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Reminder to self: Stay away from one line responses.
"Nothing illegal about exclusive contracts, unless of course you have already been declared a monopoly. Thus prior to any such findings by a court of law (not public opinion) is perfectly legal."

I'm not entirely sure that's the case. In fact, and I'll admit I may be mistaken on this, but I believe that the first consent decree MS made in the early 90's was based on that, and they had exclusive contracts even after that. And anyway that was only one example. For instance, bundling a product that is not a monopoly into a product that IS a monopoly for the express purpose of creating a monopoly for the non-monopoly product, that IS illegal. And MS has indeed been found guilty of that. The fact that they were only slapped on the wrist for it doesn't make that any less illegal.

And I'll say this again, making money is NOT unethical. However, creating proprietary extensions in your monopoly product, thus forcing out any small players, that IS unethical. One fine example of this is the fact that a web page created on a MS product will more than likely have IE-only extensions in it. So anything you publish on the web, which is SUPPOSED to be based on open standards, is only readable in IE. That's not illegal, but it IS unethical in my opinion.

And BTW, if any open source program did the same thing, only made things unreadable in IE, I'd call them unethical too.
Posted by: Michael Kelly   Posted on: 08/13/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use
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Right on!  Martin Marvinski | 08/13/04
Gartner and their new alphabet soup ...  Judas I. | 08/13/04
Of course it is... you CAN NOT STOP FREEdom!  Xunil_Sierutuf | 08/13/04
I really like the way you think  NonZealot | 08/13/04
LOL, I take great pride in my MS-Bashing..  Xunil_Sierutuf | 08/13/04
Please tell me...  seosamh_z | 08/13/04
I think you might have it backwards...  Michael Kelly | 08/13/04
Reads the same  nomorems | 08/13/04
ax + by ≠ bx + ay  Michael Kelly | 08/13/04
well now I know the subject lines don't like special characters  Michael Kelly | 08/13/04
Backwards, forwards and sideways  seosamh_z | 08/13/04
Reminder to self: Stay away from one line responses.  Michael Kelly | 08/13/04
Do what you gotta do  seosamh_z | 08/13/04
quick responses  Michael Kelly | 08/13/04
We're getting closer  seosamh_z | 08/13/04
Go figure...  Michael Kelly | 08/13/04
heh.. where's the i told you so?  ryusen | 08/13/04
Are you talking about me?  seosamh_z | 08/13/04
No, I think he meant this kind of post....  Jose Jimenez | 08/13/04
no not you...  ryusen | 08/13/04
Relief  seosamh_z | 08/13/04
Gartner is a MSFT lackey  Chad_z | 08/13/04
not always...  ryusen | 08/13/04
Speaking of lackies...  Dave P. | 08/13/04
My favorite  seosamh_z | 08/13/04
Darn Gartner slamming MS yet again  FilledOut | 08/13/04
Junk the BSA patent directive  Nigel Johnstone | 08/13/04
Where is No_Axe_To_Grind?  Linux User 147560 | 08/13/04
Wow! More flip-flops than Kerry... (NT)  Plain Logic | 08/13/04
Not a very exclusive club  IT_User | 08/13/04
More than Kerry?  alterego_z | 08/14/04
Reported on 11/08/2004, here now!  B.O.F.H. | 08/13/04
Good link  Martin Marvinski | 08/14/04
Only poster with a 100% record...  AmusedAtItAll | 08/14/04
Good for them  FilledOut | 08/16/04
Such a shame  jorwell | 08/16/04

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