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Massachusetts Probing Microsoft Settlement Gripes
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Jul 07, 2003 07:51 PM
from the imagine-that dept.
from the imagine-that dept.
tassii writes "In this article from Reuters, Massachusetts' DA's office told the judge in the Microsoft Anti-trust trial that it was looking into Microsoft settlement complaints. Among complaints being examined by Massachusetts was whether Microsoft had violated portions of the settlement prohibiting pacts requiring exclusive support of Microsoft software. Massachusetts was also examining whether the company had properly offered communications protocols allowing non-Microsoft software to work well with Windows." An Associated Press article covers the same story; the non-Microsoft software mentioned in both stories is Linux, but it's not clear which company's promotion of Linux is drawing the attention.
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Which company. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Which company. (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:2, Funny)
You mean there is actually someone out there trying to inforce the MS penalties?!?!?!?!
It's not like America was running out of bored lawyers.
Re:Wow (Score:2, Funny)
ATHOL, MA This northern Massachusetts town legally allows "horses, cats and/or dogs to enter into local taverns for a sip of sarsaparilla or any other unidentifiable beverage; or act in relation thereto."
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
In retrospect, no one seems to care what happens to corporate criminals (excluding Martha Stewart, but that's just because she, as Lewis Black said "made us feel bad about using parsley as a garnish").
I used to think that breaking MS up would have been a bad idea... now I'm wondering if it was the only feasible situation.
Parent
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
If that were too strict, they could always force them to release code the versions after they've "died"... that way people wouldn't be forced to upgrade, at least.
Parent
Re:Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not 100% true. MS has a vested interest in getting you to shell out $$$ when they need it. Once a product version is desupported, all they would need to do is break backwards compatibility and you'd be left with soon to be useless code.
Also, the antitrust trial was based on illegal business practices, namely bundling (dumping). The DOJ would never have seeked a penalty to force MS to open up their code since it didn't address the original c
Re: Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
> If I recall correctly, problem was when the first judge talked out of turn to the press, the government felt they had to ease up on the restrictions so people wouldn't feel that they were being too hard on Microsoft.
No, you're rolling two distinct events into one.
1) The judge did talk to the press in circumstances not generally deemed appropriate, but all that did was give legs to the appeal. The end result was that a higher court appointed another judge to give a second opinion on the penalty. IIRC the higher court didn't actually find fault with any of the lower court's decisions; they just didn't think the necessary proprieties had been observed. So they sent it back for a "clean room" second round in a different judge's court. There was absolutely nothing in the higher court's ruling that would have kept that second judge from "forking" Microsoft.
2) The second event was that by the time things got to the second judge's court there had been a regime change in the USA and the new regime's DoJ threw over the case and offered a handslap settlement to Microsoft, even though the Findings of Fact would have almost certainly let them get a hardball settlement if that had fit in with their new bosses' ideology. The new judge didn't see anything wrong with the proposed settlement and ignored the critics who pointed out the inevitable outcome...
Massachusets, IIRC, was the only state that didn't cave in somewhere along the way. Some never signed on; some did but then withdrew before it ever got to court (e.g. Texas, purportedly at the influence of Michael Dell); most of those left at the end of the trial signed off on the wrist slap.
All this from memory... I'm sure someone will correct me wherever I'm wrong.
Parent
Re:Wow (Score:3, Funny)
Would it really surprise anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Would it really surprise anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
They play the law like a cheap violin. Using it however it best serves their purpose.
If they want an idea, they steal it.
If you have worked for them, you can't have ideas of your own. See this [zdnet.co.uk] as an example.
Parent
Re:Would it really surprise anyone? (Score:2, Funny)
Oh wait...
Re:Would it really surprise anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
<shock>But, but, but they specifically agreed not to break the law!</shock>
If governmental bodies actually wanted to punish Microsoft, they would deploy alternative technologies.
Microsoft settlement lacked any Monopoly Money (Score:4, Interesting)
-lacked any monetary payment by Microsoft to those that had been wronged by their greed.
