4 ms·

I'm always surprised by how idiots who haven't the slightest clue about things they are adjudicating, having the temerity to believe that they do.

by enupten 12y ago

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
Pot, meet Kettle.
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  You can't possibly imagine that lawyers, legislators, or judges are the least bit qualified to design an operating system. That was my whole problem with the antitrust trial... it amounted to a bunch of anklebiting by well-intentioned but hopelessly unqualified people.
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
    >You can't possibly imagine that lawyers, legislators, or judges are the least bit qualified to design an operating system. No. Of course not. I was pointing out the irony of HN user enupten's criticism of the lawyer deposing Gates, while knowing little about being a lawyer. My remark relies upon my assumption that enupten is more likely to be some sort of a techie than a lawyer (and not both). OTOH, you can't possibly accept MS' weak argument that their hands were forced by engineering decisions, rather than engaging in illegal anti-competitive business practices for the sake of harming their competitors. The mere fact that the government's lawyers and judges were not well suited to create their own competing software products isn't proof that they were wrong about the legality of MS' conduct. >That was my whole problem with the antitrust trial... it amounted to a bunch of anklebiting by well-intentioned but hopelessly unqualified people. I was disappointed in the results of the trial as well. What outcome(s) would you have preferred?
    - CamperBob2 12y ago
      My preference is a bit outside the mainstream, in that I don't agree that the trial should have happened in the first place. I've never seen Microsoft beat anyone in the marketplace who didn't deserve it. Like Google and Apple, they were lucky to have some of the least-competent competition in the history of business. When those competitors proved inept at defeating Microsoft in the marketplace, they went whining to the DoJ. I believe that any other consumer-friendly OS, if exposed to the same critical scrutiny that Windows faced, would have fared just as badly in the quality and security areas where Windows has traditionally taken most of its bashing. Windows didn't win over OS/2, MacOS, and Linux because of any skulduggery on Bill Gates's part (and yes, I agree, there was plenty of legitimate skulduggery to accuse Microsoft of perpetrating.) It won because the others sucked even more. Moreover, I believe that the network effects that arose from the dominance of Windows were far more beneficial than the sort of meaningless competition that prevailed in earlier personal computing eras, where everyone was selling proprietary hardware and OSes that were just different enough from everyone else's to make life annoying and expensive for independent developers. Modern mobile developers don't know how lucky they are that they only have to target two 800-pound gorillas. So I disagreed strongly with the DoJ's antitrust efforts, and would have even without the involvement of figures like Judge Jackson whose legal talents would have been better spent adjudicating parking tickets. The whole process made me pretty cynical about antitrust actions and our legal system in general.

I'm always surprised by how idiots who haven't the slightest clue about things they are adjudicating, having the temerity to believe that they do.

by enupten 12y ago

I'm always surprised by how idiots who haven't the slightest clue about things they are adjudicating, having the temerity to believe that they do.

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago

Pot, meet Kettle.

CamperBob2 12y ago
You can't possibly imagine that lawyers, legislators, or judges are the least bit qualified to design an operating system. That was my whole problem with the antitrust trial... it amounted to a bunch of anklebiting by well-intentioned but hopelessly unqualified people.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  >You can't possibly imagine that lawyers, legislators, or judges are the least bit qualified to design an operating system. No. Of course not. I was pointing out the irony of HN user enupten's criticism of the lawyer deposing Gates, while knowing little about being a lawyer. My remark relies upon my assumption that enupten is more likely to be some sort of a techie than a lawyer (and not both). OTOH, you can't possibly accept MS' weak argument that their hands were forced by engineering decisions, rather than engaging in illegal anti-competitive business practices for the sake of harming their competitors. The mere fact that the government's lawyers and judges were not well suited to create their own competing software products isn't proof that they were wrong about the legality of MS' conduct. >That was my whole problem with the antitrust trial... it amounted to a bunch of anklebiting by well-intentioned but hopelessly unqualified people. I was disappointed in the results of the trial as well. What outcome(s) would you have preferred?
  - CamperBob2 12y ago
    My preference is a bit outside the mainstream, in that I don't agree that the trial should have happened in the first place. I've never seen Microsoft beat anyone in the marketplace who didn't deserve it. Like Google and Apple, they were lucky to have some of the least-competent competition in the history of business. When those competitors proved inept at defeating Microsoft in the marketplace, they went whining to the DoJ. I believe that any other consumer-friendly OS, if exposed to the same critical scrutiny that Windows faced, would have fared just as badly in the quality and security areas where Windows has traditionally taken most of its bashing. Windows didn't win over OS/2, MacOS, and Linux because of any skulduggery on Bill Gates's part (and yes, I agree, there was plenty of legitimate skulduggery to accuse Microsoft of perpetrating.) It won because the others sucked even more. Moreover, I believe that the network effects that arose from the dominance of Windows were far more beneficial than the sort of meaningless competition that prevailed in earlier personal computing eras, where everyone was selling proprietary hardware and OSes that were just different enough from everyone else's to make life annoying and expensive for independent developers. Modern mobile developers don't know how lucky they are that they only have to target two 800-pound gorillas. So I disagreed strongly with the DoJ's antitrust efforts, and would have even without the involvement of figures like Judge Jackson whose legal talents would have been better spent adjudicating parking tickets. The whole process made me pretty cynical about antitrust actions and our legal system in general.