MS's ability to retaliate against OEMs. Until Web standards become the norm, however, any remedy from the EU will be only partially effective in restoring real competition and allowing that competition to drive innovation as it would in a capitalist, competitive free market.
don't forget the bias. Studies and studies and studies have been done which show that placement is important, and having IE in the middle here creates a bias. Basically people will just click center very commonly.
It is alphabetical by vendor name, as per the EU requirement.
"Microsoft shall ensure that third-party software products can interoperate with Microsoft's Relevant Software Products using the same Interoperability Information on an equal footing as other Microsoft Software Products."
This is similar to the terms of the US settlement from a while back. The promised to document all protocols and interfaces. So we can already see if they would live up to the new promise.
Well sort of. The US settlement applied only to APIs for interaction between Windows server and desktop versions and only for a limited time. A group was appointed to check on this and if MS was in non-compliance (as they have been several times) the courts had the power to keep watching them while doing nothing even longer.
The EU agreement just created a template contract for MS and a competitor to sign, where MS will agree to provide the same APIs to a competitor that it uses itself. MS, of course, gets to decide when it will sign such a contract and what modifications it will make for a given case. It's more of a guideline MS can use to promise not to break antitrust law for a specific competitor in order to "prove" compliance with antitrust law in that specific instance and speed along a civil case if they are breaking antirust law there.
Agreed. The agreement between the EU and Microsoft states that they just have to provide all the same API's publically that they use internally. There is nothing about legacy support.
It doesn't even go that far. They just drew up a "template" contract that MS can use when working with other companies that would grant them the rights to use the same APIs as some MS application, for a non-specified subset of the applications MS creates. Basically, it is a "we're not breaking this antitrust law with this product to disadvantage this competitor" contract designed to speed up civil lawsuits if MS does sign it and break it, but which will not be applied in any instances where MS has wiggle room to fight in court. They'll probably sign a version of it with Opera for the Web browser market where they're already pretty screwed, but when it comes to office suites or media players, who knows.
Sorry, but it's not a monopoly as long as I can buy one of these [apple.com], one of these [sun.com], or even one of these [dell.com].
Believe it or not, the world does not revolve around you. The end user is not the one with no power in MS's antitrust issues here. The question is, "can Dell license OS X for inclusion on their computer systems aimed at the home and corporate markets? Can Dell install Solaris or Ubuntu replacing Windows on the systems they ship, without going out of business? No they can't, except for a few niche markets, so MS has them over a barrel. That isn't even illegal, but screwing over other markets by using the fact that they have Dell over a barrel and using that influence to control Dell to the detriment of other markets is.
The self righteous sanctimony and distain you have of what is CLEARLY more people than ABC/NBC/CBS and probably CNN combined is interesting.
This is called "argumentum ad populum" and has been recognized as a logically fallacious argument for thousands of years.
The point I was making wasn't about the numbers of people, but the Elitism. I wasn't arguing about the popularity being right, I was arguing that your view was one of disdain for a large number of people.
First, your inference that I am disdainful of them is just that, an inference. It is not what I wrote. Second, you absolutely brought up a majority argument, otherwise you would not have needed to make mention that there were more people, than the viewers of the other programs, just many people. You did commit said logical fallacy.
No you idiot.
This is an ad hominem attack. I'm not an idiot for pointing out your grammatical error. I don't normally do so, but it was pertinent as you were bringing up the literacy of others in your argument.
...being an ignorant grammar nazi.
Grammar Nazis are annoying in general, but not ignorant. That's the point. They call out irrelevant ignorance in others, except it was relevant in this case since you were deriding the literacy or a particular group and brought the topic up in the first place.
Because there is a moderately significant correlation between people who no not pass high school and who vote Republican.
Citation needed.
The 1990 Gallup Poll, the last to Pew studies, and the ongoing Berkley demographic statistics project all are in agreement. Mind you, this references high school only, the numbers are actually very interesting because republicans gain a lot ground for people who have associates and bachelor's degree's then drop off again for advanced degrees. But we were talking about basic literacy, which is why I chose the high school numbers. I find the pew data on News program sources posted by IgnoramusMaximus even more illuminating.
