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The Courts Government Microsoft News

Massachusetts Probing Microsoft Settlement Gripes 158

Posted by timothy 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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Massachusetts Probing Microsoft Settlement Gripes More

Massachusetts Probing Microsoft Settlement Gripes

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  • Which company. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ximian is based in Boston IIRC...

    • Re:Which company. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Far more likely Lotus/IBM. Lotus (owned by IBM) being based in Mass and IBM having a significant presence there as well.

    • Actually, it could be any number of companies. There are a lot of technology companies in Southern NH and Mass inlcuding Red Hat which has a R&D center in Mass. At one time Sun was in Mass, but I don't know if they still are there.

  • Wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by Aadain2001 ( 684036 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @07:54PM (#6387646) Journal
    You mean there is actually someone out there trying to inforce the MS penalties?!?!?!?! I thought everyone knew they were all just a big joke and it was back to business as usually for Microsoft.

    • Re:Wow (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      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)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well Massachusetts has weird laws, for instance:

      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."
      • Well Massachusetts has weird laws

        Oh really? In Boston for instance, it is illegal to bathe without the authorization of a physician.

  • Would it really surprise anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dr Reducto ( 665121 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @07:54PM (#6387647) Journal
    Does it really surprise anyone anymore if Microsoft is breaking the law. I mean, obviously the /. population thinks MS sucks, but It always seems as though MS just says it will do things to get the government off their backs, and then not do them. I'm dissapointed, but not surprised by this development.

  • Microsoft settlement lacked any Monopoly Money (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bethane ( 686358 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @07:57PM (#6387670) Homepage Journal
    The anti-trust settlement...
    -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 is this sort of thing marked as Interesting? Its rubbish. There is NO WAY that anyone could justify giving Microsoft's money to another company-backed organisation who in turn will use it to turn a profit.
      • Actually, there is, and it's really common. You know that lawsuit against IBM? Thats money that they want taken away from IBM and given to an organization that will turn a profit. The motive here would be resitution - the idea being that income gained from illegal activity is forfeit and that it's owed to the people who would have profited had you not performed your illegal activities.

        Now, why they didn't ask for restitution in this case I don't know - I assume there was some legal reason, or political dec

    • Why this "trust fund"? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by .com b4 .storm ( 581701 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:33PM (#6387863)

      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.

    • Re:Microsoft settlement lacked any Monopoly Money (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Darth ( 29071 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:42PM (#6387911) Homepage
      i disagree with your assertion that that solution would be fair.

      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?)
      • Many Microsoft employees I spoke with - especially engineers - were hoping that the company would be broken up. They were tired of working only on products designed to reinforce the monopoly and wanted to design, market and sell competitive products.

        For example, the Office people wanted to be able to really improve the products, and design great products for Linux, etc. But they were stuck with the Windows legacy and reinforcing the Windows monopoly.
    • To be fair to property owners, the court should force MS to payout 120% of it's cash on hand as dividends all in 1 quarter. Then they should prohibit MS from buying, aquiring rights to, etc anything no copyrights, companies, patents--nada, zilch! Breaking MS up without taking the all the cash is pointless--look at the Baby bells for the results...
      As soon as MS looses all it's cash, it won't be able to sustain the huge losses it's taking trying to grab more markets. The stock market will ignore it just as
    • As I understood it the lawsuit was not to penalize microsoft, but to restore competition. Just a flat out monetary fine wouldn't really have done that.

      Oh yeah ... this is now the *only* reason I resepct my state's government!
    • monetary settlement

      Don't tell me that you're dissastisfied with Microsoft's donations of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of software to schools, etc!

      Why, that software alone represents a significant charitable contribution, as any tax attorney can tell you.

      And a good thing, too, because the profit margins on those Windows and Office CDs make everyone else green with envy: the cost to MS of producing those donated CDs is probably almost as much as what they pay spokespeople to announce the donation

  • Good (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BigDork1001 ( 683341 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @07:58PM (#6387677) Homepage
    Good! I hope more states will follow their lead. If pressure isn't kept on Microsoft they won't change. They've already proved that some. I don't think the states should let up on Microsoft until there's actually some change.

    • Nice thought, but too late. I think every other state has withdrawn from the case. West Virginia was the last holdout besides Massachussetts, and they dropped their case recently.

