Trusts, Monopolies

[pookie]

[quote]rainjack wrote:
Because of Microsoft’s business model - leasing the RIGHTS to the software instead of owning the computers - It required Gates to enter into agreements with PC makers.[/quote]

All software companies operate pretty much in the same way. They don’t all get to dictate their terms.

Regardless of how a stupid civil court ruled - these are the same people who found against McDoonDoons for making hot coffee - the computer makers are just as guilty as MS is of collusion - not violation of anti-trust laws.

One bad ruling in an unrelated case doesn’t mean all rulings are bad. I read a summary of Judge Jackson’s findings against Microsoft, and they all seemed pretty solid.

[quote]The computer makers made these agreements to get more favorable pricing from Gates.

It wasn’t all Microsoft’s fault. [/quote]

In the 90s, the makers had no choice. There was a standard “agreement” dictated by Microsoft and you either signed, or didn’t sell Windows with your PCs. They had the “choice” of not selling Windows; but that pretty much guaranteed you’d never be a large player in the PC market.

[LIFTICVSMAXIMVS]

[quote]rainjack wrote:
http://www.salt.org.il/india.html

Really?
[/quote]

RJ, step back for a second and think logically about this (do not let a random interwebz link have the last word on the matter). Salt exists in great abundance in the oceans, etc. A monopoly means only one company owns the source/technology to satisfy an end. The link you provided does not even address how a monopoly can be maintained with salt. It would be a lot like drug prohibition today. The government may restrict some activity but a black market would surely emerge as a result of the ease in which this resource is obtained and produced.

1. gather sea water
2. evaporate H2O by any means
3. distribute/use salt

It doesn’t get any easier than that.

[pookie]

[quote]dhickey wrote:
Wrong. If the price is low enough to deter competition, that competition wouldn’t have a measurable effect on that price. That is the market price. Please explain to me how this is inaccurate.[/quote]

The price is higher than a “fair market” would support; but not high enough for competitors to feel incentive to enter the market.

No one is saying that a monopoly will charge 10 times the market price. But even if you only charge 10% or 5% above fair value, you’re still profiting at the customer’s expense without providing any value for it.

[dhickey]

[quote]pookie wrote:
dhickey wrote:
Wrong. If the price is low enough to deter competition, that competition wouldn’t have a measurable effect on that price. That is the market price. Please explain to me how this is inaccurate.

The price is higher than a “fair market” would support; but not high enough for competitors to feel incentive to enter the market.
[/quote]
This make absolutely zero sense. If someone can enter the market and make a profit at lower than the current price, they will. If no one enters the market, it is obvious that there is no incentive to do so, meaning the price is low enough that the return would be insufficient compared to other investments. Again, you are not making any economic sense.

How exactly do you define a market price? I would define it as the price a producer is willing to accept and a consumer is willing to pay. If no producer is willing to sell something at lower than current price, the current price is the market price. Pretty simple really.

[pookie]

[quote]dhickey wrote:
This make absolutely zero sense. If someone can enter the market and make a profit at lower than the current price, they will.[/quote]

Entering a market has a cost. You need to establish yourself against the existing players; you need to hire talent; you might need infrastructure, etc.

If the perceived profit margin is not worth it, you won’t enter.

Your argument works if anyone can enter any market simply by wishing it. Unless I’m missing something.

If no one enters the market, it is obvious that there is no incentive to do so, meaning the price is low enough that the return would be insufficient compared to other investments. Again, you are not making any economic sense.

Are you saying that selling widget at fair market price (say $10) won’t bring competitors, but if I sell them at $10.25, competitors will flock to it? Even at $12, is it tempting to enter if I know that as soon as I announce myself, those prices will fall to $5?

What if you need to build a refinery? How about a chip fabrication plant? Some markets require millions or billions in investments for anyone wishing to enter it.

How exactly do you define a market price? I would define it as the price a producer is willing to accept and a consumer is willing to pay. If no producer is willing to sell something at lower than current price, the current price is the market price. Pretty simple really.

Yes, offer and demand. But offer doesn’t have to budge if it’s the only game in town. If the company stays relatively “reasonable” in it’s fleecing of the customer, they’ll keep making sales and maintain low incentive for potential competitors. Even if they don’t leverage their monopoly advantage in other ways (as Microsoft did), the customer still ends up paying more than they would in a fair competitive market.

[rainjack]

[quote]pookie wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Because of Microsoft’s business model - leasing the RIGHTS to the software instead of owning the computers - It required Gates to enter into agreements with PC makers.

All software companies operate pretty much in the same way. They don’t all get to dictate their terms.[/quote]

An OS is a bit different than regular software, wouldn’t you say?

But that aside - we would not be having this discussion had Bill Gates decided to use a different business model. The computer makers had options. When I make computers for people, I give them the choice of Windows or Linux. Just because the big boys didn’t want to pay extra for their license for offering an option to their customers does not mean Microsoft was dictating terms.

Greed on the part of the computer makers is not a crime committed by Bill Gates.

[quote]Regardless of how a stupid civil court ruled - these are the same people who found against McDoonDoons for making hot coffee - the computer makers are just as guilty as MS is of collusion - not violation of anti-trust laws.