Wow, where to start. First, an exit poll is not a study. Second, that's a correlation in voting between two candidates, not between parties. Finally, you didn't normalize for percentages of the population that voted for each candidate. If you don't see the problem with your citation then you hopefully failed statistics.
I could equally say that most uneducated, and under educated minorities vote Democratic, but you'd call that "Racist"...
You're still pushing the strawman argument hard huh? In the same fashion I guess I could continue to try to reason with you logically, but then you'd claim I was a member of the illuminati who kills babies and you have no proof that I kill babies so your argument fails, idiot.
or at least no formal education since you seem to be ignoring all the rules needed for a rational and civil discussion.
Blame it on my Public Education then, okay? My parents weren't rich enough to send me to one of those elite private schools where people can get a "formal" education.
So what? I went to public schools in a not very affluent area. I had to break up fights between by drink and violent history teacher and fellow classmates. I learned very little from my supposed teachers. That doesn't mean I wear ignorance like a medal. Go read some freaking books on logic and rhetoric or take some classes at a local college. Your education is obviously lacking and if you want to be taken seriously in any discussion amon
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He hasnt done a damn thing. He's Black thats it. He received an award for being black. Thats the only rational way ANYONE could ever make any sense out of this.
I'm not particularly an Obama fan. I have hope that he will eventually get some economic reforms pushed through congress, but I understand he's a politician with limited political capital and significant motivations I disagree with. That said, I think you're completely wrong.
He was given this prize partly because of the steps he's taken and partly because many people want to encourage the US to continue on the path it has started over the last few months and there is hope this will provide Obama with more political capital to get it done. The things I'm talking about the world wanting to encourage are twofold. First, taking a better stance on human rights and being less "scary" to the rest of the world. Second, being diplomatic and facilitating discussions and cooperation with countries the US has been refusing to even talk to as a prelude to potentially solving our problems.
He has failed on Universal Health Care and have handed over our tax dollars to rich corporations while Americans lose their jobs, their homes and receive nothing in the form of a ballout or help from our government.
Obama is not the problem when it comes to healthcare. He's been pushing it as hard as any president ever has, maybe harder. Congress, on the other hand, has been stalling and hedging and most of it is still taking money and listening to lobbyists from a health concern somewhere.
As for economic recovery, pretty much everything this and the last administration has done has been emergency measures to stem the tide of our economic collapse. Nothing has been done longterm that will solve the fundamental problems, but healthcare is one of those basic changes that (implemented well) can lead to economic recovery. Paying for it by increasing taxes on the extreme high end (where they've been drastically cut over the last 10-20 years) rather than racking up more national debt is another and these are both things Obama has been pushing hard for, but which he is having trouble getting through congress because he simply does not have the political capital. He can stand up an say we need universal healthcare and individual congress people want to be re-elected and know their constituents want it and they can't openly oppose it regardless how much of their campaign money comes from health insurance companies. So a significant number publicly agree and then try to undermine the process and stall and create weakened and ineffective solutions and nothing effective gets done.
Part of the motivation for giving Obama the Nobel Peace Prize is to make it harder to pretend when he is specifically calling out congress on an issue. And I can understand that as a pretty valid motivation for giving it to him.
And what has he done of the things he can actually do directly? He made an official policy banning torture in all its forms by any government employee. He has started talks with countries that have been our enemies around the world. He has made it clear that the US will not act out of religious motivation and try to push a version of christianity on other countries and some of the believe it (which very few believed a few years ago). He instituted policies making it a lot harder to hide what is going on in the day to day business of the government and started programs to make said information available to end users. His commitment to these policies has not been strongly tested and obviously they will not want everything public, but it is a significant improvement.
He's robin hood for the wrong team.
Actually, most of the money Obama actually pushed for has been going to smaller community projects and cities and the like than, well almost anything to make it through congress in years. There was a lot of pork tacked on, for certain, but that's something he public
If a bundled web browser is an antitrust issue... then why isn't bundled "office" software?
It depends upon how it is sold to OEMs mostly. A company interested in obeying antitrust law would sell these to OEMs as a completely separate interaction than licensing Windows, using different contacts from a different division of the company and make it perfectly clear that OEM licensing will not be affected by whether or not that company decides to ship a version of MS Office.
