It's a risky move, undoubtedly.

Post #2,535 by static 7/21/01 1:56:45 AM Reply	It's a risky move, undoubtedly. The prime risk I see about forcibly removing the browser from Microsoft is that suddenly Microsoft has no reason to pursue a browser-centric Internet. So what will they do? They'll marginalize it. They'll find something else on the 'net, buyt it up, make it their's, hype it up and do their utmost to elbow (amd knee and groin) the HTTP protocol into the annals of dusty history. It is noble to want strong, healthy competitors to Microsoft, but aiming for that should not be the aim of the Remedy. Its purpose is a punishment for past mis-deeds. So the remedy needs to divide Microsoft into three, not two: 1. The Browser (and only the browser), as already mentioned. 2. The OS. 3. Everything Else. This must include Office. All of it. Anything else that can be potentially argued one way or the other - the Media Player is the obvious example, but there are others - Microsoft must make a choice; if it is an OS component, it cannot be sold in stores, offered for download, or developed for any other OS - but if it is not, then it must be removed from all OS installation images and the Applications company can do with it as they see fit (including licensing it back to the OS company). I wouldn't put any other restrictions on the company other than the fact that collusion for the purposes of destroying the HTTP/HTML market is also forbidden (how, I'm not sure). Oh, and I would forbid certain current Senior Management of Microsoft to be in the management of either BrowserCo or ApplicationsCo. This would have the goal of making Microsoft endure a punishment of having its products taken away from it because it has been using them to maintain a monopoly. Or, to put it another way, they have been using a monopoly in one product (the OS) to build a monopoly in another product (the browser), so we will take away all products except their existing monopoly so they can't do that anymore. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #2,746 by jb4 7/24/01 2:09:54 PM Reply	Agree, and Disagree So the remedy needs to divide Microsoft into three, not two: 1. The Browser (and only the browser), as already mentioned. 2. The OS. 3. Everything Else. This must include Office. All of it. Agreed. But then you say: Anything else that can be potentially argued one way or the other - the Media Player is the obvious example, but there are others Yes, it is the obvious example...of their attempt to do to RealNetworks what they did to Netscape. This MUST be nipped, so I would propose that all these "add-ins" be treated just like the browser: Make BrowserCo. deal with them, following the exact same rules that they must follow for the browser. I don't want to have to do this again (and again and again).... jb4 (Resistance is not futile...)
Post #2,840 by static 7/25/01 11:04:44 PM Reply	Trying to do that creates a bigger problem. Which is this: it means the legal system ends up dictating to Microsoft what constitutes an Operating System and what doesn't. That is a super-sized Pandora's Box. OTOH, forcing Microsoft to make the decision themselves for all these "almost out-of-scope" items means they have choose between two extremes. To wit: If Windows Media Player is now an OS component, then they only way they are now allowed to provide it to customers is on OS installation media. That means no free downloads, no magazone CD-ROMs, etc. It must be no more than an Installation Checkbox Option, just like the Screen Savers. The only way for Microsoft to upgrade WMP on installed PCs is via a proper, legitimate OS upgrade. As sold in boxes. But it also means the Applications company can create a competing product that is most definitely not an OS component. :-) Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #2,843 by Ashton 7/25/01 11:32:29 PM Reply	We've heard many suggestions re the dilemma by now. But it seems unprecedented - and unfit for most concepts of government control: Govt. must be 'conservative' (in the former un-spun meaning, not the New spun excuse for a 'reactionary' mindset in all things). G. must move slowly, yet no previous "industry" has ever moved - and so often scurrilously - on such a scale as.. toy computers everywhere. Not surprising that any idea of hobbling these barbarians is very like that Gordian knot. This plot has everything! Vast wealth for the terminally $-besotted, vast chicanery for those who imagine that success is unrelated to means.. and the omnipresent fear that the current illusion of 'prosperity' (esp. in US-centric circles) might be tied to 'more of the same'. {sigh} I suspect that no consensus shall emerge re hobbling these twerps - until more attention is paid to the Corp slavery of 24/7, two-working for salary of one -- and the other tens of millions of people which comprise the largest growing segment: "The working poor". Dunno how that plays out in Oz, of course. Here it is intertwined with our antediluvian idea of Corp medical 'care' for profit - all too inaccessible to 30-ish% of the population + the growth of mainly junk-wage jobs / no med, vacation or other perks. Stress: the growing windfall for Pharm-Chem Corps everywhere! Somehow the M$ dilemma is at the heart of all these huge social blunders -- and the increasing adversarial position of Corporate VS humans. (This even without examining the entire inane idea of, "The Information Economy"! -- as if #$!@^#^$ infotainment: can cook the rice, rebuild the bridges and such!) No, I have no 'solution' either. Viscerally it's easy: nuke from orbit* since.. so much of the dilemma involves a concentration of sociopaths in a convenient locale. :-) Ashton (Yeah - just a few rule changes re Corporations as special a-social 'entities' could alleviate much - but in Murica, the people who buy the laws are the ones benefitting from the status quo) Ever thus. It was a fine experiment though - til Capitalism became our actual National Religion.
Post #2,841 by static 7/25/01 11:04:44 PM Reply	Trying to do that creates a bigger problem. Which is this: it means the legal system ends up dictating to Microsoft what constitutes an Operating System and what doesn't. That is a super-sized Pandora's Box. OTOH, forcing Microsoft to make the decision themselves for all these "almost out-of-scope" items means they have choose between two extremes. To wit: If Windows Media Player is now an OS component, then they only way they are now allowed to provide it to customers is on OS installation media. That means no free downloads, no magazone CD-ROMs, etc. It must be no more than an Installation Checkbox Option, just like the Screen Savers. The only way for Microsoft to upgrade WMP on installed PCs is via a proper, legitimate OS upgrade. As sold in boxes. But it also means the Applications company can create a competing product that is most definitely not an OS component. :-) Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"

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