Verily I say unto thee, that 7 spake thusly:
> Micoshaft asstroturfing fraudster pounding the sock Ezekiel wrote on
> behalf of Half Wits from Micoshaft Department of Marketing:
>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>> ---original message---
>>> From: Bill Gates
>>> Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 1997 10:34 AM
>>> To: Paul Maritz; Brad Sliverberg
>>> Cc: Nathan Myhrvold; Aaron Conforer; Jim Allchin (Exchange); John
>>> Ludwig;
>>> Richard Fade; Jon DeVaan;~ Steven Sinofsky
>>> Subject HTML. Opervieec
>>>
>>> There has recently been an exchange on email with people in the
>>> Office group about Office and HTML.
>>>
>>> In one piece of mail people were suggesting that Office had to
>>> work equally well with all browsers and that we shouldn’t force
>>> Office users to use our browser. This Is wrong and I wanted to
>>> correct this.
>>>
>>> Another suggestion In this mail was that we can’t make our own
>>> unilateral extensions to HTML I was going to say this was wrong
>>> and correct this also.
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> ---------------------------
>>
>> I'm sure you can cite the exact law that was broken. Surely there
>> was a law in Jan-1997 that specifically mandates what software
>> needs to work with which browsers.
The pertinent law which applies here was actually introduced over a
hundred years earlier:
[quote]
The Sherman Antitrust Act (Sherman Act[1], July 2, 1890, ch. 647, 26
Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. § 1–7) was the first United States Federal statute
to limit cartels and monopolies. It falls under antitrust law.
The Act provides: "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or
otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal".[2]
The Act also provides: "Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to
monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States,
or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[/quote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act
Microsoft has been prosecuted under the Sherman Act:
[quote]
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT FILES ANTITRUST SUIT AGAINST MICROSOFT FOR UNLAWFULLY
MONOPOLIZING COMPUTER SOFTWARE MARKETS
Action Would Give Consumers More Choices 20 State Attorneys General and
the District of Columbia File Similar Lawsuit
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Justice Department today charged Microsoft with
engaging in anticompetitive and exclusionary practices designed to
maintain its monopoly in personal computer operating systems and to
extend that monopoly to internet browsing software. Twenty state
Attorneys General and the District of Columbia filed a similar action
today.
[/quote]
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/press_releases/1998/1764.htm
Here's the interrogation videos:
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=GatesDepo
Six years later, they have still failed to uphold the terms of the 2002
settlement agreement:
[quote]
As surely as night follows day, so Microsoft is regularly upbraided for
not complying with the US government's landmark 2002 settlement for
breach of antitrust laws.
Now, six years into a seven-year settlement monitoring process,
presiding settlement judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has told Microsoft's
she doesn't think it's going far or fast enough in meeting the terms of
the deal.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly has reportedly said the oversight of Microsoft - as
per the 2002 settlement - would not end in November 12, 2010 unless the
company publishes all the documents needed by competitors to write
applications to Windows.
[/quote]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/25/mcirosoft_antitrust/
Then there's European law, specifically the Treaty on European Union
(1993), which makes this kind of activity illegal under Article 82:
[quote]
Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the
common market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as
incompatible with the common market in so far as it may affect trade
between Member States.
Such abuse may, in particular, consist in:
(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or
other unfair trading conditions;
(b) limiting production, markets or technical development to the
^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
prejudice of consumers;
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(c) applying dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other
trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage;
(d) making the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the
other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or
according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of
such contracts.
[/quote]
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:12002E082:EN:HTML
Microsoft have also been prosecuted under Article 82 of the EU Treaty:
[quote]
The European Union Microsoft competition case is a case brought by the
European Commission of the European Union (EU) against Microsoft for
abuse of its dominant position in the market (according to competition
law). It started as a complaint from Novell over Microsoft's licensing
practices in 1993, and eventually resulted in the EU ordering Microsoft
to divulge certain information about its server products and release a
version of Microsoft Windows without Windows Media Player.
In 1993, Novell said that Microsoft was blocking its competitors out of
the market through anti-competitive practices. The complaint centred on
the license practices at the time which required royalties from each
computer sold by a supplier of Microsoft's operating system, whether or
not the unit actually contained the Windows operating system. Microsoft
reached a settlement in 1994, ending some of its license practices.[1]
Sun Microsystems joined the fray in 1998 when it complained about the
lack of disclosure of some of the interfaces to Windows NT. The case
widened even more when the EU started to look into how streaming media
technologies were integrated with Windows.
...
On 27 February 2008, the EU fined Microsoft an additional €899 million
(US$1.44 billion) for failure to comply with the March 2004 antitrust
decision. This represents the largest penalty ever imposed in 50 years
of EU competition policy. This latest decision follows a prior €280.5
million fine for non-compliance, covering the period from June 21, 2006
until October 21, 2007.[20] On 9 May 2008 Microsoft lodged an appeal in
the European Court of First Instance seeking to overturn the €899
million fine, officially stating that it intended to use the action as a
"constructive effort to seek clarity from the court"
[/quote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_competition_case
Like the US ruling, Microsoft has yet to fully comply.
[quote]
Governments contracting IT work could conclude that Microsoft's
antitrust history constitutes "grave professional misconduct" and ban
the company, according to the European Commission.
...
Article 93 says that candidates for projects should be rejected if they
have been convicted of a criminal offense concerning their professional
conduct by a judicial authority or if a contractor can justify excluding
them based on "grave professional misconduct."
[/quote]
http://pcworld.about.com/od/businesscenter/EU-Says-Governments-Could-Bar.htm
>> Run along idiot. Once again you prove that you have no clue.
You were saying...
Either you are the idiot that you claim others to be, or you're a lying;
revisionist; denialist Astroturfer.
Which is it?
> No one believes in your lies. Especially the IT crowd.
Or anyone with even a passing knowledge Microsoft's criminal behaviour.
In fact anyone with even the slightest moral integrity would implicitly
understand that what Microsoft does is wrong (and in many cases actually
illegal too). Both US and EU law clearly state this, and have enforced
it in court on several occasions.
Microsoft are convicted criminals. Fact.
Microsoft's practise of "limiting technical development to the prejudice
of consumers" is illegal. Fact.
Microsoft could spend a thousand years in court, that still wouldn't be
enough time to prosecute them for all their crimes. Frankly it'd be
easier (and more conducive to seeking justice) if they were subject to
involuntary liquidation; the assets sold to compensate their victims;
and the executives (Gates and Ballmer) prosecuted for racketeering;
jailed; and stripped of /their/ assets to similarly compensate the victims.
I personally will not be satisfied until that happens.
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| "At the time, I thought C was the most elegant language and Java
| the most practical one. That point of view lasted for maybe two
| weeks after initial exposure to Lisp." ~ Constantine Vetoshev
`----
Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.25.11-60.fc8
05:59:02 up 53 days, 13:41, 5 users, load average: 4.32, 4.06, 4.11
|
|
