StringBlade's Journal: Microsoft, Patents, Monopolies, and Linux

With the upcoming Palladium OS from Microsoft, the RIAA and MPAA breathing down our necks and clawing at our pockets for money that's 'rightfully' theirs, and blockheaded, anti-competitive patents, it just makes me want to crawl into a hole in the ground with Linux and a link to the open source world.

It seems now more than ever with all the emerging technology that big corporations and conglomerations are trying to use the government to secure their existence (and profitablility). It was probably a mistake from the get-go to treat corporations as an entity as a person is treated rather than a non-existant piece of property with no rights. Our laws treat corporations better than it treats our citizens. For example, corporations can be liquidated, but they cannot have claims against them for more than they're worth. Citizens can be sued for 10 times their net worth if the court chooses.

Corporations cannot be jailed for social misbehavior (improper customer/competitor treatment, socially irresponsible business practices that enganger employees, or the environment). The bigger the corporation the weaker the penalty for violating laws are. Microsoft is a great example of this. At first it looked like there still was justice in our system when Microsoft face being split into two corporations (OS and software) with only one allowed to keep the Microsoft name. But due to a lack of judgement on the judge's part and partly due to Microsoft's barrage of FUD-producing lawyers, MS gets to carry on with business as usual. Only, since the case is still pending MS has to do something to get themselves embedded in the public that makes it impossible for them to extricated should an unfavorable ruling come down.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think any monopoly is good (except the board game I suppose). TicketMaster (in the U.S. anyway) almost seems like a monopoly for live concerts and events. Most big-ticket shows are sold through TicketMaster which charges you your first-born child in service fees only to screw up your seats so that you miss part of all of the concert you paid for three times over (because of the service fees). Intel used to be another monopoly until AMD came along and gave them a run for their money. Intel is a good chip maker but they inflate their prices way too much. An equivalent chip by AMD will (on the average) cost you half as much as Intel. There's no reason for this. I believe Intel's chip-making technology is more advanced than AMD, but then again, that's partly due to patent law which prevents AMD from creating a process that is too similar to Intel's, thus what Intel can create with only 3 layers of metal on their chips, AMD uses almost 8 layers.

That's all for now...something to think about. I need to count to 10.