Roadkill from the 90s

Summary: Cases that last a decade or two are still in the courtroom, coinciding with the death of the man who tried to split Microsoft

Cases like Comes vs Microsoft taught us that Microsoft has been doing many illegal things since Penfield made his ruling, almost resulting in the splitting of Microsoft. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols wonders what a split Microsoft would have done, summarising as follows: "What would the technology world look like today if the 2000 ruling by the recently deceased Thomas Penfield Jackson -- that Microsoft be broken into two companies -- had been upheld?"

Prior to the ruling Microsoft injured Novell, which would later be hijacked by Microsoft and its patents devoured by Microsoft (CPTN).

Groklaw shows this case is not over yet, noting that:

The court has granted the request, with an order saying both parties will be sent a copy. That isn't what Novell asked for. Microsoft didn't oppose the motion, but it didn't join it either. Novell asked: "Should the Court grant this request, the mp3 recording may be sent to Joshua I. Schiller" at Boies Schiller. The reason Novell gives for its request means, I gather, either that Novell expects to try to appeal to the US Supreme Court if it is not successful in its appeal at the Tenth Circuit; alternatively, it hopes the case will be remanded to Utah for the trial its appeal is asking for, and it wants the transcript for reference in that context. Either way, the story won't end here.

This case, along with the SCO case, shows the long tail of Microsoft's dirty tricks. In the next post we will show how Microsoft uses yet more proxies against GNU and Linux. ⬆