From: sjb5@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (STACY JOHN BEHRENS)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: ftc and ms
Date: 23 Dec 92 02:32:41 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <1992Dec22.102732.22124@noose.ecn.purdue.edu>, helz@ecn.purdue.edu (R
andall 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.
>
He most certainly does.  Producing an operating system gives the maker a
certain amount of responsibility.  One of these responibilities if defining
the calls *everyone* is to use.  If the company that makes the OS, (in this
case MS) does not do this, then they are foregoing their responsibilities and
are not only being unfair, they are doing something which is morally wrong.
You are very big on something being morally right, so be consistant.  MS
cheating at their own game is something that is very wrong.  It hasn't been
proven yet that they have done anything, but if they have then they most
likely deserve what punishments are dished out.


>
>|>      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.

Be consistant with your arguements.  How is it more right for MS to cheat at
their own game then it is for the FTC to take away their ability to do so?

>
>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?

You seem to miss the point.  We are considering this from a moral standpoint,
just not yours.  The government doesn't need to have its hand in everything,
but then neither should it sit still and let abuses occur which may potentiall
hurt the country's economy.  We have for better or worse, decided to make the
government the watchdog for abuses in business practices.  This isn't going to
change any time soon regardless of how moral or immoral it might be.  We
cannot afford to let *any* company hurt the economy in the long term.  MS is
accused of engaging in acts which just might do this.  Whether they have done
so or not has not yet been decided.  If they have, then they most certainly
should be forced to stop.  If they haven't then they should be allowed to keep
going as they are right now.

>
>
>|>      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.

By making it more difficult to compete with other vendors if they don't sign
the agreement, they may as well have.  You don't need a gun to force someone
into or out of something.

>
>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.

And making it impossible for other companies to compete is moral?  That's a
very strange set of morals.
>
>
>|> competing as heavily in the applications market.  Now, though, MS
>|> has practically forced (yes *forced*) vendors to either load MS-DOS
>
>Force is the wrong word to use here.  When Bill Gates starts toting
>M-16's like the U.S. Army does, then we can start talking about force.
>

No force is the right word.  There are more ways to force someone into
something than with a gun.  A very good one is to force a potentially
significant reduction in income.  It is a trap, much like a company store
policy designed to hurt people outside the company.  MS gets tighter and
tighter control over the clone vendors by making it difficult to compete if
that vendor doesn't buy from MS.  I don't particularly relish the thought of
being locked into a single vendor and neither do a great many other people,
but MS's policies tend to promote that, despite my wishes as a consumer to the
contrary.  The only people that helps in the long run are the people who work
for MS.  Not you, not me, not even the vendors who they are selling through
right now.  Long term, only MS will benifit, and that is not a good thing.

-- 
Stacy John Behrens
*===)-------------
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The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they
serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have not
legitimacy.                                  [Albert Einstein]
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