Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> Linux: What do you get if you add Microsoft and Novell?
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | What does the wikipedia say about protection rackets?
> | I'll add my comments in brackets {..}. These may or may not be
> | accurate:
> |
> | "A protection racket is an extortion scheme whereby a powerful
> | organization {Microsoft?}, most often a criminal organization or gang,
> | coerces individuals {you} or businesses {you} to pay protection money{
> | SUSE subscription fee} which allegedly serves to purchase the
> | organization's "protection" services {"patent peace of mind",
> | S. Ballmer*} against various external threats {patent lawyers}.
Protection rackets are a form of extortion.
Micrososft has openly engaged in fraud, extortion, blackmail, and
sabotage.
They openly admit to it in federal court trials. But they are always
ready with a quick and cheap settlement which absolves them of all
prior crimes. In addition, they can seal the records. And because
testimony given under such circumstances can't be used against them
under the 5th amendment, and since sealed records can only be unsealed
for criminal investigations, the Microsoft executives are protected.
Keep in mind that Microsoft pays $millions, even $billions to protect
it's executives, especially Bill Gates. This might be an abuse of the
corporate funds, but the key stake-holders also don't want want to see
Bill Gates going to jail either.
Because Microsoft does pay these penalties and settlements, it limits
the ability to prosecute them under such laws as the RICO act.
As a result, Microsoft is above the law. Which means that the only way
to get justice is to engage in lawlessness.
I don't mean breaking the law. I mean using the law against these
tactics. OSS is one example of this. GPL and GPL-3 are also good
tactics. In effect it makes it nearly impossible to target opposition,
yet provides opposition with access to markets which Microsoft has
closed off through collusion, Clayton Act violations, Sherman Act
violations, and lawlessness.
FireFox has been downloaded by 200 million users, and has proliferated
to perhaps 1-4 times that number. OpenOffice has been downloaded by
100 million users, and has similarly been proliferated by 2-4 times
that number. Linux VMWare Player and VMWare "Appliances" have also
been downloaded by nearly 100 million users, and may have similarly
been proliferated at 1-4 times that number.
Since Microsoft can't be defeated in the court room, it's being
defeated in the board room, in the government agencies, in the CVS
repositories.
We still don't really know the details of the Novell/Microsoft deal.
What was predictible is that without it, Microsoft's attempts to
interfere with OEMs who were being offered very generous terms such as
unlimited distributions for a fixed period of time, with no
requirements to exclude Microsoft, would have put Microsoft directly
into the cross-hairs of the compliance officers and compliance
committees in a manner which could not have been ignored.
The deal might have helped Microsoft prevent Novell from making the
offers, and the rejection of those offers, a matter for public trials.
Furthermore, it prevents Novell from pulling OEMs into a Clayton Act
lawsuit. Such a lawsuit would have forced OEMs to admit to being
willing participants in a scheme to exclude Microsoft competitors,
including Red Hat, Novell, DRI, SCO, Corel, Sun, and IBM, as well as
Linspire, from the OEM market. Those who did not want to be defendents
in such a lawsuit would have to testify against Microsoft, and would
have had to openly accept such software and openly defy Microsoft's
exclusionary licenses.
The door is still wide open. OEMs could still find themselves as
defendents in Clayton Act actions, and could still charged, since none
of Microsoft's prior settlements covered the OEMs, but only covered
Microsoft against antitrust actions.
SCO chose the wrong target, for the wrong reasons, and on the wrong
basis.
If SCO had gone after IBM for excluding them from the Marketplace in
favor of Windows, especially in workstation markets, they might have
not only been able to get a settlement, but IBM might have been willing
to cooperate with SCO in actions against Microsoft.
Instead, SCO tried to go against IBM based on the fact that IBM chose
Linux, who was able to deliver a product that had been promised and NOT
delivered by SCO, even though SCO had collected huge amounts of money
for the failed project.
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