MS, is unlikely to do that based upon their previous track record, and may do just the opposite. Everything they do to tie the two sales pulls them closer to an actionable antitrust offense.
There's a second antitrust issue here too. Depending upon how the markets are defined by the courts, MS could be running into antitrust issues within different segments of the office suite market (unlikely) or prices fixing problems. You see, MS has never ben declared by any court I know of to have a monopoly on office suite software, but they have handed out some very large private settlements during the 11th hour of civil suits that would have established that had they lost. So while it is not proven in court, MS probably has monopoly influence on that market, which makes differential pricing of "versions" of their office suite aimed at extracting the most money from each subgroup of society a potential antitrust issue.
Yeah, now if only you understood why we have antitrust laws you might reconsider that opinion.
Any law which so blatantly harms consumers, is insane.
But without those antitrust laws IBM could have killed MS right away and they would never have made any of the products you seem so enamored of. You do know IBM was under antitrust restrictions at the time, right?
It's basically saying that once a product vendor hits a certain "level of influence", they are legally prohibited from improving their product, should any of those improvements already be provided by third parties.
No, it's saying they have to improve their product in a competitive fashion. If some company sells an Add on for Windows, MS can do the same. They just have to sell it separate from Windows just like their competitors have to. They can make Windows modular if they want to make the task easier. Also, they can add any feature directly into Windows if that feature is actually an innovation and there is not an already existing market for it. Finally, they can improve their product by making it better at fulfilling the role it already does.
If you can't see why that is fundamentally broken, then I'm afraid you're beyond help.
What you said was not true, so that's not an issue.
But lets cut the crap. You think you can do better? What's your proposal. Would you just get rid of all antitrust laws? Would you modify them in some way. What's your alternative proposal?
But they can't. Any feature they add (heck, added, since being ruled a monopoly - it's not like they could know until after the fact) that a third party already provided, is an antitrust violation.
That's your unsupported assertion, not mine.
Forcing people to go out and buy whole new software (and possibly hardware) stacks because their existing vendor is legally prohibited from giving them the improvements they want is "innovation and competition" ?
No forcing MS out of being able to ignore customers brings about innovation and competition. Why do you think capitalism works in the first place. We have five companies making a product instead of one with all sorts of duplicated work as a result. Surely socialism is the way to go to eliminate all that waste. But all that waste is inherent in multiple companies competing and that's what brings innovation. A commercial monopoly is the worst of all possible combinations.
You are arguing that any feature of Windows that was available from a third party beforehand is inherently an antitrust violation.
For the fourth time "Pre-existing separate markets". Any feature of Windows added after they gained a monopoly, that was available from a for profit company is an antitrust violation unless it is sold as a separate purchase from Windows to consumers. If MS wants to sell IE they can, they just have to pitch it to Dell and Lenovo and HP separate from Windows and not using the fact that those companies need Windows to gain them an unfair advantage over Mozilla or Opera.
It's your reasoning, not mine.
No it's your twisted interpretation of my quoting the law.
My reasoning says that your reasoning is obviously and blatantly harmful to consumers, therefore wrong, and therefore won't be held up by any court with some semblance of sanity.
Right then. I asked for a counter proposal. How would you fix antitrust law so it conforms with your economic and legal beliefs?
The question is, "can Dell license OS X for inclusion on their computer systems aimed at the home and corporate markets?
No, but that's not microsoft's fault.
No it isn't, but that isn't what MS is being convicted of. It's legal for Microsoft to have monopoly influence and have all this power over Dell. It's illegal for MS to abuse that power to gain in other markets.
An analogy would be a person convicted of murder for shooting a person. A lot of people are arguing they did not have a gun and so could not have committed the murder. The fact that Dell cannot license OS X speaks to the amount of power MS has and thus their ability to commit the crime. Since we know they bundled IE with Windows (unless you want argue that) that makes them clearly guilty. (This in continuing our analogy would be the murderer being seen by everyone to hold out their hand and point it at the victim while making a pulling motion with their finger).
