Ian Lynch wrote:
On Fri, 2005-12-09 at 09:38 +0100, Henrik Sundberg wrote:
This was the statement:
If a vendor failed to adhere to that, then the vendor was shut down,
and all assets went to Microsoft.
And this was the question related to it:
Care to give any evidence at all that this happened? Especially the
Microsoft getting all their stuff after they closed up shop.
I'm sorry if this was answered by the links. I haven't seen an answer
in this thread though.
Jonathan cited personal experience. Now that might be all that he has
but in the context of all the other evidence it seems plausible and
personally I wouldn't want to call him a liar.
If you read the background, for example, of the Ernie Ball guitar
strings case and the reasons why they migrated to Linux, the evidence is
that if that had been a smaller less financially secure company, the
action could well have led to the company being shut down. A large
multinational filing a law suite against a small company could well
result in it going out of business whether or not the small company had
done anything at all wrong. If MS proved their grievance, and in the
Ernie Ball case it was obviously a genuine mistake, they could then
claim the company's assets in compensation. If compensation > assets
that gives the exact scenario Jonathan described.
So I would say that if something like that happened to Jonathan or a
friend or colleague of his, its entirely plausible.
Why anyone would want to devote so much time to defending a criminal
that is a repeated offender, shows no remorse or willingness to reform
is beyond me, especially when that criminal is also the major competitor
to our own project. I can only think this is deliberate mischief.
We have a saying here in the states that goes something like this:
If you want to steal a little money, buy a gun. If you want to steal a
LOT of money, buy a lawyer.
The fact is that this whole business with Ernie Ball has to do with the
Business Software Alliance and enforcing software licenses. I guess
these are the "enforcers" that Jonathon was speaking of. They're guys in
suits and their weapons are subpoenas. Jonathon makes them sound like
goons with guns and brass knuckles. It's frustrating and often sad and
tragic, but it's not the mafia. And it's not illegal or criminal.
We really need to reserve some, if not most or all, or our
disapprobation for the politicians which aid and abet this nonsense.
Some things that Microsoft has done *are* illegal, but it's kind of a
fuzzy situation in that these same actions wouldn't be illegal if they
had less market share. So phrases like "convicted monopolist"... I'm not
even sure what the hell that means.
The comedian, Gallagher, said, "The question isn't whether or not you
pick your nose, it's where you wipe the booger." Similarly, it's not
illegal to *be* a monopoly, but it does seem to be illegal to *act*
*like* a monopoly. So then the question is when is a company big enough
to be considered a monopoly? The best answer I can come up with is, When
it is big enough to act like one.
It's a strange situation when something that's legal for me to do today
is illegal tomorrow, or it's legal for you but not for me. And most of
this stuff doesn't even have to do with legal or illegal, strictly
speaking. Most of the court actions, even by governments, have been
torts seeking compensation for damages.
In the U.S. we highly value a free, competitive, market-place. Most of
the time this means the government doesn't get involved, but we have
also for a long time recognized that "free" and "competitive" don't
always go together, so we regulate "natural monopolies" like utilities.
What I think caught everyone by surprise, and Microsoft took advantage
of, is the idea that a computer program -- the operating system -- could
be a natural monopoly. And with file format lock-in, the same could be
said for an office suite.
Is it any wonder the lawyers make piles of money?
--
Rod
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