Linux-Advocacy Digest #412, Volume #34 Fri, 11 May 01 02:13:05 EDT
Contents:
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft! ("JS PL")
Re: Richard Stallman what a tosser, and lies about free software ("Les Mikesell")
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From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:51:57 -0400
"I think we ought to be spending our time making sure there are a lot more
Bill Gateses out there," Johnson said.
US Rep. Eddie Bernise Johnson (D-TX), Seattle Times, June 7
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:52:29 -0400
The government and Judge Jackson failed to show any real consumer harm from
Microsoft's actions. We have growing productivity, falling software and
computer prices, and a highly competitive economy that needs innovation to
endure. Over the past twenty years, no company has done more for consumers
and our national economy than Microsoft. We should be working to extend the
benefits of technology to every American, not trying to cripple a major
technology innovator.Competition and innovation are thriving in the new
economy. The technology sector doesn't need the government to reorganize
it - it reorganizes itself every day.
US Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:52:55 -0400
"Today may be a good day for the Clinton Administration's Legislation by
Litigation agenda, but it is a sad day for the American consumer. If the
Clinton Administration believes that there should be a federal Department of
Software Regulation, it should propose one so that the Congress can decide
whether we need federal bureaucrats and federal judges to write our computer
software and decide how we surf the Internet."
US Sen. Don Nickles (R-OK)
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:53:22 -0400
"This decision makes it clear that the Justice Department has no
understanding of American business or the marketplace, and that the Justice
Department has no respect for property rights - intellectual or otherwise. I
would be worried if Microsoft did not appeal this decision. Allowing the
government to take away the property rights of a company, simply because the
products it created have become popular sets up a very dangerous precedent.
Judging from its activities under the Clinton/Gore Administration, if
anything should be broken up, it's the Justice Department."
US Rep Richard Pombo (R-CA)
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:53:51 -0400
"The high tech industry, including Microsoft, has been responsible for
almost 40% of our nation's recent economic growth. We don't want to take
action that could stifle growth and innovation and in the end harm the
consumers the antitrust laws were designed to protect. It is unfortunate
that one of America's most important companies has been forced to redirect
its focus from developing better products to battling our own government."
US Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-)
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:54:16 -0400
"For the sake of the new economy and economic growth in this country, I hope
this decision is overturned on appeal. This overt bullying by Judge Jackson
and the Clinton/Gore Justice Department is going to drive entrepreneurs and
capital from the United States toward countries that truly appreciate the
jobs and innovation that Microsoft creates. The free market is the best
place to solve competitive business issues and consumers continue to applaud
Microsoft's cutting-edge products and technologies."
US Rep Pete Sessions (R-TX)
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:55:14 -0400
"Spirited competition and a fair playing field is the bedrock upon which
America's economy is based. Microsoft has played a singular role in the
dynamic growth of the computer industry. Competition is alive and well in
the technology industry today. Government's proper role would be to ensure
that Microsoft continues to be a strong competitor in the marketplace and
not to risk causing harm to a good economy.
State Rep. Charlie Capps (D-MS)
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:55:31 -0400
"Bravo! to Microsoft for refusing to knuckle under to the scorched earth
tactics of Judge Jackson. It has become clear that the judge's goal in this
case is to harm Microsoft, whatever the cost to consumers and the national
economy. Fortunately, Microsoft's diligence in protecting their private
property rights will be vindicated: this case is almost certain to be
overturned by an objective court of appeals. But what a tragedy. Governments
all over the world are discovering the benefits of free enterprise and the
private sector, while here in America the Clinton Administration has made it
a priority to socialize the intellectual property of Microsoft."
State Rep.Luke Esser (R-WA)
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:55:52 -0400
"For the benefit of consumers, Microsoft must remain a strong competitor in
the technology industry. America's economy is based upon the bedrock
principal of a fair playing field characterized by spirited competition.
Consumers must continue to have access to and benefit from Microsoft's
innovative and technologically advanced products."