First, wikipedia or any encyclopedia is not a valid source. Second, the DoJ filed a criminal suit against MS. The basis for that criminal suit was a consolidation of a series of civil suits. So the quote you cite is accurate, but doesn't say what you think it does.
There are those who like to say MS was "convicted" because it sounds more sinister, but the it's still wrong.
No I say MS was convicted of leveraging their desktop OS influence into the server OS space, because the EU convicted them of it.
just because the PC market revolves around Windows does not mean that the dell, gateway and other companies have a right to use the power of the government to tell microsoft what they can or cant do with there OS.
No it means the government can tell Microsoft what they can and can't do with their OS. Microsoft is a corporation, remember? They're a legal entity that exists because the government dreamed up such a thing and even if they weren't the government has the power to pass laws that regulate interstate commerce. Remember we the people are in charge and our democracy created these laws to stop the robber barons and trusts that were causing great harm. So we wrote laws and everyone has to obey them because it is rule by law. IBM had to obey them or MS would not exist. Now MS has to obey them. The EU basically copied the laws already on the books in the US and the US already took MS to court for this same act which MS has not stopped doing.
...they don't tell apple[sic] that OS X cant include sarafi[sic].
No they don't because that particular law does not apply to Apples bundling of OS X and Safari. The government can only punish people who break the law. Weird huh?
...the point is you shouldn't punish sucess[sic].
No, you shouldn't, but the successful are also powerful and power comes with responsibility. We don't punish companies that successfully acquire a warehouse full of dynamite, but they are subject to additional regulations because of the danger represented by the power they have. Monopoly influence on a market is like economic dynamite. It can destroy innovation in a different market if misused.
there are way to many anti trust suits against any company that does well coming from the socialist EU.
How is the EU more socialist that the US? We pay more in taxes to fund government programs than citizens in many EU countries. As for too many antitrust suits, the US has taken MS to court on this exact same antitrust abuse, our courts were just more easily bribed when MS donated piles of money to re-election campaigns and then after the election all the people running the prosecution were replaced and MS was given no real punishment. You're saying the EU should ignore their laws when companies commit crimes? Or are you saying they should be like the US and just accept "lobbying funds" and make the whole thing go away?
both microsoft and intel should just pull there[sic] products out of the EU and then see what they do. then they would come and begging for there[sic] products once they relize[sic] the other crappy options avalible[sic] to them.
Umm, yeah. That would be about the stupidest thing any corporate executive ever did. Ballmer would be fired in hours and replaced. What, exactly, do you think governments do when you break the law while directly challenging their authority? The EU would confiscate all the funds and assets of those companies for further antitrust violations and probably confiscate all their copyrights and patents. Technically the US would even be bound to honor the transfer of intellectual property rights by the treaties we've signed. Even if we didn't you want to bet China and the rest of the world bound by the same treaties would not? Suddenly all MS and Intel patents and copyrights are public domain everywhere but the US, that includes the source code. Even if the US government was a complete puppet, we'd be screwed since it would just mean US companies have to pay while the rest of the world outcompetes us with lower costs.
Yeah, I don't think you've thought any of your ideas through.
I think you're confused. As I've pointed out numerous times on Slashdot and the media has pointed out in just about any article about the US Antitrust case against MS it was a civil proceeding, not a criminal one and thus MS wasn't "convicted" of anything.
You're mistaken. The Clayton and Sherman acts are both criminal law. You're confused because most antitrust cases begin as civil suits, but are then taken over by the Department of Justice. The DoJ does not sue anyone, they prosecute them.
The European Commission is not a court, it the EU's executive branch that makes EU policy. The fines levied against MS are a matter of policy, not law.
It's true the EC is not a court. They are an executive body just like the DoJ is. They work things slightly differently in that the EC can levy fines directly, but those the fines are levied against can go to the court to contest them if they want to make a trial out of it. MS did appeal their last case to the court and was convicted. This case they did not bother to contest. You're right that the EC enforces policy, but it's policy like "we will aggressively go after criminals involved in money laundering" not some arbitrary enforcement of ill defined rules. They are enforcing the law and competition law in the EU is criminal law.
