From: TW.FY4@isumvs.iastate.edu (Timothy I Miller)
Subject: Re: ftc and ms
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 19:04:28 GMT

In article <1992Dec22.102732.22124@noose.ecn.purdue.edu>,
helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman) writes:
>In article <BzMLLx.JtD@news.iastate.edu>, TW.FY4@isumvs.iastate.edu (Timothy I Miller) writes:
>
>|> too.  The problem is that they are allowing their application
>|> developers to use calls from their OS that other developers can't
>|> use.  This gives MS applications an unfair advantage over the
>|> competitors applications.
>
>Bill Gates doesn't have to show anybody his OS calls any more than he
>has to show them his underware.
>

     I don't think many people are too interested in Bill Gates'
underwear.  I think that a lot of people are interested in seeing
what sort of undocumented calls are in MS-DOS and MS-Windows.  And
he doesn't have to show these undocumented calls, but when a company
uses the undocumented calls of thier own OS to give them an unfair
advantage, then they have be cautious because the FTC will probably
step in.

>
>|>      The question isn't a matter of ownership of the OS.  MS wrote
>|> MS-DOS, and nobody is going to argue that (I guess it depends on
>|> what I mean by 'wrote'...).  It's a question of interpreting the
>|> law.  That is what the FTC is out to do.  If the law is interpreted
>|> that MS is being unfair, then the FTC has every right to break up
>|> the company.  Period.
>
>NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO!!!!!
>
>If there was a law in Germany mandating that all Jews be killed would you
>said that Hitler had every right to do it, Period???
>
>Or a less drastic example, suppose a new law gave the FTC a right to
>steal everything that you own and give it to Microsoft?  Would you
>calmly state that the FTC had a right to do it because it was the law?
>
>Just because the FTC has a "legal" right to steal and destroy doesn't make
>it right.
>
>Won't you please consider what is going on from a moral standpoint?
>Is this really the kind of country that you want to live in?
>

     My whole argument is based on the premise that laws aren't
necessarily moral.  I'm not too interested in arguing the moral
aspects of the argument, as mant other people are already doing a
sufficient job of it.  I don't think it's very reasonable to
compare the breaking up of MS to the Nazi concentration camps,
though.  The morality of a law is often debated before it is
enacted.  I'm not really that interested in the breakup of MS, but I
am interested in the contracts that MS signs with PC vendors being
scruitinized, and revised if they are found to be in violation of
the rules that the FTC has set up.

>
>|>      A return, yes.  Binding contracts which allow no other
>|> alternatives, no.
>
>Hey, Microsoft didn't hold a gun to anybody clone maker's head and
>force them to sign a contract.  Both parties voluntarily signed contracts
>because they both thought it would benefit them.
>

     I agree, no guns were involved.  I'm against the nature of the
contracts signed.

>However, Microsoft's competetors are more than willing to point the guns of
>the Federal goverment at Bill Gates because they can't compete with him.
>
>
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy