On Fri, 2005-12-09 at 17:02 -0600, Randomthots wrote: > Ian Lynch wrote:
> > A school here rang me to say they had had a visit by FAST. UK version of > > BSA. They were threatened with death if they had any pirate software and > > then offered some software for £5000 to check and audit their servers. > > That sounds to me very like extortion. At least demanding money with > > menaces. Still probably difficult to prove in a court of law so morally > > questionable rather than illegal. > > That is unquestionably extortion and illegal. It would get you prison > time here on conviction. I have no idea why you would type that last > sentence; "...morally questionable rather than illegal." Because the plaintive could argue that if the school didn't know it had illegal software all he was doing wasy offering software to help out. If extortion could be proved it would indeed be illegl here, but I wouldn't want to bet my house on the outcome of such a court case. In fact in the country FAST have no legal right of entry to a school so my advice is to tell them to go and get a warrant if they believe the school is breaking the law. However, how many schools are absolutely certain that someone somewhere has not put something illegal on something? That fear is the key. > I would hazard > to bet that they weren't really from FAST but were merely garden-variety > criminals claiming to be to attempt extortion. Then you would be wrong. This is not the only example of this happening. > >>We really need to reserve some, if not most or all, or our > >>disapprobation for the politicians which aid and abet this nonsense. > > > > > > We are all politicians as soon as we are part of a marketing project > > that advocates a product. > > Whatever. You know what I mean; Congress, Parliament... the guys that > make laws. Its easy to blame politicians. You voted for them. If your democracy is sound, your politicians reflect your society. > If the law is to be respected, > > its not a matter of being fuzzy. Its either breaking the law or it isn't > > as determined by a court. > > Unfortunately, that's after the fact. The law isn't a logical system of > axioms and theorems where you can plug in the values of variables and > come to a mathematical conclusion. Which is why by definition, the only way to determine absolutely if something is lawful is the outcome in a court. The judgement isn't fuzzy, its guilty or not guilty. Microsoft has been found guilty, more than once and so it is simply a matter of QED. The fuzzy circumstances are where they settle out of court or are just much bigger than the opposition who can't even afford to threaten them with court action. Its not absolutely certain but highly likely they would be found guilty in cases where they settle. Their battalions of lawyers would not get them to pay out a lot of money if they could win the court case and claim expenses off the opposition. But its not absolutely certain. We can of course make reasonable moral judgements and publicise them. Its a perfectly legitimate marketing strength for the OOo community. > If it were, there would be no such > thing as a split decision in judicial tribunals. Honest men can honestly > disagree. But in a court it usually ends up guilty or not guilty. The judgement defines the outcome "beyond reasonable doubt" - at least in the UK. > If you want to be fuzzy, then the FAST example > > above could be just as easily argued to be the mafia on the same basis. > > I would suspect they really *were* the mafia pretending to be FAST. Or > perhaps just some petty criminals. Then you are wrong, they were checked out. > >> So phrases like "convicted monopolist"... I'm not > >>even sure what the hell that means. > > > > > > It means that a court of law found them guilty of breaking the laws > > related to abuse of monopoly. > > I'm glad that's what you meant; too many on these lists seem to think > that MS is illegal simply by being a monopoly. I know the law on competition at least in Europe and the 1998 Competion Act in the UK. I referred MS to the UK Office of Fair Trading. Law in the USA is probably similar but I haven't checked it in any detail. I acted as an expert witness for the UK government in a case on software patents not so long back. A company threatening schools with legal action using a bogus patent. Only the second time that the UK Government has ever gone to court to turn over a patent. The MS case ended up as one of your fuzzy areas. Microsoft provided 30,000 pages of evidence :-). The OFT decided that MS could be breaking the law but the current effect on the market was not worth the expense of going through years of court battles. The case remains open. So morally my judgement is they are still acting illegally in any instances that their size and marketing muscle will allow them to get away with. > Well first of all, we're not talking about the same bodies of law -- UK > vs US. My impression on it over here is that we don't have terribly > strong laws in that regard. You allow silly software patents too but really I'm more interested in EU and UK law because this is where I live. If the USA wants to organise its society in a particular way that is up to the USA. I don't have to live there. > And when an action is taken, it tends to > drag on interminably and usually comes to an unsatisfying conclusion. Which is why I said the penalties for abuse should be bigger in order to act as a deterrent. No point in having a law if there is no significant deterrent to breaking it. The effectiveness of implementing the law is a different issue as to whether or not someone breaking it is a criminal. If MS trade in the UK they do so under UK law. If they aren't prepared to do so stay out. > The last really strong action against a major corp that I can recall was > the breakup of the Bell system. > > While the wording of the law may be clear, many of the underlying > concepts aren't. What constitutes abuse of monopoly power? It's sort of > like art, you know it when you see it, but it can be hard to solidly define. Its strange how lawyers can decide in a complex murder case how to gather the evidence to execute someone but then in a judgement on monopoly power somehow its too complex? That is what the word judge means - make a judgement based on the evidence. Err on the side of caution if you are unsure. Its perfectly clear that if a company uses its size to, for example, charge people for putting competitors products into their organisation its illegal. That is not a complex concept at all and that is what MS have been doing with Microsoft Schools Agreement. So in summary, MS is a convicted law breaker - Fact. The evidence seems to point to the fact that they will continue to break the law in any instances that they believe its in their commercial interest to do so. There is no remorse and no moral feelings, simply exploitation of the circumstances for maximum gain. You might think differently, but to me that is the unacceptable face of capitalism and I will do my best to expose it at every opportunity, just as I would question a thief who steals $100 because he knows the fine is only 50 and so he remains $50 up. -- Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ZMS Ltd --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
