To: Bid daddy who wrote (7879 ) 12/1/1999 1:45:00 AM From: Ellen Respond to
Thank you for the link to that article!So this isn?t a marginal case brought by a Justice Department antitrust division stretching to make new law. The facts Judge Jackson has found are central to the most straightforward purposes of the Sherman Antitrust Act: to prevent firms that acquire monopoly power from abusing that power to protect themselves against competition. Though he has not yet announced his conclusions of law, his findings of fact make it evident that Microsoft has violated our most basic antitrust law in the most serious ways possible. said the emperor has no clothes.SEEKING A SETTLEMENT Microsoft, the New York Times reported on Nov. 7, has begun making heavy contributions to both political parties and hiring a stable of public commentators , including at least one law school dean. If true, these reports will shed light on much of the rhetoric you?re about to hear in the remedy debate. ?We must prevent,? the hired talkers will say, ?too much government interference with private business arrangements. Don?t break up Microsoft, or other innovative corporations will be next.? This is the same as saying that if you punish people who beat up old ladies for their Social Security checks, you will soon be jailing grocers. People who play by the rules don?t get accidentally charged with antitrust violations on this scale. inhibited completely unencumbered innovation. Please, oh paid talkers, give us a break!! The public is not stupid.NO DRASTIC REMEDIES The end of the Microsoft Era can be the beginning of the Age of Open Software, in which programs will work better, cost less and develop in innovative new ways faster than ever before. But the hired talkers do have one point: We won?t need drastic remedies to fix the Microsoft mess. Antitrust remedies don?t have to be about punishing misbehaving competitors if there is a better way to restore competition. As Judge Jackson makes clear, the basic problem is that Microsoft hasn?t had any viable competitor in the operating-systems business. [my comment: gee, I wonder why? Duh.] But if he crafts the right remedy, it could have one very quickly: Linux. This free-software operating system, Judge Jackson recognizes, was built by tens of thousands of volunteers worldwide, has millions of users and runs sophisticated server computers at least as well as Windows NT.
