In:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061122-8276.html
<quote>
Vista and IE7 have received a clean bill of health from the government
team overseeing Microsoft's compliance with the US antitrust ruling
(PDF) against it.
For the last several years, Microsoft has been documenting Windows
protocols and middleware systems to ensure that third-party
applications can take full advantage of the operating system's
architecture. The company has also worked with the government to
develop a special bug-tracking system for Vista designed to make sure
that Vista's middleware has no known antitrust issues when the OS is
released. In a new joint status report (PDF) on Microsoft's
compliance, the plaintiffs agreed that "this system has been a
success" and that developers who rely on middleware should be well-
prepared for Vista.
</quote>
If these compliance officers were military, they would be court-
marshelled for derilection of duty.
The court appointed the technical committee for the purpose of
monitoring compliance, not to rubber stamp Microsoft's most aggressive
monopolisation extensions since Windows 95.
And what about the compliance officers? Were they just asleep when
the terms of the Vista license were published? Keep in mind that
unless you purchase Vista ultimate, or Home Premium, which includes
the media players and antivirus, you are not ALLOWED to play MPEG4 or
MP3 media. Attempting to do so can be a violation of your license,
and Microsoft has the technology to disable the license if you violate
the terms of the license.
Nobody reads those EULA agreements. They certainly don't seem to
check with an attorney. They think they understand the license, not
realizing how easily Microsoft can squeeze them for more cash in a
flash.
This is why Microsoft IS ABOVE THE LAW!!
I'm beginning to believe that Microsoft could order the murder of top
competitors, and could get away with it, simply by using a slight
change in the terms of the EULA. Something like, "if the terms of the
agreement are violated the user will be terminated", and current
Administration would actually claim "Microsoft is only exercising
their right to profit from their innovation".
I'm a registered Republican, and have been a contributor to the
Republican National Committee, but this makes me so angry I'm tempted
to donate to the Democrats in protest.
We know know, as a result of the Jack Abramof (sic) investigation,
that Microsoft had actively bribed George Bush, making huge donations
to his political campaign early in the primaries. Shortly after these
donations, he made public statements declaring "American companies
should innovate, and profit from their innovations". The irony being
that the Bush administration's sloppy settlement and complete lack of
effort to enforce the few clauses of the settlement that did exist,
were actually designed to deprive the actual companies who DID their
own innovation, of potential profits, giving Microsoft the profits for
innovations of other companies, including Sun, Netscape, Apple,
RealMedia, IBM, and with Vista, Norton, Symantic, and McAffee, and
depriving them of their "right to profit from their innovations".
It seems that the huge hotbed of innovations created by Linux
contributors, were not American Businesses, and therefore not entitled
to protection, according to the Bush administration.
The fact that these innovations were often contributed by corporate
interests who were trying to protect those innovations from Microsoft,
seems to be completely lost to the current administration.
Sadly, Microsoft actually creates the back doors which have been the
source of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damages due to
identity theft, viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, malware, and
most recently, bogus certificates and certificate authority servers.
The irony is that the market seems to be the final "jury", as millions
of uses are choosing NOT to upgrade to Vista. Even those who have
paid up to $1000 for the additional RAM and software upgrades to Visa
Ultimate, are often furious to find out that they STILL can't run Aero
Glass on their notebook. Reviewers are unanimously saying "I'd rather
have a Mac". How much longer before they start reviewing machines
configured with Linux and Looking Glass or Beryl, and say "I'd rather
have Linux".
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