One bad ruling in an unrelated case doesn’t mean all rulings are bad. I read a summary of Judge Jackson’s findings against Microsoft, and they all seemed pretty solid.[/quote]

They might seem solid when read by a computer guy with a bias against MS. I heard the same thing coming from Leo Laporte. In my opinion, Microsoft was the victim of a “fuck them, their rich” mentality. If you buy a windows machine from a computer maker - how much of the bundled software do you keep?

We bought my son a new laptop for Christmas. It came with Vista, and about 50 fucking trial-ware programs on it. I spent the better part of an hour uninstalling everything from Quicken to Macafee before I turned the computer over to him.

[quote]The computer makers made these agreements to get more favorable pricing from Gates.

It wasn’t all Microsoft’s fault.

In the 90s, the makers had no choice. There was a standard “agreement” dictated by Microsoft and you either signed, or didn’t sell Windows with your PCs. They had the “choice” of not selling Windows; but that pretty much guaranteed you’d never be a large player in the PC market.
[/quote]

And that was probably a huge contributing factor as to why the real OS alternatives are so few. The computer companies were lazy and greedy. Unix was available.

I am sure, had the makers of computers spent just a little of their massive profits on finding a Windows alternative instead of suing Bill Gates, we would have an extremely competitive OS market.

I blame Dell, HP, Gateway, Micron, et al for their lazy greed as much as you - and the judge - blame Microsoft.

[LIFTICVSMAXIMVS]

Ludwig Von Mises on competition in a market economy, pp. 277, from Human Action:

"The first connotation of monopoly, very frequently implied in the popular use of the term, signifies a state of affairs in which the monopolist, whether an individual or a group of individuals, exclusively controls one of the vital conditions of human survival. Such a monopolist has the power to starve to death all those who do not obey his orders. He dictates and the others have no alternative but either to surrender or to die. With regard to such a monopoly there is no market or any kind of catallactic competition. The monopolist is the master and the rest are slaves entirely dependent on his good graces. There is no need to dwell upon this kind of monopoly. It has no reference whatever to a market economy. It is enough to cite one instance. A world-embracing socialist state would exercise such an absolute and total monopoly; it would have the power to crush its opponents by starving them to death.

"The second connotation of monopoly differs from the first in that it describes a state of affairs compatible with the conditions of a market economy. A monopolist in this sense is an individual or a group of individuals, fully combining for joint action, who has the exclusive control of the supply of a definite commodity. If we define the term monopoly in this way, the domain of monopoly appears very vast. The products of the processing industries are more or less different from one another. Each factory turns out products different from those of the other plants. Each hotel has a monopoly on the sale of its services on the site of its premises. The professional services rendered by a physician or a lawyer are never perfectly equal to those rendered by any other physician or lawyer. Except for certain raw materials, foodstuffs, and other staple goods, monopoly is everywhere on the market.

"However, the mere phenomenon of monopoly is without any significance and relevance for the operation of the market and the determination of prices. It does not give the monopolist any advantage in selling his products. Under copyright law every rhymester enjoys a monopoly in the sale of his poetry. But this does not influence the market. It may happen that no price whatever can be realized for his stuff and that his books can only be sold at their waste paper value.

"Monopoly in this second connotation of the term becomes a factor in the determination of prices only if the demand curve for the monopoly good concerned is shaped in a particular way. If conditions are such that the monopolist can secure higher net proceeds by selling a smaller quantity of his product at a higher price than by selling a greater quantity of his supply at a lower price, there emerges a monopoly price higher than the potential market price would have been in the absence of monopoly. Monopoly prices are an important market phenomenon, while monopoly as such is only important if it can result in the formation of monopoly prices.

“It is customary to call prices which are not monopoly prices competitive prices. While it is questionable whether or not this terminology is expedient, it is generally accepted and it would be difficult to change it. But one must guard oneself against its misinterpretation. It would be a serious blunder to deduce from the antithesis between monopoly price and competitive price that the monopoly price is the outgrowth of the absence of competition. There is always catallactic competition on the market. Catallactic competition is no less a factor in the determination of monopoly prices than it is in the determination of competitive prices. The shape of the demand curve that makes the appearance of monopoly prices possible and directs the monopolists’ conduct is determined by the competition of all other commodities competing for the buyers’ dollars. The higher the monopolist fixes the price at which he is ready to sell, the more potential buyers turn their dollars toward other vendible goods. On the market every commodity competes with all other commodities.”

[pookie]

[quote]rainjack wrote:
An OS is a bit different than regular software, wouldn’t you say?[/quote]

Only in the sense that it runs the hardware. It’s still compiled source code. There’s no reason it needs any kind of particular license.

But that aside - we would not be having this discussion had Bill Gates decided to use a different business model. The computer makers had options. When I make computers for people, I give them the choice of Windows or Linux. Just because the big boys didn’t want to pay extra for their license for offering an option to their customers does not mean Microsoft was dictating terms.

Bill Gates didn’t invent the software licensing agreement. It was how software was sold even before he came along.

The restrictions on dual-booting and what could be done to the desktop were unique to Windows. Those are (some of) the anti-competitive practices Microsoft was found guilty of.

