[XCSSA] Fwd: Microsoft Settlement

[Kent Polk]

Peter M Anderson wrote:

> 2)Microsoft be required to publish their Application Programming
> Interfaces (API's) to ALL interested parties (including those in
> the Open Source community) and not just those parties which Microsoft
> recognizes as business entities. Note this is not the same as
> requiring them to publish their source code- only the links to
> programs to aid competitors in developing new and innovative
> products. 

You forgot the most important one:

MS be required to publish their file formats and techniques for
reproducing documents in non-Windows environments, for all government
projects.

Until MS convinced the US government otherwise, ALL US government
contracts required that projects use publically documented file
formats for data storage and that the technology to recover data
be available for 20 years after the contract was let.

MS uses proprietary file formats to leverage their competitors out
of business and to force their own users to update versions of
Windows. This has cost *you*, just through government contracts,
billions of dollars. That is the primary thing you need to break.

> 3)Microsoft  be regulated. Due to its pervasiveness in the computer
> marketplace, it can legitimately be argued that Microsoft now
> functions more as a Utility than as a software provider. Even in

Government regulation virtually never works for what you intend.
It simply provides vast new government powers that will likely be
used against small companies and *for* MS and other large ones.