Jerry -
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?
Yes. However, those pieces that are only relevant to the execution of IE would be required to be removed.
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?
See above. Pieces that are only required by IE would need to be removed (ie.exe, ie.ico, etc.). If MSFT has put OS stuff into ie.dll, that should stay, although from a systems engineering standpoint, to put OS stuff into a product's shared library is silly and stupid.
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?
One of the problems with this case is that people are trying to look at the legal aspects (the specification), without considering the technical aspects (the implementation). While this approach is viable during a design phase, what the court is now trying to do is actually implement the decree, and so implementation (the technical side) actually becomes more important.
Having decided what the goal is in the consent decree, one must examine the way things are currently built in order to understand what one must do in order to satisy the decree. Currently, the product in question, IE, is sprinkled throughout the filesystem, as icon files, executable files, libraries, configuration stuff, etc. If one wants to mandate removal of IE, one merely has to find out what things are needed for IE to run, but not needed for other things, and remove them.
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?
o Ornament : not needed for doohicky functionality, but it's only used by the doohicky : it goes
o Cap : needed for doohicky functionlity : it goes
o Thermometer : not needed for doohicky functionality and used for other stuff : it can stay
-justinb |