  • Another Troll (Score:5, Funny)

    by tarquin_fim_bim ( 649994 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @07:59PM (#6387682)
    "whether the company had properly offered communications protocols allowing non-Microsoft software to work well with Windows"

    Jeez, give 'em a break they're still trying to make Microsoft software to work well with Windows.
    • They've already produced the pinicle of MS software that intigrates with Windows: IIS :)

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:01PM (#6387694) Homepage Journal
    The konsent dekree approved by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in November inkludes provisions aimed at giving komputer makers more freedom to feature non-Mikrosoft software on the machines they sell.

    Microsoft promised to change it's brandname to Mikrosoft provided Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled in their favor.

  • Thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by scrotch ( 605605 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:01PM (#6387698)
    I'm really glad they're following up on this. The penalties were hardly enough to break up a monopoly, and Microsoft gave many indications that they would pretty much ignore the whole thing.

    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)

      by Anonymous Coward
      M$ licenses WinXP to Dell for $17 a copy and they sell it at stores for $300. What a bunch of assholes.

      • Re:Thank goodness (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Aadain2001 ( 684036 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:15PM (#6387771) Journal
        I think that's a verying good point! MS does NOT make their money from the individual consumer. They make it from the corporate sales and the large OEMs like Dell. 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?

        • Re:Thank goodness (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Darth ( 29071 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:29PM (#6387843) Homepage
          Who here wouldn't buy a legal copy of XP Pro for $50?

          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.

          • Re:Thank goodness (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Daengbo ( 523424 )
            How about if they dropped their price 90+% like they did here in Thailand to fight the 100,000 new Linux computers the government is offering??? You and I probably still wouldn't (that probably is about you, not me), but a serious percentage of slashdot would have a copy, not to mention the rest of the world.

        • It's the licenses. (Score:2, Informative)

          by Population ( 687281 )
          Sure, a corporation can get XP on a new box from Dell. Because Dell licensed XP from Microsoft. And part of the purchase price goes to MS. But then that corporation has to pay MS for whatever license agreement that that corporation has with Microsoft. And no, the license you just purchased with the new Dell computer cannot be transfered. You have to pay for a new one. So, for one license, Microsoft gets paid twice. Now, suppose you don't upgrade the OS on that computer for 3 years (a very common pract

        • Re: Thank goodness (Score:5, Funny)

          by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @09:09PM (#6388073)


          > 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.

        • Re:Thank goodness (Score:4, Insightful)

          by HisMother ( 413313 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @09:42PM (#6388259)
          > Who here wouldn't buy a legal copy of XP Pro for $50?

          Same people who wouldn't buy a cow for $50. What the hell would I do with a cow, bargain or not?

        • Who here wouldn't buy a legal copy of XP Pro for $50?

          I would not. (Are you calling for some kind of Slashdot roll call here?)

          I will not install WinXP on any of my computers. For now, I use an old copy of NT4 for those (thankfully few) occasions where I have to do Win32 development. I hope that it will do the job for a while to come, but if I am faced with some really bad incompatibility, my "last resort" is to buy a copy of Win2000, hopefully at a closeout price. But I hope things don't come to that.
        • If they dropped the price of 2000 down to $50 bucks then yeah, my game machine would be running a legally licensed OS. If you can price the OS at about the same price as a good game, then you're getting into the right ballpark.

        • Re:Thank goodness (Score:3, Interesting)

          by HiThere ( 15173 ) *
          I wouldn't. For me the primary issue has always been their license. They could be free, and it wouldn't matter. They could pay me and it wouldn't matter. I don't want to sign a license that gives someone else the right to say whether or not I can see my own files.

          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*

        • Re:Thank goodness (Score:1, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          You don't seem to understand. The whole point of charging $189+ for retail is so when they come to OEMs and sell it for $50, they can also include $10-$20 of requirements, like don't include specific competitor products, don't modify the desktop in some way they don't like, etc. They still make a huge bundle (trivial development cost per license plus less packaging). If you could go out and buy Windows for $50, so could every OEM which means Microsoft would lose all control over dual boot setups, using n
        • Who here wouldn't buy a legal copy of XP Pro for $50?

          Me.

    • Monopoly is not illegal (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cloudless.net ( 629916 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:28PM (#6387831) Homepage
      "The penalties were hardly enough to break up a monopoly"

      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.

