Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2001 04:59:01 -0700
From: Josef Grosch <jgrosch@mooseriver.com>
To: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com>
Cc: Shannon Hendrix <shannon@widomaker.com>, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Lets not bash Windows or M$ at every opportunity {was: FreeBSD and Microsoft}
Message-ID: <20010703045901.A4477@mooseriver.com>
In-Reply-To: <004201c103af$e50d51a0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>; from tedm@toybox.placo.com on Tue, Jul 03, 2001 at 04:04:14AM -0700
References: <20010703031342.A3641@mooseriver.com> <004201c103af$e50d51a0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
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On Tue, Jul 03, 2001 at 04:04:14AM -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Josef Grosch [mailto:jgrosch@mooseriver.com]
> >Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2001 3:14 AM
> >To: Ted Mittelstaedt
> >Cc: Shannon Hendrix; freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
> >Subject: Re: Lets not bash Windows or M$ at every opportunity {was:
> >FreeBSD and Microsoft}
> >
> >
> >On Tue, Jul 03, 2001 at 02:46:55AM -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> >
> >[ DELETED ]
> >
> >> They won't die in the sense that the company will go bankrupt, I don't
> >> think.
> >> What will die is their MO of doing business. If they get hauled
> >into trust
> >> court again I think we will see the court become so exasperated that not
> >> only will they issue tremendous fines but they will split the
> >company 6 ways
> >> to Sunday and bar
> >> Bill Gates, and Steve Ballmer, and the rest of the upper exec staff from
> >> even owning stock in any of the divested portfolios. In short, Microsoft
> >> will become a
> >> shadow of their former self. As it is right now, we still have
> >all the rats
> >> in one trap, which actually gives some advantages to the
> >regulators as it's
> >> easier to keep an eye on what they are doing.
> >
> >
> >I disagree. If microsoft ever get dragged back into court on anti-trust
> >charges they will do the same as they did this time and IBM did before
> >them. Just stall & delay in court and pour money into the election
> >campaign of the party, There is only one, and wait till a more business
> >friendly administration comes to power. Then they will plea bargain the
> >charges down to being rude in public and walk away scot free. The money
> >they spent on lawyers will be written off on their taxes and they will
> >continue on their merry way. Bottom line; the chance to nail microsoft has
> >slipped away. There is no way the Bush administration is going to press
> >forward with this.
> >
>
> I don't think that the Bush administration is in any position to either
> press forward or press against anything right now. Don't forget that they
> have a Democratic Senate against them, they didn't win the popular
> vote, and final analysis of the Florida vote indicates that who won is
> entirely dependent on what you consider a valid vote to be. Not only that
> but Bush
> stupidly kept all the campaign people that were involved with the vote in
> Florida on his staff, which simply reinforces the image (justified or not)
> that he
> engineered a theft of the election. It's a pretty toothless cat up there in
> the house.
Even though it appears to a lot of people that the Bush people pulled off a
blood-less coup and their mandate is paper thin, if at all, it does not
appear to be stopping them or even slowing them down. The pull out of the
Kyoto (sp) accord is a case in point.
> Senators aren't elected by the Electoral College. Although, actually,
> this makes it worse because government bureaucrats typically do nothing
> if they sense a power vacuum at the top.
>
> As far as IBM goes, I think that they are hardly an example to cite of a
> successful monopoly. Not many people call a business successful that had
> to write off a billion dollars of losses.
That was then, this is now. In 1969 when IBM and DOJ got into it IBM was
the big cheese in computers. The standing joke back then was that there was
only 2 computer companies, IBM and every one else. They spent the 70's
playing delay, delay, and then delay. The Reagan administration was not in
office 2 weeks before DOJ ended the suit. Remember this was before the IBM
PC and personal computers were CP/M things that only wackos like me played
with. In 1986, a full 6 years after the suit ended, I was working for the
Navy and dealing with Vaxen, Dec was the number 2 seller of computers with
1 billion in sales. IBM was number 1 with 8 billion in sales. I once meet a
man who had been a lawyer for IBM during the anti-trust suit. He had spent
10 years, one fourth of his working life working on one law suit. After 10
years of litigation IBM walked away with hardly getting their hair
mussed. IBM has gotten into trouble only in the last few years especially
since the OS/2 disaster. Their troubles started long after the Reagan
people shut down the anti-trust suit.
> Also, don't forget that AT&T was broken up on George Bush Senior's boss's
> watch, a man who was far more pro business than any Republican we've ever
> had in recent years. And, there was considerable popular opinion _against_
> the AT&T breakup to boot, and the results of the breakup haven't delivered
> on the promise of competitive local dialtone, either. (and it was obvious
> this wouldn't happen to a blind monkey) They proceeded with that one when
> there was no obvious
> benefit to doing it, doing it was also unpopular, and there didn't appear to
> be anything broken to start with. With Microsoft, there's plenty of obvious
> benefits, it's about as popular as your going to see support for a breakup
> among the plebians, and it's obvious to a blind monkey what the problem is.
The AT&T breakup was long ago in a different time. The suit started after
Watergate and people had a very different attitude about things then. One
also need to remember that this was before the Reagan/Bush people spent 12
years packing the Federal judiciary with conservative, business friendly
judges. The judge who ordered the breakup of AT&T was, if I remember right,
a Johnson appointee.
Either way this is a much different time and the judges who are presiding
over this are a much more conservative bunch plus the Bush justice department
under Ashcroft, and they don't come much more right wing than John
Ashcroft, is herding this through the courts. I have even money says they
negotiate this to another consent agreement even though the last one had a
10/10 warranty on it. That is, 10 feet or 10 seconds, which ever came
first.
Josef
--
Josef Grosch | Another day closer to a | FreeBSD 4.3
jgrosch@MooseRiver.com | Micro$oft free world | www.bafug.org
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