BRiaN S. KeNDiG |
On Microsoft |
I'll warn you right now: I don't like Microsoft. Here's proof.
Have a great idea that'll make you millions? Hope that someone with deeper pockets doesn't notice. I originally posted this in March 1998 as a Talkback on one of zdnet's articles about the Microsoft anti-trust trial. I've since expanded on it somewhat. This is the response I have to anyone who claims that Microsoft is being unfairly persecuted for being successful, and that their methods justify their ends because they're helping people by giving away their browser for free.
Folks, it's like this.
Say you're a small-time baker hoping to hit it big. One day you come up with an idea to make bread with a pocket in it, and you call this "pita bread". Your bread is an instant hit, sales skyrocket, and several other companies come out with "pita packs" of pre-made stuff you can put in a pita, like maybe salads or lunchmeat cut to fit or whatever.
Meanwhile, Blunder Bread is the world's largest bakery conglomeration. They make all kinds of baked goods for all kinds of purposes. They ignore pita bread for a year, but after they see how your idea has struck it big, they suddenly announce that they're going to start making their own kind of pitas.
Sounds like a free market so far, right?
But then Blunder Bread decides that they don't like having to compete with you, so they take these actions:
Now you're faced with a competitor who is making lots of money from markets you haven't even been able to get into yet, and throwing all of it into a product that competes directly with yours. They're investing much more R&D in their product than you could ever hope to, and they're giving theirs away for free.
When you try to raise a legal issue about this, Blunder Bread responds by saying that they're only trying to provide the best possible dining experience for their customers at the best possible price, and that they have the right to offer their products in any way they decide is best. Meanwhile, everybody tells you to quit whining and just make better bread.
What do you do?
Upgrade yourself -- for fifty-nine cents! When Microsoft was making a lot of fuss in their proposed findings-of-fact about Internet Explorer being an 'integral part' of Windows, I posted the following to Slashdot in the hopes of illuminating how absolutely nutty Microsoft's reasoning is. As much as Microsoft words make it such an easy target for ridicule, there were still a lot of easy targets I didn't even bother to hit -- note the very first paragraph (678) under the link below, wherein Microsoft says that Netscape 'chose' to release a web browser as a separate application. I suppose it would have been a wiser choice for them to release a competing operating system instead, huh?
I read this part of Microsoft's "Finds of Fact" with great interest, amusement, shock, and horror:
I got to thinking about that. I thought, why restrict this reasoning to just computers?
So I picked up a blue Bic ballpoint pen in my hand, and I am declaring it now an integral part of my body. I am obviously not Homo Sapiens any more, since I am now distinguished by my ability to write indelible marks on certain surfaces without the need for any additional, separate tools. To paraphrase Microsoft's argument:
There are several ways to create marks on paper. One way is to use a pencil or a pen. Because that is the choice most people make, it's commonly accepted that a pen is a separate tool. But the writing-related abilities in my new body comprise many elements, including the muscles in my hand and forearm and the clicky thing on top of the pen that I can make noise with. Depending on the context, it's common for me to use the term "pen" to refer to any one of these elements, but this does not mean that the pen in my hand is a separate tool like the pens that other people use. Although I have other pens which I loan to people sometimes, there is no identifiable "pen" which can be excised from my body without degrading my basic capabilities: if you remove the pen from my hand, then I lose the important ability to create marks on paper, and the pen is useless when removed from my hand. I got this pen from a K-mart at the same time as I got some deodorant and potato chips, so it's obvious that this pen is simply one element of a larger plan which affects my entire body and how I interoperate with other people. Rather than view this Bic as a pen that sits in my hand, it is more correct to view my hand and forearm as an advanced writing implement which is capable of many various tasks. My psychiatrist contends that people universally regard pens as tools and not as part of the human body, but he offered only anecdotal support for that "proposition" whose relevance is dubious anyway.
How to break the law and get away with it. I posted this to Slashdot in March 2000, as a reply to all the people who were guiled into thinking that Microsoft truly didn't know the error of its ways.
Re: Microsoft should want to settle, but the DoJ... (Score:3, Insightful)
by Brian Kendig (brian@enchanter.net) on Tuesday March 28, @07:35PM EST
Actually, I do believe that Microsoft and its people know exactly the implications of what they're doing. I don't think any of them are too dumb to realize that they're not 'playing fair.'
I think what's happening is that they're trying to transcend the law in rather interesting ways, and what's most interesting is that, so far, they've been succeeding.
Nowhere in United States law does it say 'you must play fair.' Instead, the law delineates very specific behaviors and intents which are illegal, because vague altruistic laws aren't enforceable -- but the flip side of it is that the more specific a law is, the greater the possibility to find a loophole of some sort. And that's what Microsoft has been doing, redefining terms and feigning confusion just enough to worm its way around the letter of the law, and crying holy indignities whenever anyone dare try to mention the spirit of the law, because Microsoft asserts that its own belief that it's playing nice is just as strong as anyone else's belief that it's not.
So the first thing Microsoft has done is to treat the law as a list of rules devoid of any moral obligation whatsoever. It's kind of like in _The Matrix_, where Morpheus tells Neo that he can gain unbelievable powers simply by realizing that the world around him is governed by rules which can be bent or broken, and that the only thing limiting him is his own set of preconceptions.