That blurs the issue. Opera is getting a free thing. Whether or not other browsers are getting it, doesn't matter. Opera filed the legal complaint, and they are getting free ads for doing so.
Yes, as part of the punishment imposed upon MS for breaking the law in a way that hurts Opera. I suppose you object to companies that commit fraud being forced to pay reparations to their victims after they are convicted too? And companies that commit libel being forced to issue a formal retraction as part of their punishment after being convicted?
You're a conspiracy theorist kook! Please educate yourself.
Wow. The insanity of laws knows no bounds.
Yeah, now if only you understood why we have antitrust laws you might reconsider that opinion.
I imagine you'd have trouble finding a single feature added to Windows since its invention, that didn't exist in some piece of independent software beforehand.
That's irrelevant. For the third time "Pre-existing separate markets".
That, in essence, you're arguing Windows cannot exist in both a useful and antitrust-compliant fashion, should hopefully highlight the foolishness of it.
It absolutely can, they just need to structure themselves with compliance with the law in mind. But hey, if you think it's impossible, that's fine because an MS that has had their monopoly power removed by being split up is the best possible thing for innovation and competition. By all means, let's assume it is impossible MS will ever be able to comply and break them up so they can bundle anything they want.
You state that MS was "convicted" (your expertise is slipping) of leveraging their desktop OS to gain an advantage in the server OS space but you don't provide any evidence that indeed they did.
What you slept through the dozens of Slashdot articles and major news outlet coverage of the previous EU antitrust trial. Yes they were CONVICTED as antitrust law is criminal law in the US and EU. â497 million, the largest fine they'd ever handed out when MS stalled on complying with the order for years.
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1016_3-5060463.html
How much market share did competing products lose?
How could anyone say? What portion of the growth MS experienced was due to their criminal activities and what was due to honest competition? Would they have been losing market share if they were not breaking the law? No one will ever know for certain.
How much market share did competing products lose?
Linux lost about 7% and other UNIX versions about 13% the same over that time period. It's hard to get reliable numbers.
Is MS now the market leader in Sever[sic] OS's? Have they ever been?
By revenue, yes they do have the largest chunk of the market at about 38%.
This is about preserving the status quo in the server space, to reduce competition by holding back MS.
How is giving all servers a level playing field and letting all of them access Windows desktops the same way, holding MS back? Are you implying they can only win market share by artificially breaking other server OS's instead of by making the best server?
It's not about increasing competition it's about decreasing it.
Yeah in Bizaaro World letting monopolies leverage their monopolies into new markets increases competition. You're one of the worst MS apologizers I've ever heard. Even if you don't agree with the laws on the books, everyone has to follow them. MS wouldn't even exist if the same laws had not been enforced against IBM in the first place. Now MS should be allowed to break them at will? Frankly, I think you're an idiot or an astroturfer.
For example, if MS makes them pay for the cost of developing Internet Explorer and bundles that cost into the cost of Windows, when there was a preexisting market for web browsers, [...]
The primary tenuous assumption here being that there was ever a distinct market for web browsers.
That's not even slightly tenuous when you understand how the law defines markets. There does not have to be direct sales, just profit. Mozilla makes money today by creating a web browser.
The second being that the price of Windows would have changed if it didn't have IE.
Which is not something that is necessary or even needs to be proved to hold up in court. Unless the developers working on IE do so out of charity, it assumed a bundled costs by the courts otherwise it would always be impossible to prove such violations. Just because you call something "free" in marketing does not mean economists or judges accept your claim at face value. When you do a buy one get one free sale at the grocery store, you can still sue the maker is still liable for and damages because of the second product. The same is true here. It's bundled, but since it only comes with a purchased product it is bundling.
Unless, of course, you want to argue that every single aspect of Windows's functionality introduced with and since Windows 95, is an antitrust violation ?
We've had this discussion before. Pre-existing separate markets are the criteria for abuse. Not every feature added to Windows, only those added once MS had monopoly power that duplicated the functionality of products from pre-existing separate markets. That does include a lot of items MS has not been taken to court for yet, but that doesn't mean they are not illegal.
According to the SAMBA team, Microsoft has actually been fairly open (both in terms of providing docs and in terms of providing info/answers/clarification) when it comes to the protocols SAMBA deals with.
