Naaaa, I'm sure he just dropped Linux 'cause Microsoft told him to.
Posted on 03/19/2002 12:28:49 PM PST by Mike Fieschko
Microsoft sharpshooter Joachim Kempin, who was convicted of illegally shooting antelope in Montana in 1998, has been turning his guns on a more familiar target: Microsoft's own OEM customers.
The States' remedy hearing opened in DC yesterday, and States attorney Steven Kuney produced a devastating memo from Kempin, then in charge of Microsoft's OEM business, written after Judge Jackson had ordered his break-up of the company. Kempin raises the possibility of threatening Dell and other PC builders which promote Linux.
"I'm thinking of hitting the OEMs harder than in the past with anti-Linux. ... they should do a delicate dance," Kempin wrote to Ballmer, in what is sure to be a memorable addition to the phrases ("knife the baby", "cut off the air supply") with which Microsoft enriched the English language in the first trial. Unlike those two, this is not contested.
The bullets aimed Spaghetti Western-style at the feet of the dancing OEMs translate to Microsoft withholding source code, according to the memo.
For these details we're indebted to eWeek's Darryl Taft, who unlike some his fellow reporters, appeared to stay for the afternoon session of the hearing. His account of the day's proceedings can be found here , and includes the delicious detail that late in the afternoon, Sun Microsystems was desperately trying to close the session, arguing that cross examination would reveal confidential information submitted under seal.
Reuters also mentions the Linux threat in passing, but compare and contrast with The New York Times, which doesn't. CNET and Wired simply carry the Reuters report.
Earlier memos described that it was "untenable" that a key Microsoft partner was promoting Linux. Kuney revealed that Dell disbanded its Linux business unit in early 2001. Dell quietly pulled Linux from its desktop PCs in the summer of 2001, IDG's Ashlee Vance discovered subsequently, six months after we heard Michael Dell declare his love of Linux on the desktop the previous winter.
Compaq was also mentioned in other memos, with Microsoft taking the line that OEMs should "meet demand but not help create demand" for Linux.
Kempin was Microsoft's chief OEM enforcer in the second half of the nineties, contributing a string of memorable memos to the 1998 Trial, and takes the credit for ensuring that the price of a Windows rose as the price of PCs were falling, during this period.
"The plaintiffs are not here to punish Microsoft - the plaintiffs' goals are to make Microsoft behave properly," argued a States' attorney. But how? Short of obliging the executives to wear antelope horns and race in front of an SUV under a hail of rifle fire, it's hard to see what language they understand.
It seems that would be easy enough to prove or disprove.
Why is it legal for car makers to only allow dealers to sell their car and not other brands, and illegal for Microsoft to do the same thing.
Why can't I buy a Pepsi at McDonalds? McDonalds only has COKE products. The reason is Coke makes McDonalds a better deal if they don't carry Pepsi. That is the same pressure that Microsoft puts on Dell. Why is it legal for Coke to pressure McDonalds to only sell Code and illegal for Gates to pressure Dell to only sell Windows.
Why is it Legal for CBS to demand that their stations onl carry CBS. No CBS stations have NBC or ABC, or FOX. Why is it legal for CBS to demand that their affiliated stations to only carry CBS and not Legal for Gates to require his dealers to only carry windows?
Why can't I get a Big MAC at Wendys? Why can't I get a Wendys Classic at Mcdonalds. Most of these stores are not company owned. Why can McDonalds require that to be a McDonalds dealer I can only sell McDonalds sandwiches.
Why can't I buy Kentucky Fried Chicken at Churches? Why are exclusive dealerships only illegal for GATES.
,What percentage of the Big Mac business does McDonalds have? Do they have a monopoly on Big Macs?
I will believe the attacks on Microsoft are not political payoffs to Oracle and Sun, when they take on Coke,GM, F0RD, CBS McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Most people who use Linus, put their own P.C's together.
The vast marjority of PC's runing Linux are servers. About 27 million of them. People with servers tend to do their own operating system installs. There are way to many options for their to be any money saved by mass installation of server software.
The difference being of course MS is a monopoly, the companies you cite are not. One excludes competition the others do not. A better comparison with MS would be Standard Oil making OEM agreements with auto manufacturers to produce cars which only run on Standard's fuels. Of course as as monopolies go there is no comparision with MS.
Not an analogous situation. Dell Computer is not a Microsoft franchisee, although M$ might like to think of them that way.
A better analogy. Suppose you're Chrysler. You sell all your cars with Goodyear tires. Goodyear gives you a nice deal because you buy from them in volume. One day, you find out that some of your customers would like their new Chryslers shipped with Michelins installed. As soon as Goodyear finds out about this, they start threatening you. Maybe, they say, your volume discount will suddenly disappear, although you're still shipping far more Goodyear tires than other car companies that get the volume discount. Or maybe, Goodyear will just quietly insist that you not go out of your way to let customers know they can have Michelins instead of Goodyears on their new cars. Oh, and, did we mention that Ford will get all of Goodyear's new tire lines several weeks ahead of Chrysler? But, of course, all the troubles would be forgotten if Chrysler would just see fit to pay Goodyear for a full set of Goodyear tires even for cars that leave the plant wearing Michelins.
Sounds a lot like extortion to me.
Of course, there are 8 or 10 solid, competitive tire companies out there, so Goodyear could never get away with this. But as for PC operating systems ...
"The plaintiffs are not here to punish Microsoft - the plaintiffs' goals are to make Microsoft behave properly," argued a States' attorney. But how? Short of obliging the executives to wear antelope horns and race in front of an SUV under a hail of rifle fire, it's hard to see what language they understand.
