RE: Suggestions please for what POP or IMAP servers to use

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Schwartz [mailto:davids@webmaster.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 8:11 AM
> To: tedm@toybox.placo.com; des@des.no
> Cc: Rob; FreeBSD Chat; Andrew Falanga
> Subject: RE: Suggestions please for what POP or IMAP servers to use
>=20
>=20
> =20
> > The real reason MS was there on trial was - da dum - that they were
> > price-setting the OPERATING SYSTEM prices.  The argument was
> > that MS was a legal monopoly of operating systems and acting in
> > an anticompetitive fashion.  Why the trial brought Netscape into the
> > trial at all is likely that it was a ploy to generate sympathy.
>=20
> That's funny because every source I have says that the Microsoft=20
> trial started because Microsoft was accused of leveraging its=20
> Windows monopoly to win the browser war. I could provide at least=20
> a dozen cites about this, including quotes from the lawyer who=20
> convinced the DOJ to bring the suit. But I know there's no point,=20
> because you'll say that even though he said X, that doesn't prove=20
> that X is really why he did it.
>=20
> I'll bet you don't have one shred of evidence to support the=20
> claim that the trial wasn't primarily motivated by this alleged=20
> use of leverage.
>

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm

"...II  The Relevant Market
Currently there are no products, nor are there likely to be any in the =
near future, that a significant percentage of consumers world-wide could =
substitute for Intel-compatible PC OPERATING SYSTEMS...
....Therefore, in determining the level of Microsoft's market power, the =
relevant market is the licensing of all Intel-compatible PC OPERATING =
SYSTEMS..."
....Section 412...Most harmful of all is the message that Microsoft's =
actions have conveyed to every enterprise with the potential to innovate =
in the computer industry. Through its conduct toward Netscape, IBM, =
Compaq, Intel, and others, Microsoft has demonstrated that it will use =
its prodigious market power and immense profits to harm any firm that =
insists on pursuing initiatives that could intensify competition against =
one of Microsoft's CORE PRODUCTS...."

Now, was there a big hue and cry in the finding of fact concerning =
browsers?
Certainly.  However, the web browser was never a Microsoft core product. =
 I
will also point out that the fundamental argument in the fact finding =
was that
Netscape was charging and Microsoft started giving away a web browser =
for
free, forcing Netscape to give theirs away for free - all of this =
completely
ignores that the Netscape code was originally free code, copied from
NCSA, and that there were other free web browsers besides Netscape and
IE available a the time.  In other words, the court was bashing =
Microsoft
for giving away a browser for free to compete against another company =
that
simply took free open source browser AND server code and started =
charging money
for it.

That is why the fact finding DID NOT state that the most harmful was =
that
MS misused the so-called browser market.  The entire "MS is bad because
they pushed Netscape out of business" argument only makes sense in the
context of the times - when a lot of people like you were running around
claiming a web browser was an operating system.  The original market was
NOT defined as a browser market - it was defined as an OPERATING SYSTEM
market - and the "most harmful" actions of Microsoft to the market =
concerned
their CORE PRODUCTS - which at the time were PC OPERATING SYSTEMS.

Thomas Penfield Jackson knew at the time that a finding of fact that
MS was a monopoly in the BROWSER market would not hold up.  So he =
carefully
penned a finding that WOULD hold up - one that's foundations rested on
anticompetitive behavior in the OPERATING SYSTEM market - with a lot of
Netscape web browser window dressing merely as evidence that MS was
a nasty company.

The fact of the matter is that the succeeding judge Colleen =
Kollar-Kotelly
is ignorant of how the computer market works, and is merely a mouthpiece
for conservatives.  She didn't reverse the findings of fact since she
did not have the knowledge of how the market works to understand them.
Instead she just issued a remedy that did practically nothing.
 =20
> > It's still an open and shut case that MS is a monopoly of PC
> > operating system software.  That's why they are currently regulated
> > by the EC in Europe.  It's why the trial found them to be a =
monopoly.
> > Forcing them to "untie" the browser from the OS was a remedy that
> > was dreamed up - but, it really didn't answer the root problem
> > of removing their dominance in the OS market.
>=20
> Why is that a problem exactly?
>=20

You know, at this point I'm just going to end this.  If you still don't
understand why a single computer operating system being the dominant
PC operating system is a problem, you are a lost cause, and frankly,
your statement has almost certainly killed your credibility with anyone
running an operating system other than Windows.

Ted

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