State Sen. Jack Gordan (D-MS)
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:56:32 -0400
"There is no basis for concluding that the Justice Department's business
model will benefit consumers. To the contrary, the remedy would inhibit
Microsoft's ability to continue to introduce new features to meet consumer
needs, such as speech- and handwriting-recognition. It would also prevent
the kind of cooperation among operating system and application developers
that has led to even more capable computers for all of us."
Gov. Gary Locke (D-WA)
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:57:10 -0400
"Texans want unlimited opportunity, not unlimited government. Competition is
a better regulator any day than government edicts. This federal intervention
can do little more than have a chilling effect on entrepreneurs who look to
the private sector to unleash their creative abilities. What we all need
from government is less, not more. Less mandates, less taxation, less
government spending and less regulation. It appears to me the only thing
that needs to be broken up is the Justice Department."
Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander (R-TX)
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:58:26 -0400
"[Justice Department lawyers and state Attorneys General are] seeking the
ultimate legal paradox - a precedent without precedence. They've claimed
that Microsoft is a monopoly without establishing a motive; they've sought
to share the firm's intellectual property without showing how it will help
promote private enterprise; and, they've consorted with Microsoft's
competitors without convincing the public that they're out to help
consumers."
John Berthoud, President, National Taxpayers Union
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:59:03 -0400
"The government is trying to convince the American public that a Microsoft
break up will generate competition and benefit consumers, like the break up
of AT&T in 1984, but the two cases are entirely different. The truth is that
the U.S. government just can't resist getting its hands - and regulations -
around the booming technology industry," explained Chaney. "An appeals court
most likely will, and should, overturn the decision."
Helen Chaney, Pacific Research Institute's (PRI) Center for Freedom and
Technology.
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:59:38 -0400
"Unfortunately, given Judge Jackson's previous misguided findings in the
government's antitrust case against Microsoft, this decision is not
surprising. The judge continues to exhibit an unfailing inability to grasp
the realities of the marketplace, in particular that Microsoft is not a
monopoly and must compete against current, emerging and future competitors."
Raymond J. Keating, chief economist, Small Business Survival Committee
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 01:59:56 -0400
"Judge Jackson's decision today indicates, if there was ever any doubt, that
he has fallen hook, line and operating system for the government's flawed
arguments."
Robert Levy, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute,
ZDNet News, June 7, 4:35 PM PT
------------------------------
From: "JS PL" <hi everybody!>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Justice Department LOVES Microsoft!
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 02:00:32 -0400
"For one brief exciting moment before rubber-stamping Joel Klein's poisonous
brew of regulations and divestiture for Microsoft, the Judge actually
displayed a rare flicker of independent judgment. Shortly before
capitulating, the Judge asked Klein why splitting the company in two would
not just create "two monopolies" - one having the most popular operating
system, and another the most popular Office suite for that operating
system.. To an economist, the most fascinating thing about the Judge's
question is how clearly it illustrates the impulsive promiscuity with which
antitrust lawyers abuse the word "monopoly." To the Judge, and to reporters
who never questioned his question, it all comes down to market share."
Alan Reynolds, director of economic research, Hudson Institute, National
Review, June 7
------------------------------
From: "Les Mikesell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: Richard Stallman what a tosser, and lies about free software
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 06:04:51 GMT
"T. Max Devlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> The limits are copyright. You are not allowed to use an author's work
> without his permission. You can still read his work; you need not agree
> to the GPL to read and study the GPL code, which is open source. It
> even explicitly points this out in the license. You are not required to
> agree to the GPL, BUT NO OTHER AGREEMENT GIVES YOU ANY RIGHT TO THAT
> SOFTWARE. If you are a developer, you are "using" the software in a way
> which violates copyright unless you have a license, if you are using an
> API that is exclusively supported by a GPL library.
I missed that part of the GPL. Please quote where it says you are
prohibited from using it that way.
> The GPL is a private contract. Although it conforms to copyright law in
> being a license agreement for copyright material, it is NOT copyright
> law itself. It is a private contract. So your observation that the
> demands concerning 'library linking' are not at all supported by
> copyright law are, in this light, entirely correct, but also entirely
> irrelevant. You need not enter into the agreement, but the courts are
> loath to over-ride such agreements on metaphysical or metaphoric
> grounds.
