Europeans doing what we should have done - pound MS into compliance
 

It's a good thing to see the the Europeans can do what we obviously can't do over here - make Microsoft pay for it's non compliance:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5171126.stm

-S

I'm certainly no MS fan but it seems to me all the Europeans have really done is to create an impossible situation in order to extract a huge amount of money from them.

"We don't like you so we're going to do anything we can to hurt you" doesn't seem to be a very appropriate way for a "court of law" to operate. We'll see what happens in the appeal i guess.

No - what they are doing is forcing MS to allow for better Linux compatibility. Right now, all you have is a closed sourced monopoly that forces competing system to reverse engineer things such as Samba just to talk to a MS box. So, from the evidence of the facts, I disagree with your assesment.

-S

Whatever.

It certainly is not that easy. For both sides, btw.

It speaks volumes that the EU Parliament makes harsher sentences on Microsoft than native criminals, and puts more pressure on Bill than on Ahmedinejad, or the Hamas.

The question is, who can fool the EU better and carry on with impunity, the Ayatolah, or Mr. Gates?

Both the American court of law and European court of law found the same evidence, so are you discounting that? Only diff is, Europeans are doing what they said they would do while the US is backing off on its initial requirements which included breaking the company up! I always found the European solution a better plan of action than actually breaking the company up however and it is good the way things turned out.

-S

Has nobody told you that if someone says "whatever" in a discussion that he doesn't want to discuss it any further because he's run out of arguments?

calm down bud...no need to start a shouting match.

Native criminals? Does the EU even have jurisdiction over criminal cases? My impression of the EU has always been that its primarily an economic union and mostly concerned with matters affecting trade.

What a load of horse puckys...suing a company because other people are forced to reverse engineer it's product in order to make something work for them that was not enabled by the "Original" creator....How thoughtless of Mr. Gates to have something that has made him alot of money...sounds like sour grapes...screw Linux and Macs....let em develop they're own stuff on they're own and if Microsoft felt inclined to help them then that should be fine but why should they be forced into divulging anything about they're products if they so choose not to.

Bunch of non-sense...if anything Microsoft should make it as hard as hell to interwine any products it does not want mingling with Windows...if people don't like it then is'nt that why Linux has done so well in the first place....it went it's own way?

Meanwhile they have stepped beyond that and want to regulate almost everything. Concenring jurisdiction, they have a special understanding of that. Edith Cresson has been commissioner and was found guilty to have stolen money and to have embezzeled money. She rejected to step back and blame all the guilt, saying that the whol EU commission did ike she did. It led to the stepping back of the whole EU commission under -I'm not sure - Santer. She has been to court these days, threatened by a cutting of her pension - and the judges said that because her bad deeds had been discovered, she alöready had been penalized enough and should leave court withiut additional penalty. Moral of the story: Never strip a bank robber off his mask - because when it becomes known who he is, that is such a big penalty that no court in the EU will send hoim to jail or make him pay another penalty. :dead: Cresson will get her full pension of 48000 bucks. - If one of you guys steal in your company, you will be send to hell. They will not pay your pension, nor will they spare you from being penalized by the police/court. "Alle Tiere sind gleich, aber Schweine sind gleicher als gleich" (A. Huxley) EU: corruption, selfishness, ignorance and decadence at best. But is it really better in other parts of the world?

Your impression is a few years outdated.

Speaking of things outdated, you would be correct if you used the term "Political-economy" instead, though with a very modern meaning, and replace trade, a consensual voluntary transaction, with obedience. Without the "primarily" bit, replaced by exclusively (with the exception of a diplomatic body, if there's no easier alternative), your impression would be the ideal EU, which is no longer nor the real EU, nor the ideal EU proposed by the EU itself. The worst mistake was believing the EU wouldn't feed on our fingers to grow and eat up our arms, to believe it wouldn't become an independent corporativist body hungry for money and power. The fact Europe was never completely united, and what was united didn't last very long as such in the past should speak loudly. However the members of the EU never read their history about Charlemagne, or even the Roman Empire for that matter, but we can excuse them, their nations of origin don't even teach proper history at school, what should we expect from them? That they learn by themselves? That they seek knowledge by themselves?

Do you know any Doctors willing to perform liposuction or stomach reduction surgery on compulsive obese patients?

For a niche product, I agree with you. What you are talking about now is a commodity and that is where things change. Same as Bell telecom in the past, Standard Oil, etc. Just think if Standard Oil made things so you could only use Shell motor oil in your engine, and then started charging $300 a quart. You have taken the commodity and made it a monopoly. This is why we have laws to protect against this kind of BS.

-S

PS. What has happened over the years is MS has made Windows technically impossible to even talk to from a different machine unless MS programmed in support like they do for MAC. How about video? How about the fiasco for VM? MS put VM on all PC's and purposely broke Sun JAVA from working on VM. These are the unethical dealings of a monopoly. All I want is my Linux boxes to talk to my WIndows boxes and work together in harmony - and that is what the EU is doing. I don't care for much beyond that. This is a negative for MS which is why they don't do it because it upset their tight control.

PPS. Need I even talk about Direct X?

Or at least isn't willing to expend the effort to argue the point any further....