Fair as in it is unfair to block the intersection (Score 1)

Look at it this way. Under normal circumstances if you are at an intersection and the light is green you can proceed. However if traffic is heavy and you can make it all the way across, but enter anyway, you will block traffic. The result is grid-lock and just like with monopolies, grid-lock eventually goes away. In the meantime a great deal of grief can be spared by simply not blocking the intersection, or not leveraging a monopoly into other sectors of the economy. Same thing with Microsoft, normally you can offer any deal you damm well please, but when you start impeading others access to the market by leveraging your monopoly you are blocking traffic.


Microsoft got where it is because IBM was ham-strung by the very same laws they are bleating about now. The bad old IBM would have simply built the entire PC in house or acquired the necessary companies. The entire commodity hardware market is a result of those laws. Now the same thing is going to happen for software. Either with the DOJ keeping Microsoft from getting in the way, or we will have to endure the long painful process of sending innovator after innovator into the maw of the borg.

By the way, I don't want the source code to Windows as my keyboard is not protected from vomit. I don't care that Microsoft "steals" ideas and really if they only "stole" more of `em their stuff might not be so repugnant. It's the destruction of anyone not willing to pledge fealty to Lord Bill that I find unacceptable.