Yeah and it only took what, three years after they were convicted and ordered to open up the protocols, before they complied?
The only problems is lack of choice of hardware and paying a premium for another OS:
Not at all. Even if every computer Dell sold and every other OEM sold came with the option of Windows or Linux, that does nothing to lessen MS's power over Dell unless Windows actually lost market share significantly as a result. Until they lose the ability to leverage their large market share into other markets, they need to be effectively stopped by the courts from doing so. I favor doing this by directly eliminating their monopoly, but the EU will never do so for diplomatic reasons.
I think you'll find it's the customers who have Dell over a barrel. They would be the ones who dictate whether or not the computers Dell sells will be bought.
Sellers are always directly accountable to purchasers and this is normal and beneficial to the operation of a competitive market. The problem with monopolies is they break that. Dell as a purchaser should have the power over MS. If M meets their needs Dell buys from them. If not, Dell buys from a competitor. Except in this case Dell has no other realistic options for the mainstream because of lock-in to Windows. As a result, regardless of if MS does what their customers want, the customers still buy from MS. All of this is legal, but it places MS in a position of power over Dell and other OEMs and when a company is in such a position of power the law forbids them from using it to make other markets less competitive.
For example, if MS makes them pay for the cost of developing Internet Explorer and bundles that cost into the cost of Windows, when there was a preexisting market for web browsers, then MS is using their power in the desktop OS market to force Dell to do something they would not do in a competitive market. At the same time, MS is hurting other companies that profit from producing web browsers. If MS convinces OEs they will have their prices raised higher than their competitors if they uninstall IE or install another browser, they're doing the same. If they continue both practices while at the same time intentionally breaking compatibility with other Web browsers, with the intent of making the Web itself reliant upon their browser, they are certainly illegally leveraging their position, and that is exactly what documents discovered by the courts showed MS's strategy to be.
Typical European Protectionism
Yeah, because when I'm being protectionist I implement policies that promote four US companies in addition to one european one that isn't a member state of the European Union I work for. I further take care to word the decision such that if that one european competitor slips just a bit in market share they are removed entirely from the solution. Also, just to cover my tracks, spend a decade convicting european companies of antitrust violations on a regular basis and handing out big fines and remedies to them.
Nice attempt to deflect based on the idea that I'm not qualified to speak.
What are you talking about? I asked you to make sure you actually understand the concepts of a topic before commenting on it, so I don't have to repeat for the hundredth time an explanation of how antitrust law works and why it exists. Why people feel they should express their opinion without being informed on this topic, when they would not do so on geophysics or Perl is beyond me.
"gaining an advantage" against a competing product is quite different than "eliminating" one.
Yes it is. But since both are detrimental and both are illegal if you're leveraging an existing monopoly to do it, your comment lacks relevance. Windows ME and Windows XP are quite different, but that doesn't have any bearing here, either.
But in some cases there isn't much evidence even for the lesser charge.
In some cases? Please be specific about what cases you feel are lacking in evidence because the whole thing is pretty open and shut from my perspective. MS did not even bother to contest the charges with regard to IE this time around after having been convicted in several other jurisdictions.
What server OS's have MS gained an advantage over because they dominate the desktop and how was it done?
MS was convicted of leveraging their desktop OS to gain an advantage in the server OS space by creating secret and nonstandard protocols for communication between the various Windows desktop OS's and their Windows Server product. Competitors were forced to reverse engineer these protocols in order to effectively provide services to Windows desktops. These API's and protocols included Active Directory which was specifically addressed. MS was ordered to fully document the protocols and APIs and license them to competitors. This is largely the reason SAMBA is so much more functional these days. MS was convicted in 2004 but did not comply until 2007. You might recall them racking up huge noncompliance fines in the interim. Note, MS was convicted of antitrust violation for tying in this instance, but it was not the specific form of tying that is bundling, which they are guilty of with regard to IE.
OK, so they are dominant in one area - the desktop OS market. Now which competitors have they eliminated and what specific MS actions caused that elimination?
