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Moderately improved map of Microsoft tying evidence
I have added modest improvements to the map, based on emails sent to me.
Please send more.
Apologies for the html and ascii duplication, but it is going to be
a web page....
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Do you know of others who have legally useful or promising accounts
of Microsoft tying 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.
I suggest 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.
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 (http://www.sjmercury.com/business/gillmor/docs/dg072097.htm)
-
Testimony of various hardware manufacturers about MS pressure on them to
dump Netscape (http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,15416,00.html (See Manufacturers
under oath section.) http://www.news.com/News/MSFTTicker/1,72,,00.html?mscalc)
-
Justice Department petition concerning consent decree: http://www.sjmercury.com/business/microsoft/request102097.htm
-
Visual Studio requires MSIE to install (needs a URL to the original sjmercury
discussion group posting, so that we can request affidavits)
-
Font aliasing is sabotaged for Netscape by MS (needs the email address
of the person who found this, so that we can request affidavits)
-
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.
-
Of modest legal value, discusses Microsoft Money interface tying: http://www.sjmercury.com/business/compute/docs/080701.htm
-
Todd Landis says: If you could search for "Excel" in the Windows
3.1 sources I think you'd find comments on places that were hacked at the
Excel team's request. Don't have the details but these would be in
versions built in 1994.
-
>From an email by Roberto.Di.Cosmo@ens.fr: On the gossip side, though,
I vaguely remember something that I'd be glad to see confirmed or disproved
here... The various competing spreadsheets were regularly submitted to
benchmarks by BYTE, PC Magazine etc. which included access to disk speed,
recalculation etc. etc. Now, I recall that Excel turned out extremely
superior in one of these tasks (this is a FACT) because it used to its
advantage an undocumented system call that was unavailable to competitors
and gave rise to a lawsuit somewhere, where MS dismissed the charge as
a minor documentation problem (they "forgot" to document this function)
(this is the UNSURE part I would like to see confirmed or disproved). Anyway,
after seeing another "accident" preventing the Netscape Commerce server
from answering more than 10 request at the time on NT (there is a lawsuit
around) I do not have difficulty believing the version which is not favorable
to MS.
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?
Important reference to precedent setting case for when products are
separate, buried in an article about why Microsoft thinks the government's
accusations are vague perceptions:
(1984 decision, Jefferson Parish Hospital vs. Hyde)
http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/97/10/27/msft_nscp_1.html
Relevant Web Pages:
http://roscoe.law.harvard.edu/courses/techseminar96/antitrust/antitrust.html,
great theory articles, assorted other useful things.
The Ralph Nader group, contains anti-trust and microsoft assessment
mail archives, conference on assessing microsoft info, etc. http://www.essential.org
Microsoft supplied info:
www.slate.com/Features/NaderMS/NaderMS.asp
Cyber activists (who hate MS, of course) http://www.netaction.org/