Ya know, I'm about fed up with being set up with terms like this and
"socialistic" and "stalinist." It's what I get for dropping trow on
this whole thing. My personal politics are generally pretty far right
when it comes to market and fiduciary issues; as I mentioned, I'm a
basic Randite in most situations, and anti-gov in just about all
situations; however, in this one, I think there's a real Catch-22.
There exists today a situation that artificially limits the freedom of
the marketplace for horizontal software products. We've arrived at this
market situation, if you believe in the merits of the case, through
Microsoft's illegal anticompetitive business practices. The *whole
question* is whether or not this happened and what to do about it. We
have those laws for a reason, and it should be a fairly straightforward
process to use our wonderful court system to decide whether those laws
were broken, what to do punitively (if anything) if they were, and most
importantly *how to prevent Microsoft from breaking them in the future.*
I really don't see what everyone gets so up in arms about --- either the
laws were broken or they weren't; either Microsoft has achieved its
dominant position through superior product / business practices or
through illegal anticompetitive practices. The court will provide what
everyone and every company in this country is entitled to --- a fair
trial.
Apple pie, guns, and stop calling me a *&^*&$! socialist just because
there is *one* situation where I believe gov't is required to step into
business affairs (addressing the possibility of "unnatural" monopoly
creation and market unbalancing) and this just happens to be it.
Love,
;-)
jb