Ashcroft to bat for Microsoft?

Post #80,962 by marlowe 2/11/03 2:45:57 PM Reply	Ashcroft to bat for Microsoft? [link\|http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/2003/02/11/microsoft.html\|No more pretense] Excerpt: The department has put a federal appeals court on notice that it may enter the appeal filed by those two states seeking stiffer antitrust controls on the way Microsoft does business. If it does enter, it almost certainly would be to argue against added restrictions on the firm. Its notice to the US Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., circuit did not formally commit the department to take a role in the case, but even keeping its option to do so marked a distinct shift in its stance. I say: Should've given up on lawsuits long ago. People actually think government and lawyers are the answer. Now for the real fight: an organized resistance movement built around open source. "Going to a march organized by Communists doesn't make you a Communist, any more than going to a march organized by Nazis makes you a Nazi." - Glenn Reynolds CHICKENHAWK! Scourge of clucking hens everywhere! Victory is the answer. There are no alternatives. [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html]
Post #80,965 by Andrew Grygus 2/11/03 3:07:07 PM Reply	No, the lawsuits are important. They keep Microsoft pinned down and erode its public image. If Microsoft hadn't been pinned down by antitrust action at the critical moment, Open Source wouldn't be anywhere near where it is now. Unable to attack Linux while they were claiming it in court as a "viable threat", Microsoft now has quite a job trying to put the genie back in the bottle. Continuous court battles have eroded Microsoft's public image to the point my clients now ask questions rather than simply discarding what I say about the company as the ravings of a loony, and are more open to considering alternatives. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #81,003 by mmoffitt 2/11/03 7:45:20 PM Reply	That's been my experience, too. Having been a developer for quite a while, if I ran into something that didn't work on Windoze, invariably, my bosses or clients suspected me. Now, the first assumption they make (my clients) is that something is wrong with the Microsoft product. And every client I speak to is very interested in my thoughts on the Beast. It is refreshing to finally have more than a slim minority listening. Heck, even a few of my clients who used to be died-in-the-wool Microsofties barb them with regularity and ask me about alternatives (one I just successfully turned from a WindowsCE project into an embedded Linux project). Once the platform switched, development was much easier - the client is elated. Today he asked me to look for alternatives to his windows based accounting & inventory systems. It makes me feel good to know I'm making my little dent ;-)
Post #80,986 by jb4 2/11/03 6:15:06 PM Reply	Waddya expect? Ashcroft got several hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions from Micros~1 in his failed attempt to win a Senate seat from a dead man. Now its Payback Time. And what do you want to bet that he gets a nice, cushy B.O.D. position with MS in 2004...after Bush loses the election. jb4 "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." Rich Cook

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