Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Breaking up is hard to do...
Author: Robert Cassidy Posted: 4/27/2000; 10:20:18 AM Topic: scriptingNews outline for 4/27/2000 Msg #: 16744 (In response to 16742) Prev/Next: 16743 / 16745
Can't happen. There's no way to enforce it without providing complete open source. After all, they publish the APIs now - who the poor sod who's job it will be to sift through 20M lines of code looking for undocumented hooks? It happens now because the people that have open architectures do so willingly. And that is why a breakup is likely the only remedy here. Yes, privileged knowledge will remain, but won't be allowed to expand. That priveleged knowledge will start to dissolve as new versions ship.I think a breakup will work. It may not do what Dave or I or most people think needs to happen, but then that's not what they are seeking. What they are seeking is a way to prevent MS from using it's technology to forcibly suppress other people's technology. That's all.
With IE separate, MS will have to open up to other browsers at least to some degree. IE may end up with 100% marketshare and MSN may ultimately kill AOL proper as a result, but that's really not relevant to the lawsuit. MS will have lost the ability to use Office and IE to force the hand of most companies.
It may still suck, but it won't suck in the same way. That's pretty much all they can expect to accomplish. They can't reasonably act against conduct which didn't occur, might occur, could occur, etc. Only what did occur.
What did occur is a conduct remedy was negotiated some years back and nothing changed. It's even been proven that nothing changed - and things may have even gotten worse. A structural remedy is really the only option.
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