Microsoft Hatred FAQ 5157

On Fri, 21 Oct 2005 21:47:27 -0700, David Schwartz

Neither I, nor you, nor the government of any nation, should care a monkey's toss specifically for Microsoft's success. Microsoft is one special interest, out of a potentially unbounded number of possible players in the economy of a country and the world.

Unless you or I are specifically shareholders in Microsoft, we should not care about their specific success; and the government should be entirely agnostic about who are the winners and losers in an economy. The government's role should be to ensure a level playing field, and minimum levels of health, safety and environmental standards. There is no place for government giving special-interests like Microsoft favours.

Society regulates where and how we park our cars: for instance, none of us are allowed to park our car in the middle of busy road. and if we try, our car is likely to be impounded. This is not because there is anything in and of itself *wrong* with parking at such-and-such a place, but because of the effect it has on others. A sensible government cares for smooth flowing traffic on the roads, with the minimum of delays and the maximum flow practical. Perhaps Walmart or Safeway might find it convenient to park their trucks on public roads for any number of reasons. Too bad for them: the benefit to them does not outweigh the loss to everyone else, even if they don't specifically block access to their compebreastors.

Microsoft's behaviour over-all has been just as anti-social, anti-compebreastive and harmful to the over-all running of the economy as a hypothetical Walmart or Safeway that regularly parked their trucks in the middle of the main road for a few hours while they unloaded.

Maybe, just maybe, if Mom & Pop's Corner Store tried it once or twice, we could afford to turn a blind eye, especially if the disruption caused by towing their delivery van was greater than the disruption caused by their double-parking. Thousands of people break the law by double-parking for a few minutes, and society doesn't collapse. But something that we can afford to ignore when done by M&P's Corner Store becomes a serious problem if done by somebody with the economic power of Walmart, with their thousands of deliveries by 18-wheelers every day across the country.

That is *precisely* the market we're talking about. Not "any item that runs off electricity", not "orange juice", not "pork bellies", not "all computing devices", but desktop PCs. What did you think the Justice Department's investigation was about? Motor vehicles?

Microsoft have lawyers. Microsoft destroyed emails and at least one senior manager perjured himself in court. Microsoft created a fake video demonstration which they then gave as evidence. Do you really believe that Microsoft's executives are so incompetent that they don't get legal advice before writing up contracts? Or that nobody in authority at Microsoft realised that destroying evidence and lying to a judge are crimes?

In any case, even if you are right that Microsoft had no ideas... so what? Ignorance of the law never has been an excuse for criminal behaviour. It has always been every individual's responsibility to make sure that they do not act illegally, and that goes for companies as well.

-- Steven.