Posted on 11/16/2001 1:20:58 PM PST by Jean S
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department sought Thursday to convince the judge in the Microsoft Corp. antitrust case that its landmark settlement with the software giant will help consumers and rein in the company's illegal business behavior.
In a 68-page court filing, Justice lawyers defended the settlement they negotiated between Microsoft and nine states. Critics, including Microsoft rivals and some independent antitrust experts, have said the agreement is inadequate. They have charged that the company will be able to bypass many of the sanctions because of vague language.
But in the filing, government lawyers assured the judge that the settlement "will eliminate Microsoft's illegal practices, prevent recurrence of the same or similar practices and restore the competitive threat" by rival companies to the dominant Windows operating system.
The government also sought to clarify a part of the settlement that allows Microsoft to keep secret information that might broadly violate the security of its anti-piracy technology, which prevents the illegal copying of music or movies. It is considered especially important and lucrative as entertainment increasingly is delivered in digital formats.
The government told the judge that Microsoft must disclose to competitors all the capabilities of its anti-piracy music technology under the latest version of Windows, called XP. The government said that mandatory disclosure "makes these features available to competing software and hardware developers."
The government said it will require Microsoft to live up to its promises through "strong enforcement provisions" and can seek criminal penalties and civil fines if the company violates the deal.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates defended the settlement as tough but one that "we're really pleased to have." Nine other states led by California, Iowa and Connecticut rejected it and will ask U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to impose tougher penalties during hearings next year.
"Despite the restrictions and the things in this settlement, having the uncertainty removed and the resource-drain removed we think is very positive, not only for Microsoft but for the industry," Gates said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press. "We're hopeful to get it put behind us."
The judge, who must approve the settlement, tentatively set a hearing for February to review the deal. She has not signaled publicly how she might rule but has pressed the sides strongly to negotiate an end to the case.
Microsoft and the Justice Department have suffered during such reviews before. Another judge, Stanley Sporkin, now retired, scrapped a proposed settlement between Gates and the government in a closely related case in February 1995, when Sporkin determined the decree was not in the public interest.
The department promised in its 1995 settlement that it would "end Microsoft's unlawful practices that restrain trade and perpetuate its monopoly power." Yet as Sporkin rejected it, he complained that, "simply telling a defendant to go forth and sin no more does little or nothing to address the unfair advantage is has already gained."
A U.S. appeals court in spring 1995 overturned Sporkin's decision, saying that he relied on inappropriate evidence, and removed Sporkin from the case.
Another federal judge, Thomas Penfield Jackson, approved that settlement in August 1995. But Jackson himself was removed from the case this year by the same appeals court for "flagrant" ethical violations, after he secretly granted interviews to reporters during the trial.
Gates expressed hope again Thursday that more states will agree to join the settlement. "We really don't know exactly what will happen with the states. We hope they come in, and we're just moving forward," he said.
Microsoft also asked the judge on Thursday to formally recognize Charles Rule, the former top antitrust official during the Reagan administration, as one of its new lawyers. Microsoft hired Rule in the earliest days of the trial as an adviser, and he was pivotal in negotiating the latest settlement with the government.
Rule, for years, has been personally acquainted with Charles James, the new antitrust chief in the Bush administration.
The settlement requires Microsoft to disclose technical details to help rivals make their products work more closely with its monopoly Windows operating system and to give an oversight panel full access to its books and plans for five years. It also bans exclusive contracts with computer makers that put rival software vendors at a disadvantage.
Excuse me? Did you read the appeals court decision? Any of the quotes I just offered? Am I 'speaking' to air?
Microsoft made no allegations of actual bias whatsoever! They made none of those claims in court, save the 'he spoke to the press a little too early' whine.
They never even *tried* to prove actual bias. They just complained about how it looked, knowing that it the mandatory response to their complaint was removal.
MS went Judge Shopping.
And as I posted above, direct quote -- Thus, although Microsoft alleged only appearance of bias, not actual bias, we have reviewed the record with painstaking care and have discerned no evidence of actual bias.
There was no evidence of bias, such as 'sleeping during MS's witnesses'. You're making that all up, in a lame attempt to put the blame for all this on the Judge.
You could save us all a lot of typing if you'd actually go read some of the court decisions and evidence in question . . .
Let me guess, you're Bill Gates and Shrub2000 is Steve Ballmer?
Oh, and just F.Y.I., I'm not in any way a fan or 'partisan' of Sun's. I find their hardware far too expensive for what you get. They're outstanding machines, but you can get the same performance for half the price.
Less, with a Linux cluster . . .
I'm only a 'cross-platform' programming partisan. Which does lead me to champion Java, of course.
But other than Java, I couldn't give a rats rear end about Sun. Now, compare that to the MS side of this discussion, which is dominated by MS employees who *only* use MS products, even when better choices are available.
Ah, how much fun it is to ride in a one-horse partisan parade, yes? I think the MS people are so blind because any developer willing to actually *look* at other technologies already switched away from MS years ago.
The only ones *left* doing MS stuff are the people afraid to evaluate alternatives.
Nope. I keep asking the Linux gurus for help here (trying to switch away from MS), but to no avail. It seems like us Linux newbies are too much trouble here, and in the news groups. Oh well.
oh well. back to the garage.
Probably because help-desk questions are quite usually considered off-topic. Not that I don't do this myself sometimes. :) You've probably noticed that the threads that do digress to technical discussions generally end up focusing on network administration and Java and the sorts of things that the techmeisters like Bush2000 and Innocentbystander are concerned with.
I'm a Linux newbie myself, and would love a forum to discuss Linux, but it shouldn't be done in the middle of a political discussion. I'm wondering if our intrepid founder and the moderators would mind a separate thread for Linux desktop questions? How about it Jim? Is such a thing too far from your original concept for FreeRepublic?
I have to admit to being a happy lad after finally getting a linux-based router and firewall working. Smoothwall. It was a piece of cake to install and setup. I never could get Mandrake to work properly with my ADSL connection. Now if I can just find a cheap 486 or early Pentium box so I can free up the more powerful box I'm using.
The most useful linux forum I've found is the Corel WP Office for Linux newsgroup, but it's focused mostly on problems with the office suite. I understand the frustration with the techies, though...there doesn't seem to be a real end-user focused forum anywhere (particularly for desktop use-the Corel forum is at least of some use there). You have to be at least a hobbiest (as I am--I know just enough to be dangerous) to even begin to understand some of the discussions.
I suppose this is probably one of the barriers to the market for Linux. Mandrake 8.0 installed like a champ on my machine, and some of the bundled software is "way cool," but if you have problems with other applications, tech support is limited to what you can glean off the net for yourself--some of it better than others.
Have you tried SuSe? Version 7.3 is reported as a Windows slayer at The Register, and a breeze to install and setup.
I'll probably be holding on to my Mandrake install for now since I paid good money for it (I know I could've downloaded it for free but I'm an impatient person and the version I bought included a horde of other killer apps.) My wife and I are actually interested in going a different route from windoze with our desktop configuration (we're hotkey fanatics--must come from working in WP for so long) so I'll probably work with tweaking all the various options and window-manager alternatives until it suits us...
Yet another advantage of the Open-Source movement--the sheer diversity enhances your ability to customize your environment to suit your own needs--not someone else's impression of your needs.
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