Re: Copyright upholds Monopoly,was: Microsoft's OS competitors

Mario Heilmann <a3[_at_]a3.com> wrote:
>
> The result of the discussion of this topic is:
> Microsoft has a de facto unbreakable monopoly on operating systems,
> further enforced with some dubious bully methods.
>
> How come the anti trust probe went nowhere?

Good question. Maybe its because MS is one of the US's biggest single export earners and there is no strong compulsion to break a monopoly which works in favour of US interests?

> Why don't they create exemptions to copyright protection to break
> up this monopoly?

Berne.

> Why do they not force Microsoft to publish, COMPLETELY, and in advance,
> all operating system specifications, and to prohibit the use of
> undocumented system calls by any application software. If the
> specifications were complete and exhaustive, reverse engineering is
> unnecessary. And, the way the monopoly hides itself behind a shroud
> of secrecy, reverse engineering is actually the only possible self
> defense.

I could not agree more. Its about time that Microsoft was taken to task for its monopolistic practices. The question is how?

> Why does no other country take similar anti trust measures?

The answer is simple. MS have a world wide market and are not going to change their world wide marketing strategy (complete market domination) to protect their market in any one country with the possible exception of the US market.

If Australia clamped down on the monopolistic practices, for instance, it would change the way the products were marketed in Australia but it would have virtually no effect on third party software houses or the overall domination because our market is relatively small. If the same thing is done in the US where the market for software is so large it might have some impact.

If Australia required full disclosure of interfaces and no undisclosed OS hooks then MS would probably call their bluff and withdraw from the market (or withdraw favourable government licences to MS products). Losing Australia's software market is small potatoes compared with the threat such a requirement would place to a world-wide monopoly. If the US required such disclosure then MS could not simply walk away from the market.

There remains another problem though: how do you draft a law requiring OS interfaces to be completely transperant? How do you distinguish what is a system call from what is not? How do you determine where the interface is? I don't think MS will be the only company fighting against such legislation and there are many legitimate concerns. That shouldn't prevent us from trying. But it is not as easy as simply getting somebody to draft and champion the legislation.

Tim Arnold-Moore, LL.B. (Melb)        | Multimedia Database Systems, RMIT  |
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