Greed on the part of the computer makers is not a crime committed by Bill Gates.

No one said anything about greed being a crime.

[quote]They might seem solid when read by a computer guy with a bias against MS. I heard the same thing coming from Leo Laporte.
In my opinion, Microsoft was the victim of a “fuck them, their rich” mentality.
If you buy a windows machine from a computer maker - how much of the bundled software do you keep?[/quote]

I don’t have a bias against Microsoft. Recognizing that a company uses unfair business practices to stifle competition is not having a bias against it. They didn’t get busted for being rich; they got busted for strong arming their partners to shaft their competitors.

As for bundled software - I keep none of it; I reinstall from scratch. For desktop, I build them myself.

And that was probably a huge contributing factor as to why the real OS alternatives are so few. The computer companies were lazy and greedy. Unix was available.

It’s not that easy. Even if Unix is available, you still need drivers for the hardware parts. Companies will write drivers for Windows; getting them to write drivers for your new OS might be difficult. Even if you want to write them yourself; they might not be willing to give you the hardware specs of whatever parts they make.

Companies like Dell started off as small PC makers. They never had any software ambitions. They simply put parts together; install an OS and ship it. If they wanted to ship Windows legally (and you can’t really do otherwise if you’re playing in the big leagues); they had to agree to whatever terms Microsoft imposed.

I am sure, had the makers of computers spent just a little of their massive profits on finding a Windows alternative instead of suing Bill Gates, we would have an extremely competitive OS market.

There are alternatives. There have been for a long time. Even in DOS days, you could get DR-DOS instead. But there again, Microsoft went and made sure that you’d have problems if you used a competitor’s DOS. Look up the phrase “DOS isn’t done until Lotus won’t run” and read. If you can explain to me the advantage to the customer in having his applications not work - deliberately - on an upgrade, I’d like to hear it.

I blame Dell, HP, Gateway, Micron, et al for their lazy greed as much as you - and the judge - blame Microsoft.

You don’t seem to be entirely aware of all the practices Microsoft employed to curb competition. It’s easy to dismiss it as a simple “eat the rich” knee-jerk reaction; but it’s nothing of the sort. Microsoft did use their market position to stifle competition and the customer paid for it. There were a lot of summaries of the judgment; read one and see if you agree with everything Microsoft was found guilty of doing.

[pookie]

[quote]dhickey wrote:
How about 89% of the market?
85%?
83%?
80%?
75%?
Are you getting the point yet?[/quote]

There’s not a precise cut-off point. You can try the same measures with less market share; they’ll simply be less effective.

You keep assuming someone could have competed at the time. You’ll have to show a single company producing at the volume of standard oil.

There wasn’t one at the time. There couldn’t be one exactly because S.O. held an effective monopoly on the market and killed off any competitor. There was no way for a small competitor to make inroads against S.O. and eventually match volume because they were driven out of the market - by any means necessary - way before that.

Sounds like an efficiency. You think this would have been possible or as easy with 10 different OSs?

Sure, why not? All computers use ASCII, ANSI and Unicode to represent characters. We’re talking about hundreds of manufacturers. If a common way of encoding individual characters can be agreed upon by the industry; why not document formats?

If the software landscape had been occupied by many smaller competitors; being able to exchange data with others would’ve been an advantage. In Microsoft’s case; being able to prevent others from interfacing easily with it’s document formats became a tool to make competitor’s product less attractive.

What’s your precise deffinition of fair. Should we adopt some poiltician or judges vision of fair, or should every consumer in the world decide what is fair, or if fair even matters?

Good question. Hard to define. Although if a company is putting code in their OS specifically to break some competitor’s software, then that’s unfair.

I don’t see how the customer could have benefited more; or how the market could’ve corrected itself.

A lot of customers used the crappy Internet Explorer 2, simply because they didn’t know that better alternatives were available. If competing browsers had been able to get on Windows, maybe the internet would be a better experience today. Webmasters wouldn’t have to dick around with Javascript to detect the browser and customize the HTML to keep working in MSIE.

How exactly has the consumer benefited from the judgment against microsoft?

One simple example is that you can get Linux installed alonside Windows and pick the one you want on boot. You can also get a 3rd party browser installed and have the icon on the desktop and in QuickLaunch.

[dhickey]

[quote]pookie wrote:
dhickey wrote:
How about 89% of the market?
85%?
83%?
80%?
75%?
Are you getting the point yet?

There’s not a precise cut-off point. You can try the same measures with less market share; they’ll simply be less effective.
[/quote]

So how do you regulate? How does a particular company predict what market share they can capture before they must spend millions of dollars defending themselves in court?

There wasn’t one at the time. There couldn’t be one exactly because S.O. held an effective monopoly on the market and killed off any competitor. There was no way for a small competitor to make inroads against S.O. and eventually match volume because they were driven out of the market - by any means necessary - way before that.

Volume was not SO largest advantage. Try again.

Sounds like an efficiency. You think this would have been possible or as easy with 10 different OSs?

Sure, why not? All computers use ASCII, ANSI and Unicode to represent characters. We’re talking about hundreds of manufacturers. If a common way of encoding individual characters can be agreed upon by the industry; why not document formats?