-lacked any understanding about how money in Microsoft's hands means less money in other competitor's hands. Microsoft could then throw huge amounts of money into software development and the competition could not. So - this has resulted in MS having the ability to write so many more lines of code, AND the ability to buy other companies out for the code that someone else created... something that no one else could afford to do!
Instead of having a monetary settlement where every person get a few dollars/money from Microsoft (where only the class action lawyers get the money) it would be better if a revisited settlement included a payment, from Microsoft's 46 Billion dollars in cash (that billy G etc has on hand right now) a payment to be made to a trust fund controlled by Open Source Leaders (Linus, for example) where this money could be evenly spread out to projects (free and commercial software projects for Linux, Apple OS, BSD, etc) that are needed to compete with Microsoft.
This type of settlement would be fair. And a settlement like this would improve the competition to where Microsoft would really have to innovate in order to compete.
Why this "trust fund"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of having a monetary settlement where every person get a few dollars/money from Microsoft (where only the class action lawyers get the money) it would be better if a revisited settlement included a payment, from Microsoft's 46 Billion dollars in cash (that billy G etc has on hand right now) a payment to be made to a trust fund controlled by Open Source Leaders (Linus, for example)
I'm not trolling, this is a legitimate question that will crop up if such an approach were to be seriously considered. Namely, why does open source deserve that "payment" any more than anyone else that competes with Microsoft? For example, Netscape's downfall can be at least partially attributed to Microsoft's various anti-competitive practices, so aren't they just as deserving of compensation? Just food for thought.
Parent
Re:Microsoft settlement lacked any Monopoly Money (Score:4, Insightful)
Any monetary payment for predatory monopoly actions by microsoft should be paid to groups and companies that were harmed by those actions. (like consumers, netscape, samba, etc)
Competition for microsoft should also come from closed source avenues and, in the event that microsoft's money were to be used to subsidize competitors, those avenues should be subsidized also. (not that i agree with the subsidy idea)
Open source software can and should win on it's moral and technological merits. The constraints on microsoft should be generic and make available the possibility of open and closed source competition for them. Then microsoft, open source competition, and closed source competition can all fight it out based on their merits instead of on subsidies or illegal business activities.
Personally, I think breaking Microsoft up was the right choice and anything short of that would lead to exactly where we are today. They effectively ignore any constraints put on them under the assumption that they can weather any legal action against them long enough to make the results of the legal action irrelevent.
With all the 3 strikes criminal laws getting so much support, it's sad that sufficiently wealthy companies can stay at bat as long as they want (provided nobody hits them with the breakup curve ball).
(how's that for a lame allegory?)
Parent
Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Another Troll (Score:5, Funny)
Jeez, give 'em a break they're still trying to make Microsoft software to work well with Windows.
Re:Another Troll (Score:2)
Re:Anti-MS FUD (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Anti-MS FUD (Score:3, Redundant)
Actually, I have banking software that only works in windows (well it's more secure, what would you expect a bank to use?), it crashes 1 out 5 times I use it at a rough guess. But then that would probably be a hardware problem wouldn't it?
Um...I hate to tell you, but...if it's just the application that's crashing, it (a) may well be trojaned, and (b) could very well be leaving easily compromised banking information in open files and readable memory, even if it's i/o to other processes is all encrypte
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft promised to change it's brandname to Mikrosoft provided Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled in their favor.
Thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft bought VirtualPC. They announced that the Mac version of IE would be discontinued. They've continued to offer special deals to sell Windows at little or no profit to (try to) keep Linux out of government and business.
The monopoly power Microsoft was convicted of abusing is still being used, and they are doing everything in their power to expand it.
Re:Thank goodness (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Thank goodness (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Thank goodness (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't. The only reason i have a copy of XP Home is because i couldnt get the laptop i wanted without a microsoft os. (and before people start in on me about wiping it or the refund thing: i know i'm not gonna get a refund unless i can get a few thousand people to ask for one with me. The machine now dual boots xp and gentoo. I use the XP partition to play games like raven shield and star wars galaxies.)
And wouldn't you not mind the bugs as much, concidering how much you had payed for it?
