On Oct 6, 5:27 am, spi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> John Bailo, Texeme.Construct <jaba...@xxxxxxxxxx> did eloquently scribble:
>
> > On Sep 24, 7:36 am, "ness...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
> > <ness...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> <Quote>
> >> Microsoft's resounding defeat in a European antitrust case establishes
> >> welcome principles that should be adopted in the United States as
> >> guideposts for the future development of the information economy.
Actually, US law is very similar to the EU law, but the US law is not
uniformly enforced. It seems that those who were early contributors
to the Bush campaign during the early stages of the 2000 primaries are
immune from prosecution. Blackwater can shoot innocent civilians,
Halliburtan can engage in war profiteering, and Microsoft can openly
engage in fraud, extortion, blackmail, sabotage, and obstruction of
justice, and they are not only immune from prosecution, the Bush
administration rushes to their defense.
Perhaps in the next election, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton will be
the best politicians money can buy, and even though there are more
qualified candidates who are less indebted to big-ticket contributors,
they will be out of the running as Microsoft, Halliburton, BlackWater,
Merk, J&J, and Searle buy the seat for the candidate of their choice.
George W Bush announced his intention to support Microsoft against the
DOJ antitrust rulings almost as soon as the Ohio primary results were
announced and it was clear that he was going to be the nominee.
> > What? That government should control consumer choice?
The main purpose of the anti-monopoly law was to prevent the monopoly
from becoming the government. Carnagie's steel mills became so
notorious for their total control over the workers, that a song called
"I owe my soul to the company store" was written to express the
dispair.
In Missouri, Arizona, and New Mexico, the ralroads hired cowboys as
killers. The railroads brought immegrant farmers to the midwest on
the promise of the homestead act, the farmers spent 7 years clearing
the land, plowing the fields, and killing indians, only to be driven
of the land by cattle barons who burned the crops, shot the fathers
(women couldn't own land), and in some cases even masqueraded as
indians as they massacred all but the youngest of children.
Many farmers cheered Jesse James as he road across their farms, and
misdirected the posse as they attempted to follow in hot pursuit.
Wyatt Erp was considered a criminal by many of the farmers, who just
saw him as a murderer with a badge.
The Lincoln County wars, in which Billy the Kid was a critical player,
involved the systematic murder of the only competitors to the general
store operated by the railroad.
Billy the Kid worked for the competitor, and was branded a criminal by
the railroad men. Pat Garret was a friend of Billy's and may have
deliberately shot the wrong man and claimed that he shot Billy (making
it murder) to appease the Railroad men.
After nearly 30 years of "Law of the Gun", the Antitrust laws were
designed to protect competitors, and to prevent monopolists from
becoming "the law of the land" whether in the farm country of the
midwest, the coal mines of Pennsylvania, or the Oil fields of Texas
and Oklahoma.
> Bailo, still jealous?
> Europe did what AMERICA failed to do because they had no backbone.
> DoJ? What a laugh. All that speculation on breaking up microsoft and what
> happened?
Microsoft bought the best political candidate money could buy. They
joined in with Haliburton, United Technologies, Blackwater (it's
predecessors?), military contractors who weren't getting huge cash for
their boondoggles, and Oil companies who wanted Bush to declare war on
the entire middle-east and denationalize the oil fields.
Microsoft got off scott free - not even a hand slap.
We went to war in Iraq based on groundless claims of Nuclear Weapons.
We turned national security over to an American Gestapo (DHS)
We hired soldiers of fortune and gave them carte blanche to murder at
will.
We sent soldiers into a combat zone, but made them write home and have
their families, churches, and communities raise the money to buy
military grade bullet-proof vests, armor plating, and other protection
- from Haliburton.
We tore up the Bill of Rights - creating whole new extralegal
catagories of people who could be captured, detained indefinitely,
tortured, and even murdered, without due process of law.
> Fuck all.
That's why we have elections, and that's why money is so important in
elections. During the primaries, there are often very good and
qualified candidates, but by the time the primaries have reached any
large states, the outcome is a forgone conclusion.
McCain has no chance - he can't be bought reliably and cheaply.
Guliani is even more unpredictable - and pragmatic.
Thompson was too close to Watergate and probably too honest to be
backed.
Mitt Romney on the other hand, is for sale to the highest bidder.
Obama is intelligent, pragmatic, and seeks real solutions to problems
- dangerous.
Hillary is far more polarizing, assuring that no real change in
education or health care is possible - assuring that the health-care
gravy train lasts well into the deaths of the baby boomers.
Either side could pull a rabbit out of their hat, or a clip that makes
the leading candidate look rabid. Candidates have to be very careful
what they say off-camera these days, because they never know who is
pointing their cell-phone cameras at them.
> >> Microsoft's near-monopoly can hurt consumers in two big ways: allowing
> >> the company to charge more for its software and potentially stifling
> >> innovation by rivals...
Microsoft would argue that this doesn't harm consumers, that it gives
them stability and predictability. Most monopolists are benign, until
they spring their "trap". The farmers thought they were getting a
good deal, that they would get their own land. If they had known that
they were actually working as slaves who would not only lose their
farms, but would lose everything they had owned and built, along with
7 years of hard labor, in exchange for what ultimately became a round-
trip ticket on the railroad car (often a freight car), they might not
have worked so hard.
