Justin--
>One can't require licensing of shared libraries that only provide support to an
>application. For all we know, MSFT has put their TCP/IP stuff in a library that IE
>uses. While that would be essential to make IE run, it's not required that it be
>removed in order for IE to be considered removed.
Let's forget about shared libraries. Let us assume there is an ie.exe, and an ie.ico in this hypothetical product Microsoft calls Internet Explorer. The ie.ico file is not used by anything other than ie.exe, as, you guessed it, the dreaded icon that the OEMs wanted to remove from the desktop. The ie.ico file is not eseential to the operation of IE; the ie.exe file works just fine by itself if you can drill down and find it. But, for sake of our hyopotheticalit *is* part of the product Microsoft calls Internet Explorer.
The Consent Decree says Microsoft cannot condition the sale of Windows 95 on the licensing of any "other product."
Now, you could interpet the phrase "condition the sale of Windows 95 on the licensing of any 'other product'" in two ways: a violation has occurred if the sale of Windows is conditioned uponlicensing even a single file which is part of the IE product, which I think is how Microsoft is interpeting itand how I interpet it. In other words, as long as the ie.ico file is still on the machine, Microsoft is still in violation even if ie.exe is deleted and the ie.ico file is completely useless.
Alternatively, you could interpet the phrase "condition the sale of Windows 95 on the licensing of any 'other product'" such that a violation occurs *only* if the sale of WIndows is conditioned upon is conditioned upon the sale of the *entire* IE product. In other words, under this interpretation, if Microsoft removed the ie.ico file, but still required OEMs to take the ie.exe file, Microsoft would not be in violation even though the ie.exe file is fully functional because Microsoft has conditioned the sale of Windows upon licensing of only *part* of the Internet Explorer "other product."
Each of these alternatives is the end point on a continuum. Either alternative is a plausible form of compliance with the Decree. Microsft says the first would "break Windows. The second would render the Consent Decree totally ineffectual.
So the correct answer must lie somewhere in the middle. As I read your logic, you would allow some of the files which constitute part of the IE product to remain on the machine, those shared libraries which are part of IE but are necessary fo other parts of Windows to run. Is this correct?
If so, who gets to decide which shared libraries are essential for IE to run? In other words, who gets to decide where on the continuum the correct answer lies?
And (a legal, rather than technical question), why is any one answer better than another? In other words, don't you have to go outside the Consent Decree to find the correct answer? To what source, then, do you look?
Then there's that nasty "integrated products" phrase. It is true that the phrase does not prohibit the government from regulating how "integrated products" are distributed, as distinguished from how they are designed. However, it seems to me that, at some point, how one plans to distribute a product will have a substantial impact upon its design. At some point, then, the "integrated products" "safe harbor" *will* limit the government's power to regulate how Microsoft distributes its products. The question is, what point is that? And who gets to decide?
>I'd like to expand on Chaz' engine analogy.
Well, let's say its a gas-cap doo-hickey which is designed to prevent evaporation of the gas out of the tank. It consists of three parts -- a purely non-functional ornament (kind of like the Mercedez hood ornament), the cap itself, which is absolutely essential to making the product work, and a little thermometer, which sits inside the gas tank and measures the temperature of the gas -- not essential to the product itself but necessary to the safe operation of the car, so the consumer can see how close the temperature of the car's gas is to boiling.
If the government says GM cannot condition the sale of its cars on the licensing of the gas cap doo-hickey, then how many, and which, of the three components does GM have to remove in order to comply with the government's order? Who decides, and how do they make the decision? |