      • OK, but the penalties were not enough to discourage Microsoft from abusing its monopoly (which is illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act). Happy?

        psxndc

      • Re:Monopoly is not illegal (Score:4, Insightful)

        by mpe ( 36238 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @07:17AM (#6389875)
        It is not illegal to have a monopoly,

        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.
    • The Mac version of IE is being discontinued because Apple has Safari now. Since Safari is good and comes with the Mac for free, very few people will download **any** other browser for the Mac (Sounds familiar?)

      IE on the Mac doesn't make money but does cost MS via resources to develop/support it.

      It would be very surprising if MS did keep developing IE on the Mac. Much like Adobe dropping their product since Apple has something in the same space now.

  • MS got away with a slap on their wrists.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by hashish ( 62254 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:02PM (#6387703)
    Now it turns out that they have yet to have the slap on the wrist yet.

  • MS is in violation... (Score:4, Funny)

    by CySurflex ( 564206 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:05PM (#6387720)
    ...whether Microsoft had violated portions of the settlement prohibiting pacts requiring exclusive support of Microsoft software

    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)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This will be typical of states that are short on cash. They will be attacking compaines to get fines from them so they can get more cash for the social program shortfalls in the budget. They are already giving out more fines in states against citizens and passing more laws to squeeze us for more. To bad many ignorant fools do not understand politics and really believe that they care about Linux. Then again many idoits on /. believe central planning will save us so I should not expect much.

    The tobacco money

  • Massachusetts Attorney General Complaint Form (Score:5, Informative)

    by David Hume ( 200499 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:21PM (#6387799) Homepage

    Microsoft


    In 1998, Massachusetts, together with a group of states and the United States Department of Justice, filed a civil law suit against Microsoft Corporation alleging antitrust violations. In 2000, the Court found Microsoft liable for maintaining an illegal monopoly in personal computer operating systems. In November 2002, following an appeal and several court hearings, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a judgment in the Massachusetts case prohibiting Microsoft from continuing certain unlawful conduct.

    Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly is seeking stricter and more rigorous restrictions on Microsoft's business practices than those put in place by the Court judgment, and has asked the Court of Appeals to consider the matter. Massachusetts is scheduled to argue its appeal in November 2003.

    Even though Massachusetts is pursuing a further remedy, the Massachusetts Attorney General is working to ensure that Microsoft complies with the injunction issued in November 2002. If you or your business have a complaint about Microsoft's business behavior or practices, please complete a Complaint Form [state.ma.us] (File Size: 26 KB) and forward it to the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General, Consumer Protection and Antitrust Division, One Ashburton Place, Boston, MA 02108-1598, Attention: Kenneth Miller, CPAD. If you have a complaint against Microsoft, you also may call Kenneth Miller at (617) 727-2200 ext. 2965.


    Source: Massachusetts Attorney General Microsoft Page [state.ma.us]

    • " If you or your business have a complaint about Microsoft's business behavior or practices, please ......"

      Switch to Linux.....
    • Quoting the Massacusetts AG: "In November 2002, following an appeal and several court hearings, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a judgment in the Massachusetts case prohibiting Microsoft from continuing certain unlawful conduct." [emphasis mine]

      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

      • Ummm, IANAL and all that crap, but wasn't the Finding of Fact the statement that described the unlawful conduct as determined by the court (under Jackson) and the Final Judgement was the second stage where a remedy is put forward and assumes that some kind of guilt has already been established (essentially the difference between verdict and then sentencing). Isn't the statement referring to admission that you quoted, simply a measure put in by the Microsoft lawyers to indicate that THEY still admit to doing

    • I love this line.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Kwil ( 53679 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @11:10PM (#6388666)
      In November 2002, following an appeal and several court hearings, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a judgment in the Massachusetts case prohibiting Microsoft from continuing certain unlawful conduct.

      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.

  • Mass powered by ASP.NET (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:21PM (#6387801) Homepage Journal
    The state also complained that its investigation of Microsoft has been hampered by the Justice Department and some other states enforcing agreements that preclude any of the states from cooperating with Massachusetts."The exclusion of Massachusetts has been effective and complete," the state said.

    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

    • If they weren't using it, they probably wouldn't care so much.

    • Firstly it's IIS/5.0.