I would mind the bugs a lot. I would mind Microsoft's attitude towards the bugs a lot.
Parent
Re:Thank goodness (Score:3)
Re: Thank goodness (Score:5, Funny)
> If they are charging so little to OEMs but so much to consumers, they could probably drop the consumer price down to $50 for XP Pro and find the piracy rate dropping! Who here wouldn't buy a legal copy of XP Pro for $50? And wouldn't you not mind the bugs as much, concidering how much you had payed for it?
The market value of an operating system these days is $0.00 plus the bandwidth of a big download. A $50 OS is overpriced by approximately $50.
Or maybe by more than $50, since Microsoft appears willing to pay governments to use their OS whenever another option is getting serious consideration.
Parent
Re:Thank goodness (Score:4, Insightful)
Same people who wouldn't buy a cow for $50. What the hell would I do with a cow, bargain or not?
Parent
Re:Thank goodness (Score:3, Interesting)
And that stupid bit about "alter, copy, or remove any files on your disk"... That just about takes the cake. When I create something on my computer it's mine, and neither MS nor any other company has any rights to it. So they couldn't *PAY*
Monopoly is not illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not illegal to have a monopoly, and the penalties are not designed to break up the monopoly. The court already decided NOT to break up Microsoft.
Parent
Re:Monopoly is not illegal (Score:3, Insightful)
psxndc
Re:Monopoly is not illegal (Score:4, Insightful)
But it is illegal to do all sorts of things when you are a monopoly.
and the penalties are not designed to break up the monopoly. The court already decided NOT to break up Microsoft.
As Microsoft were a "repeat offender" you'd resonably expect a harsher penalty than was applied to them previously.
Parent
MS got away with a slap on their wrists.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MS got away with a slap on their wrists.... (Score:3, Funny)
MS is in violation... (Score:4, Funny)
They're also in violation of their restraining order against me, they're not supposed to come within 100 yards the judge said. But they're righ here, on my computer. GET AWAY! GET AWAY!
State Greed (Score:2, Insightful)
The tobacco money
Re:State Greed (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Massachusetts Attorney General Complaint Form (Score:5, Informative)
Source: Massachusetts Attorney General Microsoft Page [state.ma.us]
Re:Massachusetts Attorney General Complaint Form (Score:3, Funny)
Switch to Linux.....
Factual error by Massachusetts AG (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the final judgement entered on November 12, 2002 clearly says at the start: "AND WHEREAS, this Final Judgment does not constitute any admission by any party regarding any issue of fact or law". That is, the final judg
I love this line.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk about a meaningless injunction. "You broke the law! Now we have to pass another law saying you can't break the law!" Uhh.. yeah. Sure.
Parent
Mass powered by ASP.NET (Score:5, Interesting)
And needless to say, the Massachusetts Attorney General's website is running Microsoft-IIS/6.0
200 OK
Cache-Control: private
Connection: Keep-Alive
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2003 13:20:00 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
MS evil? That's news to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Top Website (Score:5, Funny)
...thereby replacing donotcall.gov [slashdot.org] as the hottest new website around.
Enforcement path? (Score:5, Funny)
protocol problems, eh? you don;'t say! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a problem. One that made me decide to switch email clients. A while back, my prof. send me my mark back in an attached file. I did not not "get the attachment". I hounded him a couple of times for the mark. He insisted that he sent it to me. He even said that my reply had the file attached. I did some investigation, and found that the attached file was there, but wasn't showing up in the user interface. On further investigation, I found that this is an issue when Outlook XP recieves attachments from Pine. Microsoft was aware of the problem and had no plans to fix it.
I have no idea why Outlook XP would recieve an attachment from Pine and not show it. It would seem like the code would almost have to be made to purposely do that. Who knows, maybe it is a bug.
A few months later, switch over to Linux entirely. I now use evolution. I never looked back.
Why this won't be counted as non-compliance (Score:4, Informative)
This training has been going on for the last two years. The agreement itself only is enforced for 5 years, so only 3 more years left to string out that training....