The previous poster said they eliminated competition, not competitors. It's the same as eliminating competition by sabotaging a rival athlete's car so they can't get to the track meet or cutting their hamstring or rubbing grease on their shoes. You don't actually have to kill the rival in order to eliminate competition.
MS has dominance in the desktop OS market as you said. They have used that to gain an advantage in the web browser, media jukebox software, server OS, and several other markets. The method they used was tying, and for web browsers the specific method was bundling, the most common form of tying. Now to preclude any uninformed but common concepts you might bring up in reply: markets don't have to be direct exchanges of cash for laws or economic principals to apply; "free" is a marketing term, rather than an economics term in this case; the law applies to separate, existing markets at the time of the abuse regardless of how they are related; tying is defined in terms of markets, not of any other arbitrary grouping; tying is only detrimental and illegal when the tying is between a market with dominance and a separate market so it does not apply to OS X and Safari or Ubuntu and Firefox.
If you want more in depth discussion please make sure you understand what antitrust laws are, why we have them (historically and economically), and why markets are defined the way they are. These are basic facts you should know and understand before making arguments about specific antitrust cases.
Dell has been selling redhat on their business computers for a few years now.
Sure, for a very small, niche segment of their business customers. They cannot, however, replace Windows as the OS component on all their business PC's the way they can replace the soundcard component in all their business PC's, because if they do they will go out of business.
The end user IS the one with no power.
Not as a direct result of MS's market influence. MS sells Windows primarily to OEMs and enterprises. They sell very few boxed copies to end users. OEMs and site licensees define the market and are the ones who MS has huge influence over.
I would like to see as many os options available from a hardware vendor.
I'd like a solid gold beagle. What's your point? Is there some law you think should or does make our wishes law?
Was there something in the OEM licenses that prevented PC vendors from installing 3rd-party browsers? The "settlement" spends a lot of time talking about the ballot screen for selecting browsers. But I'm not sure why another vendor could not have made their own ballot screen if they wanted. Or just install whatever browser they like.
In the past there were but that is no longer necessary. The EU did poll OEMs and ask if they were being pressured by MS before they implemented this solution. Do OEMs feel they will be discriminated against in bulk licensing if they make a different browser the default or offer their own ballot? The results of this poll were not made public, but we can infer the response based upon the EU's solution. However, even if MS does nothing at this point market forces resulting from their previous abuses will push OEMs to install IE as the default browser. This is because MS's intentional breaking of standards ala the famous "embrace, extent, extinguish" memos have resulted in a significant number of Web pages that only function properly in IE. Further, previous findings of fact in other jurisdictions have concluded this was intentional and not an accidental result of MS's actions. As a result, the state of the Web itself motivates OEMs to make IE the default and that state is the result of previous crimes.
The EU chose to make the ballot the default to minimize MS's ability to retaliate against OEMs. Until Web standards become the norm, however, any remedy from the EU will be only partially effective in restoring real competition and allowing that competition to drive innovation as it would in a capitalist, competitive free market.
don't forget the bias. Studies and studies and studies have been done which show that placement is important, and having IE in the middle here creates a bias. Basically people will just click center very commonly.
It is alphabetical by vendor name, as per the EU requirement.
"Microsoft shall ensure that third-party software products can interoperate with Microsoft's Relevant Software Products using the same Interoperability Information on an equal footing as other Microsoft Software Products."
This is similar to the terms of the US settlement from a while back. The promised to document all protocols and interfaces. So we can already see if they would live up to the new promise.
Well sort of. The US settlement applied only to APIs for interaction between Windows server and desktop versions and only for a limited time. A group was appointed to check on this and if MS was in non-compliance (as they have been several times) the courts had the power to keep watching them while doing nothing even longer.
The EU agreement just created a template contract for MS and a competitor to sign, where MS will agree to provide the same APIs to a competitor that it uses itself. MS, of course, gets to decide when it will sign such a contract and what modifications it will make for a given case. It's more of a guideline MS can use to promise not to break antitrust law for a specific competitor in order to "prove" compliance with antitrust law in that specific instance and speed along a civil case if they are breaking antirust law there.
Both are pretty worthless in the general case.
