Now that ya mentioned IE, isn't it quite amazing that the Wizards from Redmond vehemently denied that they could separate IE from the OS core, but now that their 'nads are on the line, they are more than happy to offer that very same separation as a small part of their settlement offer? Personally I think M$ broke the law. But because they are so big and so powerful and so many fortunes depend on their financial health, only one solution is feasable - completely opening the APIs. I know that M$ is very adept at skirting the letter of concent decrees. If teeth were put into the decree - something like: a) all API changes must be published at least six months in advance before being used in ANY M$ product, b) all APIs must be published and freely available, and c) if any violation by M$ is found, they are forbidden from using the API in question for a term of at least five years - M$ might think twice about their practices. A side benefit from such a measure is that access to M$ OSes will be as accessible to independent developers as it is to internal developers. jmho Jim the future is now -----Original Message----- From: Joseph T. Tannenbaum To: plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us Date: Friday, March 31, 2000 12:46 PM Subject: RE: What shell we do with the Microsoft..... >I agree to this. We maybe don't realize it, but when they took up explorer, >and integrated it into the OS, it made netscape get on the stick and improve >their product and crashed some others. I haven't heard anything from mosaic >lately. By integrating their products, they have jumped ahead quite a bit. >My main bitch with them is they let the people test their product after it >is released, they sell you what should have been in the package originally >(Win95 PLUS!) and their prices are way too high. An office97 upgrade costs >more than my office95 did to begin with, never mind office 2000 > > >Joe >