Which conviction are we talking about? In the case of the US and the original EU convictions several years back they were fined and punished. The end. You cannot say: "well you did something back in the day and were punished for it with no future stipulations put on the punishment, but we decided today it wasn't enough so we're gonna impose some craptastic restriction on you because the small companies are crying 'we want some of the pie tooooo'".

Now if there was a recent conviction I am not aware of that's another matter. But according to the articles being linked here there was no trial or convictions concerning the browser topic since it was brought up in January. It was a guideline/suggestion that if they do not do this they will then be tried and most likely found guilty of anti-competitive practices (again). And I'm saying that is bullshit. You want to attack them for distribution deals with hardware companies, go for it.

"The European Commission has concluded, after a five-year investigation, that Microsoft Corporation broke European Union competition law by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems (OS) onto the markets for work group server operating systems(1) and for media players(2). Because the illegal behaviour is still ongoing, the Commission has ordered Microsoft to disclose to competitors, within 120 days, the interfaces(3) required for their products to be able to 'talk' with the ubiquitous Windows OS. Microsoft is also required, within 90 days, to offer a version of its Windows OS without Windows Media Player to PC manufacturers (or when selling directly to end users). In addition, Microsoft is fined 497 million for abusing its market power in the EU. " from http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/04/382&format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

You mean that? How about the part at the bottom where they were fined and forced to release APIs? The rest of the release mentions they must also offer a version of Windows without WMP. That was the punishment. It appears the EU took it one step farther then the US did by including fines. This decision does not stretch to the current dilemma.

So, once more, how does this relate to the current topic? In fact, the wording specifically mentions "near monopoly" not an actual monopoly. What that means in the EU legal speak I do not know, but in the US that means you are not a monopoly and as such you will not be treated as one. (Which, usually means you are broken up into smaller companies or are under government control until you can be.)

And since when does legal = fair? Have you seen some of the garbage that gets passed into law?

First, they were convicted in the US not the EU, and this decision only affects their OS distributions in the EU, therefore your "excuse" is flawed. Also, the majority of the case against them was dropped they were never declared a monopoly and broken up, they were merely-declared anti-competitive. The final ruling stated that all they had to do was release APIs for third party use. Explain how you extend that decision to the current topic.

Second, every single business strives to be a monopoly, at which point they are then taken down by a government; pending local national laws. You only hate them because you don't recognize their right to do the same exact thing that every other business is trying to do. Now if the means to do so are illegal that's one thing, but unfair to bundle your own product with your own product? Come on.

Third, just because they were convicted of something (relatively minor concerning weight used) does not mean that everything you make them do is "fair". In what other industry could you seriously, with a straight face, require a company to bundle it's major competitor's products with their own by law . Say that last sentence over and over again until the absurdity of it finally hits you.

Oh, and I detest IE and all the curses it brings upon us in the software development community. Just because I hate them for philosophical reasons does not mean I cannot defend their basic rights as a business.

You want to blame someone, blame the companies that sell all their computers pre-loaded with Windows.

Technically they can vote outside their party, but it's often viewed negatively when they do. However, the EC was originally setup to avoid exactly these sorts of situations. The original idea was the more educated people would talk to their constituent's members and then through civil debate decide which candidate to support with their Electoral Votes, however as with most political concepts it eventually got warped into what we currently have. At the time it was hard pressed to get information out to people. much less get useful input from a random non-professional person.

Another way of looking at it is that you are stealing time from the developers. With most media you do not buy a product that has a higher inherent value then another product (after all most games are the same price for each particular system; a game's value is not proportional to it's quality) you are paying for the effort someone else put into it. Therefore using someone's hard work without repaying them for the effort they put forth is essentially stealing time. (Which is what most modern abstract monetary systems represent anyways)

I kinda disagree. Seeing how the hand counts are actually done, and how often they still make mistakes implies to me that electronic counting is the solution. My big question is how the hell do they keep screwing electronic counting up? I mean, can it really be that hard to come up with a secure friggin counting system? It counts for crying out loud! Simple integer increases!!!!! I'm tempted to look at what they already have and try to come up with a solution in my spare time.