RE: Microsoft's punishment (was: Netscape 6 -- slightly off the wall)

>From: Michael Tulloch  <mtulloch(at)winnie.fit.edu>
>Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 16:25:30 -0400 (EDT)
>
>
>Hmm. I wasn't aware that the US gov't punished crimes "against the
>capitalist system." All acts of charity are anticapitalist, and we seem to
>have a quite a bit of charity in the US. :)
>
>---Mike
>}-------------------------------------------------{
>} Dark Journey : Poetry of the Crestfallen        {
>} Poetry @ www.Fatbrain.com's E-matter            {
>}-------------------------------------------------{
>

Well, Michael, you would no doubt know more about the US system than I 
would, since I have never lived there.  From my sketchy understanding of US 
law, I can't imagine what an anti-trust suit is about if it's not about 
offending against the capitalist system.

But you don't make any comment at all about the main point - which was that 
this proposal* (if it's for real) is to punish a misdeed of Microsoft's by 
forcing them to do a similar thing again.

A bit like punishing a wife-beater by forcing him to beat his daughter as 
well.  THEN he'll be sorry!!

Or as was so eloquently put this morning ... "Don't throw me in the briar 
patch!!"

* For those who missed it, the report at 
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35557,00.html?tf=wn20000410 said 
that one of the penalties Microsoft may have to pay as a result of losing 
its antitrust case is giving up its rights to Internet Explorer.

This article says in part:
The Journal, citing people close to the case, said the government is 
considering a proposal that would force Microsoft to grant royalty-free 
licenses to Internet Explorer, opening the programming code to customers and 
computer makers.
[end quote]

Cheers,
Mike Kear
AFP Web Development
Windsor, NSW, Australia
http://www.choice.com.au

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