[CS-FSLUG] M$ fined 497 million dollars

[Leon Brooks]

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 14:50, Aaron Patrick Lehmann wrote:
> Also, if they are being forced to open their codecs,

Pardon their no-doubt unreasonable RAND terms.

I personally agree that just omitting the player is a silly idea. 
Forcing them to agree with the EU on at least three free-as-in-beer 
competitors each for media player (RealPlayer, Quicktime, MPlayer), web 
browser (Netscape, FireFox, Opera) and email client (ThunderBird, 
Eudora, Columba) and offer those alongside their own applications would 
make more sense.

I would have *all* of them, including WMP, IE and LookOut, be installed 
from a second CD to make it clear that they were separate from the base 
OS. I would also require that they agree with the EU on adding one more 
of each category of competing product, plus verifying that all products 
were up to date and functional each year for the next five years (so 
ending up with a choice of at least 9 working competitors including 
Microsofts' in each category by 2009). Providers of the 3rd party apps 
should be given adequate opportunity to test their products "as 
shipped" before the tape is cut.

I would also require them to bundle at least OpenOffice.org with MS 
Office, and more decent free-as-in-beer Win32 suites if they exist.

Why would I do this? Microsoft has acted to suppress competitors. 
Putting their competitors on the CDs and offering them impartially 
alongside Microsoft's own products would directly thwart this ambition, 
and also push Microsoft's corporate face into the situation.

Yes, this would make MS-Windows a more attractive product, but I believe 
the dilution of their monopoly through directly supplying their own 
competition would more than make up for it.

I would not require them to distribute a product that they were required 
to pay for. If I were distributing a product like Opera, it would be a 
version which continued to be basically functional at the end of the 
trial period - perhaps it loses JavaScript support or something - 
rather than have it drop dead.

Cheers; Leon

-- 
When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman,
he said unto her,
"Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?"
She said, "No man, Lord".
And Jesus said unto her, "Neither do I condemn thee:
go, and sin no more". -- John 8:10-11, KJV