      Secondly, if you look up the domain in Netcraft, you'll see that the netblock is owned by a group called Softscape [softscape.com]. Further looking at this [ncsc.dni.us] would seem to indicate that Softscape is quite involved in the running of the Massachusetts Court's IT system (in terms of case and document management). It seems logical that there would be quite a bit of co-hosting going on.

  • MS evil? That's news to me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:27PM (#6387830)
    We all knew this would happen. The only question was when and if anybody noticed. Unfortunately, one of MS defences has always been ignorance. They can claim that they are so big that they don't know sometimes what each section of the company is doing. Take for example the iLoo fiasco [miningco.com]. Cynics like me think that the negative public reaction forced them to retract their statements. Billy G has always had a firm grasp of his company. Even though publicly he isn't running the company, as the major stockholder, he would be stupid not to be in charge. MS is still doing business as usual, now they are not so blatant about it.

  • Top Website (Score:5, Funny)

    by tds67 ( 670584 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @08:45PM (#6387926)
    Massachusetts also told U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that it will establish a Web site to solicit complaints about Microsoft's behavior...

    ...thereby replacing donotcall.gov [slashdot.org] as the hottest new website around.

  • Enforcement path? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Col. Klink (retired) ( 11632 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:07PM (#6388371)
    ...Massachusetts said that none of the allegations had been resolved and it would "move forward on an enforcement path should its investigations identify provable violations."
    Can anyone fill me in on this "enforcement path"? As I recall, the only penalty MicroSoft will suffer if they ignore the terms will be that they will have to ignore the settlement for 7 years rather than 5.

  • As expected... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I expect this of MS. Their typical arrogance and conception that they are above the law will eventually be their undoing, but until then we are at their mercy.

  • protocol problems, eh? you don;'t say! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Eminor ( 455350 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @11:12PM (#6388678)
    "whether the company had properly offered communications protocols allowing non-Microsoft software to work well with Windows"

    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.

  • MIT (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    but it's not clear which company's promotion of Linux is drawing the attention

    Isn't RMS based in or near MIT?

  • Why this won't be counted as non-compliance (Score:4, Informative)

    by edxwelch ( 600979 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @07:22AM (#6389893)
    Section III.A. of the agreement prevents Microsoft from punishing OEMs if they promote an alternative OS. However according to the government monitor of MS's compliance (http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f201100/201135.htm ) they are allowed to delay this part of the agreement until their sales people are "trained". In other words, they are allowed to punished OEMs for promoting Linux until the training is finished.

    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....

  • Suggestion (Score:2, Insightful)

    by cnoocy ( 452211 )
    Microsoft New England Offices: Waltham, MA
    [Microsoft Waltham Facility]
    Address: Microsoft Corporation, 201 Jones Road, Waltham, MA 02451
    Directions [microsoft.com]

    Send in state troopers and seize the site. If I were on probation and broke the conditions, I'd go to jail. Criminal corporations won't pay attention until you start treating them like criminals.
  • In case no one has yet posted the link:

    Massachusetts Attorney General [state.ma.us]

    This page also has a link to a complaint form [state.ma.us] where you can send your Microsoft gripes.

    I don't live in Massachusetts, but I'm thinking about writing anyway. I think we should take the time to formulate a few good letters to send to the Mass. Attorney General. In particular, we can address some of the following points (of course this is an incomplete list):

    • Lack of OEM support for non-Microsoft software. While there are several comp
  • Sorry for sounding paranoid, but the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation announced yesterday that they are donating "$13.6 million to provide high-quality small high schools for 10,000 more students". [gatesfoundation.com]

    Not to say that this is a bad thing, but with the continuing lawsuit between MA and MS, it sure sounds like Gates is using a charitable organization to do the dirty work of the business side.
  • Are any computer manufacturers offering dual-boot Windows/Linux computers yet? That was supposedly the POINT of the phony Justice Dept. "settlement."
  • It's amazing how a group of people who claim people like Jose Padilla are having their rights violated, then turn around and support infringement on the basic rights of Bill Gates, etc. They have a right to free trade, like anyone else, without govt. imposed restrictions that make them slaves to the consumer. You're a hypocrite if you complain about the Patriot act and then support antitrust legislation. Those who would give up a little liberty to avoid monopolies deserve communism.

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