Re: [tlug] Re: [OT] Say _no_ to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Josh Glover writes:

 > So leave the market alone, governments. Antitrust laws are slow,
 > unwieldy, and often enforced in a highly politically motivated way.
 > 
 > Who needs 'em?

We all do, son.

The cases that Microsoft has lost that stayed lost proves that they
*will* play "On The Edge, Inc".  It's true that Microsoft doesn't play
anywhere near the kind of hardball that the robber barons of the 19th
century did, but it's not obvious to me that without strict laws, they
wouldn't push the envelope.

Second, having laws tells the law-abiding citizens what their rights
are.  Godwin's point that most people don't know and don't care is
correct, but the opportunities for serious fraud are much greater if
you can't know because there are no rules.

Third, you give the example of the IBM case.  Well, guess what?  Frank
Fisher's book, which pretty well clinches the argument that (in
hindsight) the IBM case was dumb, dumb, dumb, was literally written
during the second half of the case.  The government economist was made
to look like a fool, but he was well-versed in the conventional wisdom
of the early 70s.  (And his textbooks continued to sell well until the
mid-90s, at least; his explanations of the law and how it relates to
economic theory at the undergrad level only because truly outdated in
the '90s.  AFAICT, the Minshuto politicians still read those
books. ;-)  Without the IBM and AT&T cases, we'd have to write those
books today.

Note that the AT&T case had the opposite result.  This is now
conventional wisdom:  IBM won in court because in the market it only
had economics on its side, and it was impossible to give the kind of
proof of overwhelming market power needed to win such an antitrust
case (note the IBM *did* lose a few private cases, but most of the
private plaintiffs decided to bet on the government winning quickly,
and so lost their shirts although they probably had a shot at winning
a private civil suit).  AT&T lost, because in the market it had the
government on its side, and when the rationale for government
protection of its markets went away, it got broken up to prevent the
enormous concentration of power from having the kind of market-killing
effect that NTT still has in this country.  However, the theory
necessary to convince experts that IBM didn't make a bunch of
mistakes, that it actually was basically powerless to prevent the plug
compatibles and so on, but on the contrary AT&T would be a danger to
the market, simply didn't exist in 1975, and was still extremely
controversial as of 1980.

And if you want to know why antitrust is necessary, just look at NTT.