With Windows, the issues are more subtle. Is the hacker stealing
information from your computer a highly skilled thief, or a Microsoft
sponsored probe sold to a preferred partner who wants to see
information about your bid and proposal to a prospective client?
Did your laptop start malfunctioning hours, or minutes, before the
presentation because you unwittingly installed a virus with your
browser, or because Microsoft set a time-bomb on your presentation?
The problem is that there is no way to know, one way or the other.
There is no competitor available for camparison, there is no oversight
to make sure that your system is protected from predatory behavior,
and there is no regulation against Microsoft doing any of these
things. In fact, your End User License Agreements explicitly grant
them permission to do many things you probably wouldn't normally agree
to in a verbal discussion.
If you had your attorney go over such a contract, but removed or
changed the name from Microsoft to "ABC Computer company", the
attorney would probably demand that several provisions be struck, and
would reword several other terms, and would probably tell you not to
sign the existing contract under any conditions. If he didn't you
probably wouldn't want him as a lawyer.
> > If they feel "hurt" by it -- then they should install Linux and by
> > their PCs without an OS -- or just order a Dell with Ubuntu.
Many do (which speaks volumes), but should they have to do so?
Why shouldn't they be allowed to go into a retail store and be able to
make a side by side comparison between a Linux PC and a Windows PC,
and choose between the two. Let the market decide the pricing, and if
the prices are too low, or demand was insufficient for Linux, it would
disappear.
Microsoft has gone to great lengths to make sure that such comparisons
do not take place. Perhaps this is because it found itself losing
substantially in such comparisons between Windows 3.1 and SunOS 4.0 in
1991.
> Moron.
> Windows comes INSTALLED on the vast majority of PCs.
> What consumer choice is that?
Right now, some consumers have the choice between Apple OS/X machines
and Windows machines, and even those Mac machines have the ability to
run Windows as a virtual client application.
There is no technical reason why an OEM couldn't offer a PC with Linux
as the primary operating system, and Windows as a virtual client, but
there is a legal problem. IT seems that Microsoft has to approve, in
writing, any configuration involving Windows. Microsoft seems to have
a real problem approving a number of configurations that involve
competitor products such as Linux, Real-Player, and Netscape. Court
records indicate that Microsoft has sent Compaq at least one notice of
revocation - revoking or threatening to revoke Copaq's licenses to a
popular line of PCs, because they hid the IE icon, and put the
Netscape Icon in it's place.
> >> Microsoft should not be allowed to use the
> >> bundling of its products to bury RealPlayer and other companies, just
> >> as it was convicted of doing to Netscape's Navigator.
> > Should Konqueror be bundled with KDE? And shipped on each and every
> > distro?
Linux distributions typically include many competing products in each
catagory. Microsoft bundles one, and only one, Microsoft provided
alternative, in each catagory. Often, Microsoft purchases a third
rate competitor, often a knock-off, or even a rip-off of a leading
provider's product.
If OEMs included both Notepad and Brief, how many would choose
Notepad?
If OEMs included both FireFox and IE, how many would remove Firefox?
If OEMs included both MS-Office and Open-Office, how many would remove
OO?
Giving customers the freedom to choose - even from moment to moment,
which application is best for them, increases the value of the
package, but potentially reduces the value of the Microsoft products.
Windows sells for prices ranging for as little as $3 per PC (to Non-
profits providing PCs exclusively to families able to document poverty
levels), to as much as $500 per PC (for Vista Premium sold at full
retail prices - if anybody actually pays them).
> Another crap analogy, you're on form today.
Not necessarily a crap analagy, just a badly informed one, that makes
an even stronger case for open competition, rather than supporting his
argument for exclusion.
> Konqueror may be installed with KDE but so what?
You have the choice of Gnome, or KDE, or FVWM, or even TWM. Which is
best depends on what you are trying to do. You might even like Sun's
Enlightenment (Java based desktop with 3-D look an feel that has been
available on Linux for over a year now).
> There're half a dozen other browsers and file managers to choose from in the
> average distro.
Yep. Wide open competition. It's actually pretty nice. It has made
it possible to advance the state of the art of technology much faster
than Microsoft did. We've gone from EZ to Open Office, from TWM to
Enlightenment, from SLIP to WiFi, from 80386 to 4-core and 8-core
processors and 64 core cabinets, from 5 PC Beowulf clusters to 1024
blade BlueGeneL clusters.
> >> [OTOH, balance needed...don't want to stifle innovation by MS
> >> itself...effects of decision on Apple, Intel, others, with their own
> >> monopolies...
If Apple, Red Hat, or Sun tried to demand that OEMs exclude Microsoft,
and had the negotiating leverage required to force such an agreement,
Microsoft would be the first to be screaming for government
intervention.
> > EU now leading way on regulation, worldwide impact...]
> > EU now funding it's cheese-eaters with heft fines because they can't
> > find real work.
Maybe EU is not so willing to let Microsoft buy their elections.
Maybe EU is not so keen on having Microsoft as a pseudo-branch of the
government.
Maybe the EU is tired of Microsoft trying to force government
officials to exclude competitors.
Maybe the EU is tired of Ballmer showing up everytime an official
tries to choose Linux.
Maybe the EU is tired of Microsoft threats and loopholes.
Rex Ballard
http://www.open4success.org
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