If this is indeed true, then your previous point about one company being forced to puchase windows because others they deal do, is false. Which is it?

Do you really beleive this is true? I want you to think about it. If you know any programers or network administrators ask them the same thing. It’s a bit of a stretch today, a big stretch 10 years ago.

If the software landscape had been occupied by many smaller competitors; being able to exchange data with others would’ve been an advantage. In Microsoft’s case; being able to prevent others from interfacing easily with it’s document formats became a tool to make competitor’s product less attractive.

You just said it’s all the same language, why do they need microsofts cooperation? Have you ever used open office.org?

In telecom I live and breath interop issues. Even when companies work together, things to not go swimmingly. This is precisely why IMS is a pipe dream and customers prefer to buy from a single vendor if at all possible. This is why there is a huge market for VARs and integrators. Look at how long it took to sort out very basic layer 2 and 3 standards.

Look at all the standards documentation from the IEEE. Now multiply that by about 1 million for applications layer products. Ever tried to use google chrome to post on here?

What’s your precise deffinition of fair. Should we adopt some poiltician or judges vision of fair, or should every consumer in the world decide what is fair, or if fair even matters?

Good question. Hard to define. Although if a company is putting code in their OS specifically to break some competitor’s software, then that’s unfair.

It’s thier software. Ever heard of property rights? What if my neighbor wants me to cut down a tree I planted because it blocks his view of my stream? If you cannot define clear limits to regulation, it has no place in the market.

You have to think about precidense legislation and regulation sets and what lawers might site it for. Regulation cannot be arbitrary and left up to some uninvolved third party to decide. Everything you have suggested is 100% arbitrary.

I don’t see how the customer could have benefited more; or how the market could’ve corrected itself.

A lot of customers used the crappy Internet Explorer 2, simply because they didn’t know that better alternatives were available. If competing browsers had been able to get on Windows, maybe the internet would be a better experience today. Webmasters wouldn’t have to dick around with Javascript to detect the browser and customize the HTML to keep working in MSIE.

what the hell are you talking about? You don’t think Javascript would be needed regardless of what Microsoft does? If a webmaster can’t run java they have bigger issues. You are completely out of your mind.

[quote]
How exactly has the consumer benefited from the judgment against microsoft?

One simple example is that you can get Linux installed alonside Windows and pick the one you want on boot. You can also get a 3rd party browser installed and have the icon on the desktop and in QuickLaunch.[/quote]

What a revelation. What would have ever done without that? How many people are choosing linux that couldn’t have just installed it themselves?

So at what cost in legal battles and re-engineering (that will passed along to the consumer and the tax payer) did we arrive at this miraculous breakthrough?

You’ve got to be kidding me.

[dhickey]

[quote]pookie wrote:

Entering a market has a cost. You need to establish yourself against the existing players; you need to hire talent; you might need infrastructure, etc.

If the perceived profit margin is not worth it, you won’t enter.

Your argument works if anyone can enter any market simply by wishing it. Unless I’m missing something.
[/quote]

I am trying very hard to remain patient here, but you are not even trying. I suggest you read at least one book on basic economics. Let me try and lay this out for you:

Company A, for asshole, sells gas at 1.65.

Company B, for benevolent, wants to enter the market. They will raise capital (look it up) to start an operation. It turns out they the return on investment is not sufficient at 1.65 a gallon.

Now, you claim that by them entering the market, prices will be even lower. How does the return on investment get better when prices are lower than the evil predatory pricing?

If no one enters the market, it is obvious that there is no incentive to do so, meaning the price is low enough that the return would be insufficient compared to other investments. Again, you are not making any economic sense.

Are you saying that selling widget at fair market price (say $10) won’t bring competitors, but if I sell them at $10.25, competitors will flock to it? Even at $12, is it tempting to enter if I know that as soon as I announce myself, those prices will fall to $5?

This is precisely what I am saying. This is very, very basic economics my friend. If your competitor starts selling the same product for less than you can produce it for, what would you do? I would buy up as much as possible. They are obviously losing money on it at this price. The more you buy, the worse off they will be. You ever hear of speculators? Go read about the very early days of Dow chemical company.

What if you need to build a refinery? How about a chip fabrication plant? Some markets require millions or billions in investments for anyone wishing to enter it.

What exactly is your point? The start up cost is same no matter what a competitor does. You claim the ultimate price will be lower than the monopoly price, yet potential competitors can’t even justify being in business at the current price. You have a lot of work to do.

How exactly do you define a market price? I would define it as the price a producer is willing to accept and a consumer is willing to pay. If no producer is willing to sell something at lower than current price, the current price is the market price. Pretty simple really.

Yes, offer and demand. But offer doesn’t have to budge if it’s the only game in town. If the company stays relatively “reasonable” in it’s fleecing of the customer, they’ll keep making sales and maintain low incentive for potential competitors.

Even if they don’t leverage their monopoly advantage in other ways (as Microsoft did), the customer still ends up paying more than they would in a fair competitive market.

Wrong again. If the monopoly keeps the price at a level that others can’t make money at, how do you think the would-be competitors can lower prices even further without going out of business?

[dhickey]

[quote]pookie wrote:
rainjack wrote:
An OS is a bit different than regular software, wouldn’t you say?