And therefore, the second clever thing Microsoft has done has been to realize that laws *can* be broken, and that breaking them doesn't immediately cause the big foot from Monty Python to come down and smoosh them. They are obviously not out to keep their nose clean; they've done a lot of highly questionable things in several different cases, all the way down to destroying incriminating documents in the Caldera case. (I'm referring to the recent incident where a woman employed by Microsoft in Germany, I believe it was, admitted to having deleted a lot of subpoena'ed email at her manager's directive.) What Microsoft is depending on -- and what has so far held up for them -- is that court cases can drag on for years, well beyond any relevancy they once had in the Internet marketplace. Why behave legally today if you can escape punishment for another five to ten years or more, long after the companies which brought suit against you have gone out of business? And who knows, maybe by that time your founder will have donated so many millions of dollars to charities and political parties that no one (and least of all a Republican president) would ever consider continuing a lawsuit against your company? Or maybe the industry will have changed so much that any punishment against you will be irrelevant?
Much as I absolutely despise Microsoft's tactics in its court battles, I really have a lot of respect for their brazen ability to keep using the law to their own advantage. They have *never* admitted one iota of guilt for anything (which is amazing in itself), they've successfully managed to misrepresent the issue to the average American so that it looks like a simple matter of 'freedom to innovate' versus 'heavy-handed government intervention' rather than a straightforward tying issue, and they've managed to snarl up every court case they've been through and drag it on *much* longer than necessary, even while committing barefaced perjury, such as faking a videotape and using it as a 'smoking gun' until they were caught. They've been trying hard to get the judge or the prosecution ticked off enough to make a mistake so that Microsoft can declare it a mistrial and make everyone start all over again. They know, and everybody else knows, that Microsoft doesn't have a legal leg to stand on here; it's truly incredible that they've managed to drag the anti-trust case itself out for an entire year and a half already, where initially people expected it to last no longer than six weeks.
Microsoft is a shining example of modern capitalism, and of the ability of a United States corporation to do anything in its power to enture a good return for its shareholders. Unfortunately, it's showing the bad sides of this as well as the good.
There's strength in diversity, as any farmer will tell you. The Department of Justice asked that Microsoft be split into two companies. Bill Gates replied that this would hurt innovation and increase the danger from macro viruses such as 'Melissa' and 'ILOVEYOU.' This reasoning flies in the face of logic so badly that I had to get it out of my system by posting to Slashdot again.
Re: Opportunistic lies from Bill Gates (Score:3, Insightful)
by Brian Kendig (brian@enchanter.net) on Monday May 08, @12:46PM EST
'Melissa' and 'ILOVEYOU' are proof that because America is so dependent on Microsoft Windows, we absolutely can not let one single company be the sole source of the Windows operating system. This would be like all of the farmers in America growing only one specific strain of corn; the lack of diversity could easily let a single virus wipe out everything, and the same is true of Windows.
I believe the only true solution to Microsoft's abusive monopoly is to have at least three independent companies each offering their own compatible version of Windows. Each company could choose its own priorities -- adding features, fixing bugs, improving security -- and the market would decide which version of Windows suited its needs best, instead of the current arrangement where the market is forced to accept whatever Microsoft chooses to release. Have a look at some of the Windows 2000 features listed at "http:/ /www.microsoft.com/windows2000/guide/professional/features/default.asp"; wouldn't you readily give up some of those new features in return for not having to worry about the next macro virus trashing your company's computers again?
Skeptics claim this would overly complicate the market, but I don't think it would confuse matters any more than having so many different versions of Windows already out there. They also say that this would result in many incompatible versions of Windows running around, but to that I say that any company releasing a version of Windows with compatibility problems would suffer in the market, so they have an incentive to strive for simplicity and compatibility... and, besides, how many compatibility issues are there between Windows 95/98/NT/2000 already?
Meanwhile, Microsoft is making noise about trying to appease the government by offering a version of Windows which merely 'hides' browser access, thereby demonstrating that they have no interest in legally recognizing their illegal tie of two products. They've shown that they have no qualms about breaking the law as long as they can defer or escape punishment (by tying it up in drawn-out courtroom cases); it should be obvious by now that any further legal restrictions on the company would be pointless, and that any 'solution' which results in a single company still being responsible for the operating system isn't a solution at all.
Once upon a time I fired off a quick post in reply to a Microsoft story on zdnet.com's "Talkback Central." Tammy Cavadias, one of the Ziff-Davis columnists, asked permission to turn my comment into a 'Guest Columnist' feature, and so I let her -- not knowing that her editors would mangle my punctuation and give it a title ("Breaking up Microsoft is not the solution") which was completely opposite to the main point of my article (which was that breaking up Microsoft more was the solution)!
Most replies missed the point of what I was trying to say (I was surprised at the number of people who condemned me for having worked for Netscape), so Tammy let me post a followup to clarify. My followup got a somewhat better response, but there were still a lot of knee-jerk responses from people who ignored what I had to say. Tammy did say, however, that my first 'Guest Columnist' feature got more replies from readers than any other Guest Columnist feature had before then.
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Brian Kendig | eNCHaNTeR |