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Proposal to create a map of our collective evidence of tying, issues of law
I wish to ask the members of this list: do you have specific instances
of interface tying, or other tying, suitable for putting in the form of
an affidavit signed by you that could be used in court?
Do you know of others who have legally useful or promising accounts of
such activity?
I am proposing that we put together a comprehensive digest of the
evidence against Microsoft, of the legal strategies that seem promising,
and of the legal arguments that seem relevant.
Here are the legal strategies that I am aware of:
consent decree enforcement
contractual tying
interface tying
The parties suing:
DOJ (consent decree)
State Attorney Generals (investigating but not acting at this time)
of Connecticut, Texas, California, some others....
(contractual tying, monopolistic practices)
Reiser (interface tying)
Evidence:
Windows 98 performs both contractual and interface tying (Dan
Gillmor past articles at www.sjmercury.com)
Testimony of various hardware manufacturers about MS pressure on
them to dump Netscape (needs a URL)
Visual Studio requires MSIE to install (needs a URL to sjmercury
discussion group posting)
Font aliasing is sabotaged for Netscape by MS (needs a URL)
Disablement of CompuServe's Internet in a Box by Win95
(http://www.around.com/microsoft.html)
Windows boot loaders do not support other operating systems, unlike
the boot loaders of OS/2 and
Linux.
Issues:
Does product integration create packaging efficiency sufficient to
legally justify tying of OS components
(such as browsers.)?
How do we articulate a dividing line between allowing an OS
architect to do his work, and allowing tying?
Relevant Web Pages:
(to be filled in)
My proposal: that we evolve this brief outline into a much more detailed
strategic map of our legal campaigns, and thereby ensure that evidence
and strategies found by us separately are added to the arsenal of us
all. Are there others who share this interest? If so, then we can make
a web page, and hopefully learn much and focus our energies in the
process of evolving it.
Sam Goodhope wrote:
> Hmmm...what do you mean lazy?
>
> Special Assistant Attorney General Sam Goodhope
Can you brief us on your evidence of tying collected so far in your
investigation, and any legal strategy/intention information that you are
able to release at this time? That offers the potential of being the
most definitive and positive settlement of that discussion possible.
More importantly, it would be useful.
Can other government agents working on these issues provide such
information as well?
If so, it would do a lot to persuade everyone that serious investigative
and legal work was being done, rather than leaving us all alone with our
fears that our government doesn't truly care about us.
Best Wishes,
Hans