From: sloppy@rt66.com (John Millington)

Newsgroups: alt.destroy.microsoft

Subject: DOJ is helping MS domination

Date: 2 Jan 1998 18:21:37 GMT





I consider Microsoft to be a great threat to progress and innovation in

computer.  No, scratch that.  They're not just a threat -- they're already

guilty and damage has already been done.  But they're still a threat too,

since more damage lies in the future.



That said, I still think the current anti-MS mob led by the DOJ is going to

make things worse.  The focus has been on Microsoft's use of it's OS

"monopoly" as leverage to create application monopolies, such as web browsers.

This makes Windoze into a developer-hostile environment.  I don't have my ol'

copy of "Undocumented DOS" handy to quote verbatim, but the authors summarized

it well when they said (I'm paraphrasing from foggy memory): your product may

be a DLL in the next version of Windoze.



I think there is a horrible flaw in this line of attack, and if things go

the way the way the DOJ-led crowd wishes, we're all going to be even worse

off.



Microsoft Windows is not a standard.  It is a proprietary product.  Microsoft

owns it.  They should be allowed to make it as bulky -- er, I mean-- full

featured as they wish.  If that makes it hard on Windoze developers, that's

just too bad.  Windoze developers exist with Microsoft's _tolerance_ (at

best), and MS doesn't owe them any assurances of a safe market.  It's stupid

of MS to discourage Windoze developers, but it's _their_ call to make.



Microsoft's error of attacking its supporters is something that should be

celebrated, not opposed.  It is one of the all-too-few hopeful signs that

Microsoft may eventually self-destruct, resulting in renewed competition

and innovation in Operating Systems, after 10 or 15 years of stagnation.



If the antitrust suits based on MS's attempts to monopolize _applications_

are successful, they will give strength to Windoze developers and _also_

to Microsoft's large OS marketshare.  It will legitimize Windoze as some kind

of "standard" platform and force it to be open.



That's not good; it's very bad.  It will hurt other OSes, thereby discouraging

Operating System research and development.  Are we ready to settle down and

accept Windoze as being the last word in OSes?  [Expletive deleted] NO!  As

far as proprietary systems go (which include AmigaOS, BeOS, MacOS, OS/2),

Windoze is comparatively mediocre.  And what about truly open systems like

Linux, where applications developers _don't_ face the potential threat of

competing against an OS-maker's unfair edge?  (What about the middle-of-the-

road approach like Java VMs?  Not really open, but with safeguards from the

very beginning to prevent anyone from proprietarizing it?)  What about OSes

that don't even exist yet?  Two years ago I was stunned to see BeOS appear

from out of nowhere -- what new OSes may appear in 1998 if allowed?  It is

not yet time to give up on OSes and concede victory to MS by legally declaring

them an OS monopoly.



Forcing fair competion in the Windoze application marketplace isn't going to

help the consumer (or developers) nearly as much as allowing competion in the

OS marketplace (which virtually guarantees freedom among applications as

well).  If the DOJ is going to go after MS for its criminal activities, it

should concentrate on the stuff that really matters: the OS preloads, per-CPU

licenses, etc.  MS shouldn't have it's 90% OS marketshare, and _wouldn't_

have it if they hadn't cheated.



If the power of the US government is to be invoked, then let it be used where

it is most needed _and_ most justified.  Leave MS free to continue its trend

of turning Windoze into an embedded application suite with little 3rd-party

support.  Let them leave the world of general-purpose computers and become

Nintendo's peer.



   Yog-Sothoth Neblod Zin,

      John Millington