Only in the sense that it runs the hardware. It’s still compiled source code. There’s no reason it needs any kind of particular license.

But that aside - we would not be having this discussion had Bill Gates decided to use a different business model. The computer makers had options. When I make computers for people, I give them the choice of Windows or Linux.

Just because the big boys didn’t want to pay extra for their license for offering an option to their customers does not mean Microsoft was dictating terms.

Bill Gates didn’t invent the software licensing agreement. It was how software was sold even before he came along.

The restrictions on dual-booting and what could be done to the desktop were unique to Windows. Those are (some of) the anti-competitive practices Microsoft was found guilty of.

Greed on the part of the computer makers is not a crime committed by Bill Gates.

No one said anything about greed being a crime.

They might seem solid when read by a computer guy with a bias against MS. I heard the same thing coming from Leo Laporte.
In my opinion, Microsoft was the victim of a “fuck them, their rich” mentality.
If you buy a windows machine from a computer maker - how much of the bundled software do you keep?

I don’t have a bias against Microsoft. Recognizing that a company uses unfair business practices to stifle competition is not having a bias against it. They didn’t get busted for being rich; they got busted for strong arming their partners to shaft their competitors.

As for bundled software - I keep none of it; I reinstall from scratch. For desktop, I build them myself.

And that was probably a huge contributing factor as to why the real OS alternatives are so few. The computer companies were lazy and greedy. Unix was available.

It’s not that easy. Even if Unix is available, you still need drivers for the hardware parts. Companies will write drivers for Windows; getting them to write drivers for your new OS might be difficult. Even if you want to write them yourself; they might not be willing to give you the hardware specs of whatever parts they make.

Companies like Dell started off as small PC makers. They never had any software ambitions. They simply put parts together; install an OS and ship it. If they wanted to ship Windows legally (and you can’t really do otherwise if you’re playing in the big leagues); they had to agree to whatever terms Microsoft imposed.

I am sure, had the makers of computers spent just a little of their massive profits on finding a Windows alternative instead of suing Bill Gates, we would have an extremely competitive OS market.

There are alternatives. There have been for a long time. Even in DOS days, you could get DR-DOS instead. But there again, Microsoft went and made sure that you’d have problems if you used a competitor’s DOS. Look up the phrase “DOS isn’t done until Lotus won’t run” and read.

If you can explain to me the advantage to the customer in having his applications not work - deliberately - on an upgrade, I’d like to hear it.

I blame Dell, HP, Gateway, Micron, et al for their lazy greed as much as you - and the judge - blame Microsoft.

You don’t seem to be entirely aware of all the practices Microsoft employed to curb competition. It’s easy to dismiss it as a simple “eat the rich” knee-jerk reaction; but it’s nothing of the sort.

Microsoft did use their market position to stifle competition and the customer paid for it. There were a lot of summaries of the judgment; read one and see if you agree with everything Microsoft was found guilty of doing.

[/quote]

I hate to tell you this, but you are just making a better case for barrier to entry not having anything to with what Microsoft has done specifically to thwart competition. Other than making the most desiralbe product.

[dhickey]

[quote]rainjack wrote:
pookie wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Because of Microsoft’s business model - leasing the RIGHTS to the software instead of owning the computers - It required Gates to enter into agreements with PC makers.

All software companies operate pretty much in the same way. They don’t all get to dictate their terms.

An OS is a bit different than regular software, wouldn’t you say?

But that aside - we would not be having this discussion had Bill Gates decided to use a different business model. The computer makers had options. When I make computers for people, I give them the choice of Windows or Linux.

Just because the big boys didn’t want to pay extra for their license for offering an option to their customers does not mean Microsoft was dictating terms.

Greed on the part of the computer makers is not a crime committed by Bill Gates.

Regardless of how a stupid civil court ruled - these are the same people who found against McDoonDoons for making hot coffee - the computer makers are just as guilty as MS is of collusion - not violation of anti-trust laws.

One bad ruling in an unrelated case doesn’t mean all rulings are bad. I read a summary of Judge Jackson’s findings against Microsoft, and they all seemed pretty solid.

They might seem solid when read by a computer guy with a bias against MS. I heard the same thing coming from Leo Laporte. In my opinion, Microsoft was the victim of a “fuck them, their rich” mentality.

If you buy a windows machine from a computer maker - how much of the bundled software do you keep?

We bought my son a new laptop for Christmas. It came with Vista, and about 50 fucking trial-ware programs on it. I spent the better part of an hour uninstalling everything from Quicken to Macafee before I turned the computer over to him.

The computer makers made these agreements to get more favorable pricing from Gates.

It wasn’t all Microsoft’s fault.

In the 90s, the makers had no choice. There was a standard “agreement” dictated by Microsoft and you either signed, or didn’t sell Windows with your PCs. They had the “choice” of not selling Windows; but that pretty much guaranteed you’d never be a large player in the PC market.

And that was probably a huge contributing factor as to why the real OS alternatives are so few. The computer companies were lazy and greedy. Unix was available.

I am sure, had the makers of computers spent just a little of their massive profits on finding a Windows alternative instead of suing Bill Gates, we would have an extremely competitive OS market.

