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Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft finesFree Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft finesPosted Jul 12, 2006 18:31 UTC (Wed) by flashydave (subscriber, #29267)Parent article: Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
Assuming MS did eventually pay who gets the money?
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Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines Posted Jul 12, 2006 20:25 UTC (Wed) by MarkVandenBorre (subscriber, #26071) [Link] The fine is supposed to go straight into the EU working budget.
The more I think about it, the less sense I see in a monetary fine for Microsoft. After all, as a monopoly, they can recoup the fine by raising the price of their products.
Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines Posted Jul 12, 2006 20:40 UTC (Wed) by flashydave (subscriber, #29267) [Link] Yes but they still have to comply. They couldnt stand increased fines indefinitely and the higher the price the more people will look at potential alternative solutions. GNU/Linux, at least, is becoming better known amongst computer literate people making IT decisions.
What else could the EU realistically do? Banning sales isnt realistic.
btw MS share price dropped significantly (2%) so the marketplace thinks it must have an effect. Interestingly RedHat prices jumped temporarily today before dropping back. Coincidence?
Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines Posted Jul 12, 2006 22:51 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] probably not.
Looking at day to day price fluctuations in stock prices are pretty worthless. I could not have anything to do with Microsoft or REdhat. Could be something as stupid as 'Blah blah looser announces Tech stocks still over priced' scrolling along the bottom of a screen on some tv news channel.
There is a easy way to remember this when looking at stock prices..
It's like reading tea leaves or something.
Microsoft fines Posted Jul 12, 2006 23:38 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] And, the fines are probably undermining their morale. It may be a subtle effect, but important nonetheless; witness the letter sent to employees. In it, they took care to say that they were trying to comply; after all, many people don't like working for a racket doing bad things to other people. And those who do like it are already working for the RIAA... nah, just joking ;)
Seize assets - Windows, Office Posted Jul 13, 2006 15:17 UTC (Thu) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link] There are alternatives to fines, though they won't happen. If Microsoft NEVER complied, and no fine seemed to work, there are seizable assets: Windows and Office. Just declare that the copyright to those products has been revoked, and that they and their successors are in the public domain. This is similar to having a property seizure if you don't pay fines. No, that will NEVER happen. And I don't know if the laws are written in a way to make it possible... but it's conceivable. Which suggests that MS will eventually comply with the law, at least enough to make some enforcer happy, or find a way to overturn the ruling.
Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines Posted Jul 13, 2006 8:13 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link] The more I think about it, the less sense I see in a monetary fine for Microsoft. After all, as a monopoly, they can recoup the fine by raising the price of their products.That doesn't work. It's not a one-time fine. It's a running fine. And the explicit purpose of the fine is to force changed behaviour. Which means that if it's inadequate to acomplish this, it simply needs to be made an order of magnitude bigger, or more. Besides, at some point you start facing contempt-charges. Following court-orders is not optional. Refuse to do so for long enough, and eventually "men with guns"(tm) show up and freeze your assets. Resist these, and they'll freeze you instead. (typically by putting you in jail) It's a disgrace though, that we allow big companies with lots of lawyers to ignore court-orders for such a long time with so little consequence. If any of us had ignored a court-order for such a long time, we'd have had the men with the guns in our homes a long time ago. Dunno about the EU, but in Norway, for example, it generally takes on the order of 2 months from final, unappealable court-order and until that order is physically enforced. Atleast that's how long it took from I won in small-claims court (over a non-working computer that the seller refused to fix) and until an officer of the state showed up by the seller and demanded that either he pay, or he'd simply walk away with whatever valuable items he could find in the shop and sell them to cover the expenses. (and any attempt at physically preventing this confiscation would be met with police-force)
Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines Posted Jul 13, 2006 9:48 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] The EU does *everything* more slowly than one would expect. It's not corporate bias: if anything it's bureaucratic bias.
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