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Date: Wed, 09 Apr 1997 08:54:20 -0400
To: Chuck Robey <chuckr@glue.umd.edu>
From: dennis <dennis@etinc.com>
Subject: Re: FW: Unix Gurus shift to Microsoft (fwd)
Cc: Peter Dufault <dufault@hda.com>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
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At 08:23 PM 4/8/97 -0400, Chuck Robey wrote:
>On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, dennis wrote:
>
>> >> I wonder how long its going to take for the courts to bone up on this
and
>> >> understand what Microsoft has become. The WebTV acquisition is very
>> >> troubing to me, as well as the fact that they also announced that the
will
>> >> be selling "diskless workstations". Pretty soon they will make everyone
>> >> buy hardware from them also...it seems fairly clear that thats the
>> direction 
>> >> they are taking.
>> >
>> >Courts don't do it, Justice and Congress do, and they are completely
>> >baffled by computers in the first place.  Some judges actually spend the
>> >time to learn the issues involved, but congressmen, unless it's
>> >politically needed, never do.  As long as Mom and Pop are happy with MS,
>> >congress will leave them alone.
>> 
>> bunk....mom and pop were happy with AT&T..it took sprint and mci and ibm
>> to get attention. The Justice dept (I thought Justice== courts???) still
>> doesnt
>> understand the AT&T breakup, and they never will probably, but the
impact of
>> microsoft is MUCH more damaging than AT&T. AT&T, at least, was doing good
>> things, microsoft is a vulture.
>
>This is getting too far afield from FreeBSD, so I won't be replying again
>after this.  Courts != Justice.  Courts==Judicial branch, Justice ==
>executive branch.  Back in 1984, Justice had a antitrust suit of
>considerable ago going (and not really getting anywhere) when AT&T decided
>to offer the breakup.  The Courts approved it, but didn't force (or even
>suggest) it.

"Forced" by lobbying from the likes of Sprint, MCI and IBM..which was my
point...not because the justice dept conceptualized a problem.

db