Am 03. Jul, 2002 schwätzte Robert Bushman so:

> My concern is if we grab them by the scruff of the
> neck and shout, "debar Microsoft now or else!", that
> we will have created enemies where we most need
> friends.

We cannot do that. For all of those who think RMS needs to pick up many
people skills, please keep this in mind as we talk to Paul and anybody else
we're trying to convince to debar Microsoft for their illegal activities.

I think we also need to stay on that tact. Microsoft has been found guilty
of breaking the law. They've been found guilty of violating anti-trust
legislation. There are a host of other activities Microsoft has engaged in
that would qualify them for debarment for unethical actions, but the court
case is fact and many of the rest are allegations that didn't stick. We
know many of the allegations are true. Many are very obvious, but a guilty
verdict is fact and obvious isn't.

We need to stick with the facts. Those facts might be able to include the
previous anti-trust cases against Microsoft, but I think those were all
settled out of court. Since Microsoft was required to change their business
practices as a result of the settlements, we might be able to still count
those as factual infringements of the law, even if there was no guilty
verdict.

> I'm thinking that County is probably taking a hard
> look at that clause this week, and they probably
> have more expertise in law than we do. We can
> confirm this at the meeting by asking, "what are
> your thoughts on the debarrment clause?" If they
> say, "oh, we haven't read it." we should turn red
> and jump up on the table and shout. I'm betting

No. We shouldn't turn into a mob for any reason. That would only hurt out
position. I'm certain they will have read the dabarment codes by Monday as
it's now been pointed out to them. I'm certain they're also watching our
mailing list to some extent for now. Welcome :).

If they weren't familiar with it before then that's not a big deal. I think
George has gone above and beyond the call of duty hunting all that down!
Huzzah for George!

> they say, "well, it is an issue - we think it
> means <X>." I'll lay 5 to 1 odds that they will
> have opinion X at the beginning of the meeting,
> and they will have the same opinion X at the end
> of the meeting - entirely regardless of what we
> say. They're as good at county law as we are at
> Linux - it's their specialty.

I agree that we probably won't change their opinion or their stance on
Monday. What we want to do is get them to think about it. We want them
to know many citizens ( we need lots of people to show up ) are upset
about our government continuing to work with a company guilty of illegal
activities. We want them to know that we're even more upset that the illegal
activity was anti-competitive and un-american activity *and* what really
upsets us is that the government continues to support the monopoly.

Has Microsoft been found to be control of an illegal monopoly or were they
just found to have conducted illegal activities to support a legal monopoly?

> But, given that opinion X will, at the very least,
> include, "we need to think about this", we have
> an opportunity to show them, realistically, what
> they can do to start to migrate.

Yes, we want to get the county to think about it. It's a government
agency. Things don't change overnight. We really want them to change
before a ton of money is laid out to benefit the monopoly, though.

If it's illegal for the county to make contracts with a felon, then we want
no new contracts. The county shouldn't be allowed to break the law because
it would be inconvenient to be legal.

ciao,

der.hans
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