US Antitrust Judge Examining Windows 7 Documents 225
Anonymous writes "After more than 11 years, the US antitrust case involving Microsoft is still alive, with a federal judge overseeing enforcement of provisions under which the software giant must operate. And now, Judge Kollar-Kotelly says she'll take a close look at new technical documents involving Windows 7. This case began during the Windows 95 era."
What's the point of this? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Summary (Score:5, Informative)
Can someone summarize exactly what we have achieved in this case?
Briefly, in the 1990's MS was found to have a monopoly in its OS, which is not illegal in and of itself, but that it also illegally used its monopoly OS to create barriers to entry in other competitive areas. Particularly, it illegaly tied its browser to the OS, making other browsers not function as well (e.g., for help file viewing) and more difficult to install. At trial, they were shown to be either liars or, if you are very generous, incompetent.
Detailed findings of fact found illegal anti-competitive behavior in multiple areas, and their punishment was to be broken up into several companies. On appeal, MS successfully got that ruling overturned, on the basis that the judge in the case had made some negative comments about MS prior to issuing his ruling. In the meantime, 15 separate cases against MS brought by state attorneys general were merged, and MS settled with them for something so trivial no one remembers what it was. California, New York, and maybe one or two other states held out and separately obtained billion dollar settlements.
Shortly after the break-up order was rescinded, George W. Bush came into office and all efforts to obtain a reasonable remedy were dropped. MS essentially got off scott-free, in the sense that they illegally transformed their OS monopoly into a browser monopoly, with all the due profit that entailed, and weren't punished at all except for what they had to pay their lawyers and a billion to California.
To summarize and answer your question: Not Much.
Re:Summary (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft DID document a number of otherwise undocumented APIs. And they have internal processes to ensure that Microsoft programs like Office, FoxPro, Visual C++ etc dont call anything thats undocumented, see this:
http://blogs.msdn.com/calvin_hsia/archive/2005/01/26/361033.aspx [msdn.com]
They did later document lots of network protocols but that was the EU and not the US that got them to do it.
Re:Windows 7 is dead (Score:3, Informative)
The only downside to using Windows is the cost.
The lack of basic interface features like virtual desktops and "always on top" is a downside. The lack of a comprehensive package manager is another one. Having to install Cygwin to get essential tools like SSH and GNU Screen is still another downside. As a competent user the dumbed down Windows interface is a downside I experience constantly.