I blame Dell, HP, Gateway, Micron, et al for their lazy greed as much as you - and the judge - blame Microsoft.

[/quote]

You are exactly right. Anti-trust suits are simple a vehicle for the inefficeint to punish the efficeint. It certainly levels the playing field, by lowering to the efficiency and competency of the weaker, sueing party. Brilliant.

[dhickey]

In the words of the immortal Dana White.

“This isn’t fucking survivor. You can’t fucking vote him off. You have to fucking beat him off.”

For our brothers from other countries:

Beat him off = stroke his wiener. This was not the intended meaning, which is why it was quite funny.

[pookie]

[quote]dhickey wrote:
So how do you regulate? How does a particular company predict what market share they can capture before they must spend millions of dollars defending themselves in court?[/quote]

Don’t use dirty tricks to shut down your competitor and you’ll be fine. If you need to add code to your OS before you ship specifically to “break” a competitor’s product (since your alternative will work swimmingly), then you’re not playing fair.

Volume was not SO largest advantage. Try again.

I didn’t say it was. Do you check what I’m replying to?

If this is indeed true, then your previous point about one company being forced to puchase windows because others they deal do, is false. Which is it?

Both. Character encoding is different from document encoding. Most people aren’t big on plain text documents when they can have fonts, tables, graphs, columns, etc.

The point remains that if you can standardize on one; you could also standardize on the other. If you buy a Sony TV, you can watch any NTSC programming; you don’t need a different TV for different networks; that’s what you have with computer documents. There’s some interoperability; but it’s never 100%.

If the field had been occupied by more numerous smaller competitors; there are more chance that some standard would’ve been established among them, if only because it would’ve been advantageous for all of them to have a single standard.

Do you really beleive this is true? I want you to think about it. If you know any programers or network administrators ask them the same thing. It’s a bit of a stretch today, a big stretch 10 years ago.

I’ll ask myself, thanks. It’s what I do for a living.

You just said it’s all the same language, why do they need microsofts cooperation? Have you ever used open office.org?

Do you understand the difference between a character set and a document?

[quote]In telecom I live and breath interop issues. Even when companies work together, things to not go swimmingly. This is precisely why IMS is a pipe dream and customers prefer to buy from a single vendor if at all possible.

This is why there is a huge market for VARs and integrators. Look at how long it took to sort out very basic layer 2 and 3 standards.[/quote]

Just because telecom companies do it wrong doesn’t mean it can’t be done. I’ve worked on more than a few data interchange projects, using EDI and more recently XML and things can go swimmingly. It’s not often enough, but when you’ve got competent people on both sides, it’s pretty easy.

Look at all the standards documentation from the IEEE. Now multiply that by about 1 million for applications layer products. Ever tried to use google chrome to post on here?

The problem with HTML and other SGML-derived markup languages is that they got a bunch of vendor-specific extensions added to them before a standards body (W3C) got hold of them. The W3C can’t start over, so we’re stuck with supporting all the dumb crap of the late '90s for a long, long time.

Again, simply pointing out a bad example of standard implementation doesn’t mean it can’t be done better.

It’s thier software. Ever heard of property rights? What if my neighbor wants me to cut down a tree I planted because it blocks his view of my stream? If you cannot define clear limits to regulation, it has no place in the market.

Ever heard “developers, developers, developers” being chanted by Steve Balmer? Microsoft’s life and blood is having software written for their OS. The fact that millions of programs exist for Windows is one of it’s main strength. You’ll often hear people say that Mac or Linux suck because they’ve got no games; up to very recently, you couldn’t run Oracle on a Mac server.

But if a developer creates a product that’s wildly succesful, you’re saying that it is OK for Microsoft to create a competing product and to modify their OS specifically to break yours, so that their product will appear better? Or to bundle their product with the OS - even though it has nothing to do with operating the system - for free until you go under?

I’m guessing if you had a software business and sold a Windows version, you’d be careful no to be too successful, lest you grab Microsoft’s attention and be driven out of business.

But I guess you’d just file for Chapter 11, all the while smiling and applauding MS’s good business sense.

You have to think about precidense legislation and regulation sets and what lawers might site it for. Regulation cannot be arbitrary and left up to some uninvolved third party to decide. Everything you have suggested is 100% arbitrary.

I’m not a lawyer; I won’t be drafting an entirely comprehensive anti-trust law here.

My point remains: Monopolies, or sufficiently monopoly-like operations aren’t good for the customers. They stifle competition, innovation and reduce the possible alternative for the customers.

Conversely, are you arguing that anything a company does to “win” against competitors should be allowed?

what the hell are you talking about? You don’t think Javascript would be needed regardless of what Microsoft does? If a webmaster can’t run java they have bigger issues. You are completely out of your mind.

Javascript would be required for other purposes; not simply to make sure a page renders correctly in the various browsers.

The problem you’re having with Chrome is exactly what the lack of standards and HTML wars have wrought. Funny,you don’t appear to be a happy customer? Why don’t you just use MSIE like Microsoft wants? It’s a perfectly competent browser.

What a revelation. What would have ever done without that? How many people are choosing linux that couldn’t have just installed it themselves?