Agreed. The agreement between the EU and Microsoft states that they just have to provide all the same API's publically that they use internally. There is nothing about legacy support.
It doesn't even go that far. They just drew up a "template" contract that MS can use when working with other companies that would grant them the rights to use the same APIs as some MS application, for a non-specified subset of the applications MS creates. Basically, it is a "we're not breaking this antitrust law with this product to disadvantage this competitor" contract designed to speed up civil lawsuits if MS does sign it and break it, but which will not be applied in any instances where MS has wiggle room to fight in court. They'll probably sign a version of it with Opera for the Web browser market where they're already pretty screwed, but when it comes to office suites or media players, who knows.
Sorry, but it's not a monopoly as long as I can buy one of these [apple.com], one of these [sun.com], or even one of these [dell.com].
Believe it or not, the world does not revolve around you. The end user is not the one with no power in MS's antitrust issues here. The question is, "can Dell license OS X for inclusion on their computer systems aimed at the home and corporate markets? Can Dell install Solaris or Ubuntu replacing Windows on the systems they ship, without going out of business? No they can't, except for a few niche markets, so MS has them over a barrel. That isn't even illegal, but screwing over other markets by using the fact that they have Dell over a barrel and using that influence to control Dell to the detriment of other markets is.
Never had problems... installing Firefox on windows. What is all the fuss about?
This is about antitrust tying/bundling. If you don't know what that is, I suggest you look it up or simply ignore this article as over your head.
Sorry it took so long to reply, I have been busy.
The self righteous sanctimony and distain you have of what is CLEARLY more people than ABC/NBC/CBS and probably CNN combined is interesting.
This is called "argumentum ad populum" and has been recognized as a logically fallacious argument for thousands of years.
The point I was making wasn't about the numbers of people, but the Elitism. I wasn't arguing about the popularity being right, I was arguing that your view was one of disdain for a large number of people.
First, your inference that I am disdainful of them is just that, an inference. It is not what I wrote. Second, you absolutely brought up a majority argument, otherwise you would not have needed to make mention that there were more people, than the viewers of the other programs, just many people. You did commit said logical fallacy.
No you idiot.
This is an ad hominem attack. I'm not an idiot for pointing out your grammatical error. I don't normally do so, but it was pertinent as you were bringing up the literacy of others in your argument.
...being an ignorant grammar nazi.
Grammar Nazis are annoying in general, but not ignorant. That's the point. They call out irrelevant ignorance in others, except it was relevant in this case since you were deriding the literacy or a particular group and brought the topic up in the first place.
Because there is a moderately significant correlation between people who no not pass high school and who vote Republican.
Citation needed.
The 1990 Gallup Poll, the last to Pew studies, and the ongoing Berkley demographic statistics project all are in agreement. Mind you, this references high school only, the numbers are actually very interesting because republicans gain a lot ground for people who have associates and bachelor's degree's then drop off again for advanced degrees. But we were talking about basic literacy, which is why I chose the high school numbers. I find the pew data on News program sources posted by IgnoramusMaximus even more illuminating.
Wait, I got one .... http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1 [cnn.com]
Wow, where to start. First, an exit poll is not a study. Second, that's a correlation in voting between two candidates, not between parties. Finally, you didn't normalize for percentages of the population that voted for each candidate. If you don't see the problem with your citation then you hopefully failed statistics.
I could equally say that most uneducated, and under educated minorities vote Democratic, but you'd call that "Racist"...
You're still pushing the strawman argument hard huh? In the same fashion I guess I could continue to try to reason with you logically, but then you'd claim I was a member of the illuminati who kills babies and you have no proof that I kill babies so your argument fails, idiot.
or at least no formal education since you seem to be ignoring all the rules needed for a rational and civil discussion.
Blame it on my Public Education then, okay? My parents weren't rich enough to send me to one of those elite private schools where people can get a "formal" education.
So what? I went to public schools in a not very affluent area. I had to break up fights between by drink and violent history teacher and fellow classmates. I learned very little from my supposed teachers. That doesn't mean I wear ignorance like a medal. Go read some freaking books on logic and rhetoric or take some classes at a local college. Your education is obviously lacking and if you want to be taken seriously in any discussion amon