Browsing Software Distinct From Operating System Says Expert nytimes.com
But Gerald, the case was lost when AOL bought Netscape, right? That was the South Carolina line, anyway, and we all know what a hotbed of legal scholarship and technical expertise S.C. is. That was Bill's line too, last week. Personally, I'm waiting to hear from a different S.C.
But on to today's story, which is deja vu all over again. Appropriate again, since you seem to be repeating a popular 'softie argument, that this case is the same as the consent decree case. The Economist wasn't impressed when Bill tried that argument with them.
Toward the end of the day, Mr. Holley got down to the level of individual program files. He displayed a large poster listing 13 major files that testimony had shown were invoked when a computer user sought an Internet address using Internet Explorer, Microsoft's browser.
Then he asked Dr. Farber if each file could be deleted without damaging Windows. When the witness answered no to the first two, Mr. Holley pasted large red "no" stickers to the board, to reinforce Microsoft's argument that Explorer is an inseparable, integrated element of Windows.
The theatrics fizzled, though, when Dr. Farber told him that the questions made no sense. Several files in question, he said, were key parts of the operating system invoked by all sorts of programs, not just Explorer.
By asking those questions, the professor told Mr. Holley: "You're asking me if I've stopped beating my wife." A moment later, Federal District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who is hearing the case, asked Mr. Holley, "Can we move on to another subject?"
A slight crack in Judicial temperament there. Before browser became a non-word in Microsoftese, the Microsoft line was that everything added to Win95 since the '95 retail release was "part of IE". But that was in the 217 file version. The 13 file version is somewhat easier to analyse, apparently. Still just "bits of browsing technology scattered throughout Windows", though. Does that sound like good software engineering to the layman?
When the discussion today turned to one file used by Windows and Explorer, the judge interrupted Mr. Holley to ask the witness, "If that code were part of Windows, is there any reason that Internet Explorer, as an application, could not invoke it?"
No, there was no reason, Dr. Farber answered. The very question troubled Microsoft executives, who have labored since the trial began to convince Judge Jackson that Internet Explorer is not a stand-alone application and never has been. Mr. Holley later asked Dr. Farber about a section from the appellate court ruling, which is central to Microsoft's defense.
The panel ruled that it would be "absurdly inefficient" to require consumers to stitch computer code together, a possible result if Explorer were removed from Windows.
Dr. Farber mumbled for a moment, suggesting that he had trouble with the appellate court's language, but then explained, "I don't want to criticize the court."
To that, Judge Jackson smiled and said, "Oh, go ahead."
Make my day, he adds dryly. Another crack in judicial temperament. Anyway, what ever happened to "Microsoft must be free to innovate", like in innovatively redefining the browser as "bits of browsing technology scattered throughout Windows"? The neologistics department hasn't been heard from lately.
Cheers, Dan. |
