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____/ Homer on Thursday 20 Oct 2011 18:27 : \____
> Verily I say unto thee that Chris Ahlstrom spake thusly:
>> Homer wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>>
>>> Tries to dismiss previous Findings of Fact as "prejudicial" (LOL):
>>>
>>> [quote]
>>> The main point of contention is how the findings would be
>>> announced. Microsoft didn't want the jurors to hear that the
>>> government was a party to the case as they believed it would be
>>> prejudicial. Microsoft also didn't want them referred to as
>>> "findings of fact".
>>> [/quote]
>>>
>>> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20111017182502925
>>>
>>> Here I was thinking Microsoft was keen to make sure people "Get The
>>> Facts", but apparently that does not include the inconvenient facts
>>> about its criminal behaviour.
>>>
>>> Oh well, here we go again with another farcical antitrust trial, from
>>> which Microsoft will walk away scot-free, because half the senate is
>>> living in its pockets.
>>
>> There's a link to the "Findings of Fact" there, and it contains a
>> pretty thorough analysis of why it is so hard to overcome Microsoft's
>> dominance in the market.
>
> There's also reams of testimonies and court documents (mostly
> Microsoft's own correspondences) that unambiguously demonstrates
> Microsoft's gangster-like attitude, behaviour and business practices, so
> frankly any trial against Microsoft should be a foregone conclusion in
> favour of the plaintiff.
>
> Why is anyone even still debating this? For that matter, why is a
> criminal organisation like Microsoft allowed to continue trading? The
> mere fact that Microsoft wasn't shut down years ago, proves the
> antitrust system is a farce. We may as well replace courtrooms with
> boiler rooms, and judges with suitcases full of cash.
>
> I also note that Lawrence Latif of El Inq. is suggesting this "is
> expected to be the last outing for Microsoft in its 15-year battle over
> antitrust allegations," which seems a bit optimistic, frankly. I
> certainly /hope/ that's not the case, given that Microsoft has never
> actually been properly sanctioned for its antitrust violations.
> /Proper/ sanctions would be /dissolving/ this criminal enterprise, then
> selling off the assets to compensate its victims.
>
> Not that these antitrust cases ever seem to accomplish anything. I've
> long since given up expecting any real justice against Microsoft,
> certainly not in the American courts, anyway.
>
> Latif doesn't reveal the sources from which he drew that "expectation",
> though. For all I know, he's probably quoting some "stacked-panellist"
> or "guerilla-marketing" company that's just regurgitating a Microsoft
> memo.
>
> http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2118030/novell-microsoft-court-wordperfect
>
>> I've been laughing lately at the Microsoft shills' arguments about how
>> "it's the applications". This point is also made in the FoF document.
>>
>> And yet we find Apple doing reasonably well, even though there are far
>> fewer applications available for the Mac, and people have to leave
>> familiar territory to use them.
>>
>> I've also been laughing about the Microsoft shills' arguments about
>> how "it's the documents", when I get warnings from Word 2010 about
>> saving documents in an earlier format: "You might alter your layout!"
>> Why is it okay for MS Office to "alter" your documents, but not okay
>> for OOo or LibreOffice to do so?
>
> I don't see any of the trolls/shills propaganda, so I haven't followed
> their "arguments", but if they're trying to claim Windows is "popular"
> because they "need" certain applications, rather than just certain
> brand-agnostic functionality, then they're talking shit.
>
> It's not like I've never used Windows, so I'm not guessing. The reason I
> switched to GNU/Linux in the first place is because I simply couldn't
> accomplish anything on something as broken and restrictive as Windows.
>
> Typical scenarios included the need for half a dozen different
> applications from different vendors, to do a single task, because no one
> vendor supported all the options/formats/methods I needed. And of course
> I usually had to pay for them all.
>
> Then if I upgraded any of them they typically /lost/ functionality, and
> usually I'd /have/ to "upgrade" them if I "upgraded" Windows, because
> the previous version no longer worked / was no longer supported on the
> previous version of Windows.
>
> That loss of functionality was often central to the whole point of what
> I was trying to accomplish, and usually revolved around DRM bullshit or
> the vendor pushing his own proprietary formats in favour of Open
> Standards.
>
> And that's when those applications, and the pathetic OS I "needed" to
> support them, even worked at /all/. Mostly I remember exhausting the
> entire portfolio of shareware sites like CNet and Tucows looking for
> something that really did what it claimed to, without crashing, without
> slowing my system to a crawl with vast bloat, without producing shit
> results, without costing a fortune, without infecting my system with
> adware or spyware or worse, without requiring specific versions of
> Windows or support libraries, without being tied to some useless
> proprietary format, and without the onerous restrictions of DRM, which
> at one point actually went as far as deliberately and permanently
> disabling my hardware - fully sanctioned by Microsoft, but without my
> having violated anyone's "rights" to warrant such action. At all.
>
> If that's what Microsoft's shills mean by "it's the applications" and
> "it's the documents", then its not exactly a glowing endorsement of
> Windows.
>
> Windows is not "popular" because people "need" certain applications or
> proprietary formats. Nobody "needs" such things. The only "need" here is
> an entirely imagined circular dependency, instigated and perpetuated by
> Microsoft's racketeering business methods, for which it has already been
> prosecuted ... several times. That's not "popularity", it's /ubiquity/
> coerced and enforced by protectionism.
>
> But the damage caused by this racketeering cannot magically be undone
> just with a fine and some half-hearted slap on the wrist, since this
> publicly perceived "dependency" has already been established by that
> racketeering. The damage is already done. The only way to redress this
> imbalance is to remove the source of the problem (bundling) then mandate
> support for Free Software in certain key areas, like government and
> education. IOW we now find ourselves in the unfortunate position of
> having to use Microsoft's own protectionist methods to counterbalance
> /their/ protectionism. It's a battle of democracy vs corporatism, and
> the sad fact is that those who supposedly represent our democracy have
> mostly been corrupted by those they're supposed to protect us from.
>
> Currently the nearest thing we have to an actual solution is an
> amendment to the law being proposed in France:
>
> http://www.osor.eu/news/fr-national-assembly-discusses-amendments-on-decoupling-hardware-and-software-sales
>
> Anything less is a complete waste of time, and even /that/ is only the
> beginning of a long, hard struggle to repair the damage done by
> Microsoft.
The long-term damage is increasing all the time and there will never
be justice. That having been said, had the juridical system actually
worked, Microsoft would be found guilty within months/years and its
market position forcibly 'confiscated', such that companies that
played by the rules reap all the benefits.
- --
~~ Best of wishes
Dr. Roy S. Schestowitz (Ph.D. Medical Biophysics), Imaging Researcher
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU/Linux administration | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Editor @ http://techrights.org & Broadcaster @ http://bytesmedia.co.uk/
Managing partner @ http://scifitness.co.uk & http://iuron.com
GPL-licensed 3-D Othello @ http://othellomaster.com
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