Why don’t they install everything themselves then? What a stupid argument. If I want a dual booting system, why can’t I get one that’s already set up right out of the box? I can get Windows set up, why not Linux?

Why the hell should Microsoft decide whether or not a customer can get Linux or BSD installed on the box when they buy it?

So at what cost in legal battles and re-engineering (that will passed along to the consumer and the tax payer) did we arrive at this miraculous breakthrough?

What re-engineering? All modern bootloaders support booting more than one operating system. Installing a dual-booting OS was always possible; but you couldn’t get it done by your reseller if he wanted to sell Windows. Similarly, you couldn’t get your desktop set-up to your own specification without the vendor break their agreement. Where the benefit for you or any other customer?

Why do you want to use Chrome if you think less choices are good for you?

[pookie]

[quote]dhickey wrote:
I am trying very hard to remain patient here, but you are not even trying. I suggest you read at least one book on basic economics. Let me try and lay this out for you:

Company A, for asshole, sells gas at 1.65.

Company B, for benevolent, wants to enter the market. They will raise capital (look it up) to start an operation. It turns out they the return on investment is not sufficient at 1.65 a gallon.

Now, you claim that by them entering the market, prices will be even lower. How does the return on investment get better when prices are lower than the evil predatory pricing? [/quote]

I’ll try very hard to explain it to you.

Let’s say that Benevolent would enter the market - the ROI would be sufficient - if the price was 2.00. Asshole can then set the price at 2.00 or 2.20 or 2.50, even though they’d be profitable at 1.65. If a competitor appears; they drop their price back to 1.65, or whatever is needed to discourage entry.

Some customers might be lost, but - in the case of gas, for example - many customers have very little choice but to pay up. As long as the gouging is tolerated by customers and government, they’re golden (in more ways that one.)

B can try buying up as much as they want at 1.65, as you suggested, but A can sustain that indefinitely; Hell, it’ll help them kill B who has to resell their own product at a loss while burning through capital to do so.

[LIFTICVSMAXIMVS]

This debate is not even about the “goodness” or “badness” of monopolies anymore. It is about whether or not Microsoft committed fraud to gain a competitive advantage.

[dhickey]

[quote]pookie wrote:
Don’t use dirty tricks to shut down your competitor and you’ll be fine. If you need to add code to your OS before you ship specifically to “break” a competitor’s product (since your alternative will work swimmingly), then you’re not playing fair.
[/quote]
Who decides what fair is. Who decides what changes they can make?

Volume was not SO largest advantage. Try again.

I didn’t say it was. Do you check what I’m replying to?

I do but you are starting to confuse me. I am not really sure what you are arguing anymore.

If this is indeed true, then your previous point about one company being forced to puchase windows because others they deal do, is false. Which is it?

Both. Character encoding is different from document encoding. Most people aren’t big on plain text documents when they can have fonts, tables, graphs, columns, etc.

The point remains that if you can standardize on one; you could also standardize on the other. If you buy a Sony TV, you can watch any NTSC programming; you don’t need a different TV for different networks; that’s what you have with computer documents. There’s some interoperability; but it’s never 100%.

And what exactly do anti-trust laws have to do with this? Are you going to force Microsoft to adhere to some standard? That would be quite interesting, and quite the precident.

I’ll ask myself, thanks. It’s what I do for a living.

You just said it’s all the same language, why do they need microsofts cooperation? Have you ever used open office.org?

Do you understand the difference between a character set and a document?

more than i ever hoped to. i still don’t see what some hypothetical standard has to with owning one’s code and being able to do with it what you want.

In telecom I live and breath interop issues. Even when companies work together, things to not go swimmingly. This is precisely why IMS is a pipe dream and customers prefer to buy from a single vendor if at all possible. This is why there is a huge market for VARs and integrators. Look at how long it took to sort out very basic layer 2 and 3 standards.

Just because telecom companies do it wrong doesn’t mean it can’t be done. I’ve worked on more than a few data interchange projects, using EDI and more recently XML and things can go swimmingly. It’s not often enough, but when you’ve got competent people on both sides, it’s pretty easy.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but companies and product aren’t built in the nerdery. Business decisions are made, corners are cut. I have worked with very bright people in couple of different start-ups.

Things that make technical sense and are possible quite often don’t see the light of day. I have rarely seen a case where interoperability is not possible. Matter of fact, I can’t think of a single one. Doesn’t mean they get solved.
Anti-trust laws will not change this.

I dabled in programing and have been freinds with many programers. I was educated in telcom engineering and was an engineer for many years. I know how engineers think. Engineers don’t run companies. Fact of life. Nothing to do with being fair or anti-trust laws.
[/quote]

Look at all the standards documentation from the IEEE. Now multiply that by about 1 million for applications layer products. Ever tried to use google chrome to post on here?

The problem with HTML and other SGML-derived markup languages is that they got a bunch of vendor-specific extensions added to them before a standards body (W3C) got hold of them. The W3C can’t start over, so we’re stuck with supporting all the dumb crap of the late '90s for a long, long time.
[/quote]

Yep. and you are suggesting some sort of forced compliance, which has never been done before. Unless, of course, under the guise of public safety.

