Da Trial

This week's chronicle from Silicon Valley by Jean-Louis Gassée (CEO of Be Inc, and a Linux user) is rather interesting. He points out that Apple's testimony is unexpectedly strong evidence in favour of the DOJ, even though it relates to events occuring back in the 1980s (see below). Jean-Louis points out that the foundations of Microsoft's domination of PCs and Macs had been layed even before the Mac came out in 1984. Apparently the DOJ is so sure it will win it has started probing Silicon Valley experts as to what remedies would be effective. Dividing Microsoft up into pieces has apparently been discounted since Microsoft could effectively continue building apps into its OS by hiring more people to the OS division. The favorite contender is to force Microsoft to licence the Windows source code to three of its competitors. To me, this is ineffective: Microsoft could convincingly claim that its three competitors did not write the code and do not understand it as well (so you should rely on Microsoft for support) and make sure this is true by sending the final builds to the competition as late as possible. My sysadmin and I had a discussion which resulted in an alternative remedy: Win32 and the Windows kernels should be GPL'd with Microsoft losing all its rights as original copyright holder. This would prevent Microsoft from integrating other stuff into the kernel because they'd lose any unfair competitive advantage (think proprietary APIs) by doing so. If you'd like to support this idea, write to Joel Klein! As usual, Babelfish is your friend.

Explanation of the GPL idea: If it's GPL'd Microsoft won't integrate apps into the OS since this would require them to release source-code (and thus an advantage). It would prevent Microsoft from having broken/extended protocols which prevent Windows from being used with other OS's (eg the Sun TCP/IP stack allegations). It would also not allow Microsoft to break other people's apps (eg: Quicktime and Realaudio's allegations.) Finally, it would create real competition in the OS market since others could duplicate the Windows API, warts and all. I added this paragraph since many comments reveal I should have explained the consequences of the idea better.

Since Jean-Louis worked at Apple, he can detail from personal experience what Microsoft's relation with Apple was. In the early 1980s, Steve Jobs feared a lack of apps for the Mac before it was even released. Bill Gates made a deal: he would make the apps, and Steve would license the GUI to Microsoft. The license would last until 1985 or 86 and Microsoft would ensure apps came out on the Mac first. The Mac came out late, while Microsoft demoed its first versions of Windows. In 1985, Gates threatened to suspend Mac App development unless his license was renewed: Jean-Louis knows because he was there. John Sculley (Steve had left) consulted his staff who, unanimously, begged him to send Bill back to rainy Seattle. Sculley dined with Gates and Bill Neukom (vice-president of Microsoft's legal wing), gave in and signed a lame contract that the 1988 court-case could not anull. The article goes on with other interesting revelations (why MacBasic was cancelled, why Apple did not make its own Postscript interpreter, etc.)