I'd also simply announce that, in the interest of getting out of legal trouble in the states suing Microsoft, that no further Microsoft products would be sold in those states, and that all help desk support would cease immediately (with pro rata refunds as required).
Based on my experience with M$ "help desk support," I think they should offer this deal to all of their customers.
How is Microsoft a monopoly? You can run any OS you want on a PC. Linux, Solaris for Intel, FreeBSD, NetBSD, BeOS, etc. You can run tens of thousands of non-MS applicaitons on their OS. Adobe, Lotus Notes, Eudora and on and on. No one has ever claimed MS has tried to force PC makers to build their computers to NOT RUN these other vendors products, which would be easily done should they have wanted to.
I do not see that MS is a monoply. FYI: I have competed with MS for almost 20 years at a variety of companies.
Exactly. Same applies to the PC makers. No one has a gun to their heads. Heck, if they were smart, they'd ally themselves and tell Microsoft to piss off with the threats. Care to imagine what the impact would be if Dell, Gateway, HP and Compaq all stopped including Windows for free, and instead put on RedHat, making Windows a 400 dollar option? But I doubt it would ever happen, because they need to cater to their customers.
Naaaa, I'm sure he just dropped Linux 'cause Microsoft told him to.
I'm typing this in Mandrake Linux :)
Therefore, Microsoft is not a monopoly.
Bump, because McDonald's oppresses me by being 3 minutes away while the far tastier Wendy's is all the way on the other side of town.
Is it any kind of fair competition when the distances are so unequal?!?
Funny, i just received a fine Dell custom made machine a "530 Workstation" with all the doo-dahs installed, and to my recolection if you go to their web site and scroll down where the small business units are, they give you the option to choose the OS from "NT","2000" and guess what"Red Hat Linux 7.2" as an option. So I think this whole story is a bunch of horse sh!t.
My two pennies...
I actually don't believe in them myself :}
Besides, even a minority of market share can constitute a monopoly.
Now that totally loses me. If that is the case then what is the complaint? Moreover, why continue referring to such a phenomenon as "a monopoly," when everyone understands the term to mean something different?
Isn't this like how the "poverty line" shifts around from here to there as the bar moves, and "racism" can mean whatever Jesse Jackson has his sights on this month, and oral sex isn't sex, and "the RKBA shall not be infringed" means it can be infringed?
Btw, Mandrake 8.2 is out. I got the CDs burned and will be installing it tomorrow. :)
It's a fun part of the installer when you get to open up those subfolders, as you're going through and picking what to packages to install... like opening little presents!
But this is the free market in action!
I think Microsoft has done great things, and I would also love to see free software displace them. But, displace them according to the wishes of the customers, not those of some court inserting itself on behalf of unsuccessful competitors.
I actually don't believe in them myself :}
Monopolies, not judges!
I bet Sun has said as much in their own internal memos. That's why they are called "internal".
Then how can AOL provide their services purely on UNIX servers, and are now moving to Linux?
Borland and Word Perfect had the major share of their markets, but then they just quit competing. I know from first hand experience. Borland bought jets and fancy cars, and spent zilch on regional marketing. They thought they had beaten MS and were living on easy street, except Microsoft didn't quit. By 1997, MS had the market and no one was hearing much from Word Perfect or Borland. Microsoft didn't do ANYTHING illegal in those repsects. Their competitors simply quit trying.
Monopolies have the ability to control a market. OBVIOUSLY, Microsoft isn't doing that if a major player such as AOL can buy Linux, and Dell sells it.
The monopolistic practice MS was convicted of took place ten years ago when they did have the market locked up. They don't anymore, so quite yer bitchin.
GNU/GPL confers no different rights than the same rights one has when purchasing an automobile or any other product. If some software vendors choose to give their products away at no cost to certain users so be it. It's their choice, and unlike Marxism no one is forcing them to give their intellectual property away. It's voluntary. The difference between MS's EULA and GNU/GPL is that with GNU/GPL the user is the owner whereas MS retains all ownership rights to their software. Apparently, private property is too radical a concept for you to accept.
Otoh MS's EULA is a throwback to Medieval serfdom where people were not allowed to own what they paid for and worked on. Any imbicile can see this.
If you object to people not being "allowed to own what they paid for and worked on" then you are arguing for the wrong side.
I guess Mac dose not have this trouble!
--Samuel Adams (1722-1803), letter to John Pitts, January 21, 1776
"no one is forcing them to give their intellectual property away"
So, which is it? Marxism or volunteerism? I suppose you also loved Clinton's labeling of taxation as "contributions"?
You also got the commons thing wrong. People retained private property and were not required to give it away, even though a village had a commons.
"The difference between MS's EULA and GNU/GPL is that with GNU/GPL the user is the owner whereas MS retains all ownership rights to their software. Apparently, private property is too radical a concept for you to accept.
Newbie to the game, I see. No company has ever sold their software to a user. If a user owns it, then they can do as they please, unless you don't understand ownership principles. To place restrictions on software means that the person does not "own" it, they pay for its use. So, what the Hell is the difference between licensing software and owning it with hordes of restrictions? Nothing, because the result is the same. Does "is" mean "is' in your vocabulary?
I have worked on a number of projects were the source was valuable to the competitor. You obviously don’t know this, but Excel 3.0 displayed results 3% faster than Lotus 123. Lotus made claims of Microsoft using undocumented API calls. The problem was Microsoft didn’t. They just had better routines, routines they should not distribute as open source.
There are some things that are candidates for public sourcing, but not everything. That idea is socialism to the hilt. “Let’s all hold hands and share as one, one community of personhood.”
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