Again, simply pointing out a bad example of standard implementation doesn’t mean it can’t be done better.

Again, are you suggesting forced compliance?

It’s thier software. Ever heard of property rights? What if my neighbor wants me to cut down a tree I planted because it blocks his view of my stream? If you cannot define clear limits to regulation, it has no place in the market.
00000000000000
Ever heard “developers, developers, developers” being chanted by Steve Balmer? Microsoft’s life and blood is having software written for their OS. The fact that millions of programs exist for Windows is one of it’s main strength. You’ll often hear people say that Mac or Linux suck because they’ve got no games; up to very recently, you couldn’t run Oracle on a Mac server.

But if a developer creates a product that’s wildly succesful, you’re saying that it is OK for Microsoft to create a competing product and to modify their OS specifically to break yours, so that their product will appear better? Or to bundle their product with the OS - even though it has nothing to do with operating the system - for free until you go under?

You have to step out of the mind of an engineer and enter the real world. I know this is tough, it took me many years.

You have to look at what is practical. How would you go about reviewing every line of code that Microsoft puts out? How would you prove a particular line was put in just to break a competitor? How effective would this be in practice? Don’t you think the guys at microsoft are smart enough to break interoperability without being obvious? Couldn’t they claim they need to make the changes to accomodate their new program?

You need to look past the obvious. What if we did this for other technologies? You better go after Cisco for not supporting standard SIP features on their phones. Better force them to open their SCCP code. Better force GM to give every car an auxillary port for my Ipod. Shit, better force all the phone companies to offer every brand of car stereo with the purchase of a new car.

I’m guessing if you had a software business and sold a Windows version, you’d be careful no to be too successful, lest you grab Microsoft’s attention and be driven out of business.

But I guess you’d just file for Chapter 11, all the while smiling and applauding MS’s good business sense.

This is how the real world works. Should I sue the yankees for not working me into batting practice and giving me a shot at center field? I need to sue the cable company for scrambling the premium content. Their stifling competition for set-top boxes.

You have to think about precidense legislation and regulation sets and what lawers might site it for. Regulation cannot be arbitrary and left up to some uninvolved third party to decide. Everything you have suggested is 100% arbitrary.

I’m not a lawyer; I won’t be drafting an entirely comprehensive anti-trust law here.

My point remains: Monopolies, or sufficiently monopoly-like operations aren’t good for the customers. They stifle competition, innovation and reduce the possible alternative for the customers.

Conversely, are you arguing that anything a company does to “win” against competitors should be allowed?

Companies should be able to do anything they care to within the law. This means no force or coersion. I am arguing that current anti-trust precidense is arbitrary and dangerous.

what the hell are you talking about? You don’t think Javascript would be needed regardless of what Microsoft does? If a webmaster can’t run java they have bigger issues. You are completely out of your mind.

Javascript would be required for other purposes; not simply to make sure a page renders correctly in the various browsers.

The problem you’re having with Chrome is exactly what the lack of standards and HTML wars have wrought. Funny,you don’t appear to be a happy customer? Why don’t you just use MSIE like Microsoft wants? It’s a perfectly competent browser.

Again. standards don’t mean shit unless you plan on enforcing them. good luck.

I do use MSIE. My company does quite a bit of work for Microsoft. That big huge evil monopoly isn’t the only one making a buck on MSIE. They license technology from a bunch of different companies. All the big name telecom manufactures are the same. Those big evil bullies keep a ton of other smaller companies afloat.

What a revelation. What would have ever done without that? How many people are choosing linux that couldn’t have just installed it themselves?

Why don’t they install everything themselves then? What a stupid argument. If I want a dual booting system, why can’t I get one that’s already set up right out of the box? I can get Windows set up, why not Linux?

Why the hell should Microsoft decide whether or not a customer can get Linux or BSD installed on the box when they buy it?

They don’t and never have. Fedor is the best MMA HW in the world. He doesn’t want to cooperate with the UFC. Should they sue him? The UFC is by far the largest MMA promoter in the world. They dwarf all other promotions put together. The refuse to copromote a fight. The require fighters wanting to fight with them sign exclusivity contracts. Should that be illegal.

So at what cost in legal battles and re-engineering (that will passed along to the consumer and the tax payer) did we arrive at this miraculous breakthrough?

What re-engineering? All modern bootloaders support booting more than one operating system. Installing a dual-booting OS was always possible; but you couldn’t get it done by your reseller if he wanted to sell Windows.

It is not a right to expect the manufacturer to do this for you. Nor is it a right of the manufacturer to force contract stipulations on Microsoft. This is exactly what they have done with this suit. If you don’t understand how dangerous this is, i can’t help you.

Similarly, you couldn’t get your desktop set-up to your own specification without the vendor break their agreement. Where the benefit for you or any other customer?

Was the dual boot system the only thing that came out of the microsoft anti-trust suit? Is that all you are arguing for? What about your precious standards? That won’t require any effort? You know what else standards do?

Define a minimal set of features and standards. You want a best of breed solution, more often than not that means less functionality, manageability, and support than a one vendor solution.

Why do you want to use Chrome if you think less choices are good for you?

I don’t use it. It sucks. More choice is good, but not at the sacrifice of the best choice.