No, I have never met the man. And I agree with you, he appears very nice. But in a court niceness will be tempered with fact.
Consider the CNBC story about 2 months ago. Please forgive me if I can't remember all the details. But basically there is a small business that makes an on line entertainment guide. They went to MSFT last year to see if MSFT would be willing to provide financial support for this company. MSFT said no, they were not interested.
Now, according to this story, Windows 98 will have an entertainment guide built in. And according to this story, it is pretty much the same product as the small business one. When MSFT was asked about this, they said effectively "tough." But if they want to do business, they can still do it. They just have to conform to our standard. Kinda the whole issue right there.
Now, if I were the DOJ, I would be asking a few questions about this. Primarily was this pirated? (No, they didn't sign a security agreement and other such, but there is such a thing as conscience of the court, which says if you stole it, you stole it regardless of the lack of such an agreement.) I would also want to know what in the world is an entertainment guide doing in an operating system? Since when has that been necessary to make a computer work.
Fortuately for all, I am not the DOJ. |
