Microsoft Hatred FAQ 5158

No, not at all. It is the gravest act of self-contradiction to maintain that one should be allowed to pursue one's own interest while denying that same right to others.

We should certainly care that Microsoft be allowed to pursue their own success. The government should be agnostic about who the winners and losers are, but must respect each enbreasty's right to attempt to be that winner.

The problem is, people complain when the playing field is in fact level. For example, Microsoft's "exclusionary" Windows agreements didn't ask for more than Windows was worth (or nobody would have agreed to them). Yet they are considered examples of the playing field not being level.

Umm, no. It's because the government owns the roads and operates them for the benefit of all. This analogy applies *only* to government property.

You could replace "government" with "road owner" and the analogy would then be correct. Governments don't give a damn if traffic flows smoothly on private roads.

And this is what any road owner would do.

The problem is, the government does not own the economy. So it does not get to manage it the way it gets to manage the roads it in fact owns.

Again, the analogy fails. You are comparing the government's right to manage its own property with the government's "right" to interfere with other people's right to manage their property.

I thought it was about operating systems, actually. And I thought that both OSX and Linux competed with it.

When a criminal willing to use force points a gun at your head, you lie to him.

I am not saying Microsoft did not know the law. I am saying that no rational person could have expected the law to be applied to Microsoft that way it was. The law *must* put a person on notice of precisely what conduct it prohibits. However, in this case, the law's applicability was conditioned on an abritrary and irrational choice of what the relevant market was.

DS