Legal Archive

"Nine states seeking stiff antitrust sanctions against Microsoft showed the judge on Wednesday a commercial version of the Windows operating system that already has removable features -- similar to one of their key demands. Microsoft has said requiring a version of Windows that can be customized by computer makers and rival software companies would fragment the operating system, cripple Microsoft, harm consumers and hurt the entire computer industry." Read the story at Reuters.

"Microsoft chairman Bill Gates says his company would be unable to allow manufacturers and consumers to choose which elements of its Windows operating system to install on their computers under sanctions being proposed to a federal judge.The issue stems from how different portions of Windows are reliant on each other. If one piece is removed, such as the part of the Internet Explorer Web browser that makes Web pages appear, other features like the Windows Help system would break." Read the rest of the story at Yahoo!News. You can also read the submitted Gates testimony as a PDF here. Our Take: Personally, I prefer products to be solid and in one piece, as they were designed to be. Recreating something like Linux's dependancy hell at all levels, is naturally something that does not benefit the consumer. Or my hot temper when dealing with it. What is needed IMHO, is restrict Microsoft's business practices, not its product line. Update: More about Gates on the stand.

A former Gateway executive recently testified (NY Times login required) that Microsoft punishes PC clone manufacturers like Gateway for developing rival products. This was i.e. done by reducing discounts Gateway received for the Windows operating system. Gateway at a time was developing a new Amiga computer, but all of the sudden this ambitious project was cancelled, reliable sources (read the comments section of this article I recently wrote for OSNews) have stated Microsoft to be the reason behind this sudden move. My opinion: A good example of how Microsoft stifled technological progress within the computer industry these last 10 years. Hopefully people will start to understand why it has taken the Amiga community this long to get a new Amiga computer onto the market and why PC manufacturers left Amiga technology in the cold when the classic still was clearly superior technology compared to Microsoft's offerings.

"Sun is railing at Microsoft, but maybe it should be hiring coders rather than lawyers. Sun boss Scott McNealy is an entertaining act, with a nice line in puns. For example, Microsoft's .net becomes ".not", Intel's Itanium is the "Itanic", and IBM's Regatta server is "Regretta". As comedians, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are not in the same league." Yet another editorial on the web about Sun's lawsuit against Microsoft, this time on CW360. We wrote about this too.

"Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the software giant would have to withdraw the Windows operating system from the market if a federal court approves sanctions being sought by nine states in its antitrust case, according to depositions released Monday." Read the rest of the report at News.com. Our Take: A non-development or withdraw of Windows and its support can hurt an immense number of companies, which can have a huge impact to the economy in many countries. I still can't get it. They are fighting Microsoft for the browser case, instead for its dirty business practices. It's comically tragic.

"Microsoft Corp. will have to supply the computer code for its Windows program to a group of states seeking stiffer antitrust sanctions against the software giant, a federal judge ruled on Friday. Nine state attorneys general had argued that they needed to see the Windows source code in order to verify Microsoft's claim it could not offer a simpler version of the Windows personal computer operating system, stripped of features like the Internet Explorer browser." The Reuters report is at Yahoo!News.

The news break was yesterday, with AOL suing Microsoft over the Netscape-IE issue which resulted in Netscape losing its market share (from ~90% in 1997 down to ~7% today). While this is not surprising news, we wonder why AOL/Netscape is suing today, and not 4 years ago.

"A college computer technician who offered his school's unused computer processing power for an encryption research project will be tried next month in Georgia for computer theft and trespassing charges that carry a potential total of 120 years in jail." Read the unusual story at TheRegister, where this technician is facing jail because he installed the Distributed.NET client on some (mostly) idle computers. The authorities are charging him with "hacking" even if they realize that no hack took place. Our Take: When I left my pre-previous job, I left the distributed.NET client running on the Dell dual PII-450 PC I used to work with...

Apple's CEO Steve Jobs said Thursday that Microsoft should give $1 billion in cash to help schools, instead of software and some money, to settle more than 100 consumer lawsuits. Jobs' statement came one day before Apple plans to file a supplemental legal brief further contesting the legitimacy of the proposed settlement of the suits.

Part 1 of "Microsoft on Truth Serum" has been posted at OS/2 Headquarters. This article covers each line of the Definitions section of the document, and it claims that Microsoft plans to get out of each and every restriction listed. Furthermore, the article finds a "loophole" that actually grants Microsoft exemption from copyright lawsuits by rivals -- something no other software company has ever been granted.

"Officials at the U.S. Justice Department met state attorneys general in the case to discuss a settlement that would allow computer manufacturers wider latitude to load non-Microsoft software on the machines they sell and give other software companies greater access to the code behind Microsoft's Windows dominant personal computer operating system, Reuters reported." Get the rest of the story at ZDNews. Update: Microsoft, Feds reached a deal. The software maker and the Justice Department settle their longstanding antitrust battle, in an agreement with far-reaching implications.

InfoAnarchy has an interesting story about Microsoft's shady OEM practices. Everyone who believes in competition on the OS market should read it. The article is an extension of Scot Hacker's "He who controls the boot loader" article, published 2 months ago and had put lot of people into deep thinking regarding Microsoft's business practices.

With the U.S. government in turmoil over the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, congress will likely be forgetting several pending bills that stood to affect the technology sphere. An ISP News article covers the legislation that's likely to be swept away, like the E-government Act and the National Digital School Districts Act. Alas, other legislation, like broad new wiretapping rules, restriction of encrption technology, and other electronic surveillence-oriented bills have either already been passed or are likely to come to vote in the near future, in order to facilitate intelligence gathering and spycraft in America's new war on terrorism.

The U.S. Justice Department announced today that it will not seek to break Microsoft Corp. in two during the next phase of the software maker's landmark antitrust case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in late June had overturned a lower court's order by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson that Microsoft be broken into two companies as a remedy for anticompetitive practices. At the same time, it upheld the lower court's conclusion that Microsoft has a monopoly in the market for computer operating systems and maintains that monopoly power by anticompetitive means in violation of U.S. antitrust laws.