There is no such agreement.
> >And it annoys me that
> >with no supporting evidence you continue to agree that you want
> >to let someone else take your choices away.
>
> I don't, which is why I support the GPL. It is the only way the
> software development world can prevent would-be monopolists from taking
> my choices away.
Monopolists have no problem re-writing anything necessary. It is the
competitors to the monopoly that have been hurt by the inability
to incorporate a body of well tested code to offer at a competitive
price.
> You confuse taking my choices away, as an end user, which the GPL most
> certainly and pointedly does not do in any way whatsoever, with taking
> YOUR choice away, as a developer.
Then you aren't paying attention. I am much more interested in using
software than developing it, and the GPL certainly does reduce the
choices we could have available to use.
> You have no right to "use" another's
> work; just because you have permission to use an API does not mean you
> have permission to use another author's library in the development of
> your product.
A library license could prohibit such use. The GPL doesn't.
> You're arguing for more than that, and I have to honestly question why
> that is. Is it really only a general thing, a matter of fundamental
> principles of your philosophy, or is it a more specific thing, some
> particular library which it causes you consternation in being unable to
> exploit for your own (supposedly) programming effort?
It is an unreasonable all-or-nothing choice that makes the code a dead
end for many situations. Software development should use a component
model that allows the assembly of the best of everything, or at least the
best you can afford instead of polarizing it into parts that cannot be
combined. Suppose you had a workable GPL'd program running
but realized that by adding a highly tuned library for a function or
two would make it much better. Suppose the library uses a patented
algorithm and you have to pay a dollar for the right to use it. But,
suppose the extra performance makes the program work on a computer
that only costs half as much. Good deal, except that you can't
distribute any such thing so everyone ends up using commercial
code all the way around.
I've already described my version of GNUtar for DOS with
network and scsi libraries that conflicted with the GPL. I wasn't
interested in exploiting anything - I wanted to give it away.
These combinations aren't exceptions. There are millions of
them that we won't ever see.
> >> As soon as you drag them into court and prove them wrong, Les, you'll
> >> have a point. Until then, you're just pissing into the wind. If they
> >> were a profit-seeking organization, I'd be as disturbed about it as you
> >> are, but they're not. It doesn't change the rules of copyright, of
> >> course, but it certainly changes the rules of suing for copyright
> >> violation. And that, of course, is the point. You want to blame
> >> someone, blame the RIPEM boys who rolled over so quickly; they should
> >> have stood up for their 'rights'.
> >
> >Why should they have to pay to let other users have the rights to use
> >their own copies of a library?
>
> Only the developer needs to "pay" for anything, and with GPL, you don't
> ever have to pay for anything, so again, I am at a loss to understand
> what your gripe is.
My gripe is the claim of ownership of code that does not contain
any GPL'd material, as in the RIPEM case.
> >It is probably better to just keep the
> >matter out in the open so everyone can see the real agenda of the FSF
> >which is obviously not to help the cause of free software at all.
>
> That's obviously nonsense. If you don't have any argument at all (as
> that statement indicates by its rampant use of begging the question)
> then it would probably be best if you just shut up and went away, don't
> you think? You can only hurt your position by so badly misrepresenting
> it, if there even is a rational position you can claim to begin with.
I don't think I misrepresented the fact that the FSF made it difficult
for the RIPEM code to be distributed freely - or the fact that their
position has not changed.
> >"They" aren't using GPL software by writing calls to it's API. You are
> >using your copy when you run it.
>
> How many times have I pointed out this issue?
None that made any sense in relation to copyright law.
> You might still be right that the court could over-rule their claim.
> But then, the same could be true of all of the proprietary closed-source
> software EULAs that the GPL was intended to eradicate, to the benefit of
> EVERYONE in the programming world, developers, authors, and users. The
> only people left out, in fact, are the profiteers.
No, a ruling would affect no one but the FSF. No one else makes any
similar claim about code not containing copied material being a
derivative under copyright law. Usage terms in other licenses are
not related in any way.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
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