Comments

• Needs Sunlight

  2013-03-05 17:36:29

  Here's a largely symbolic effort:
  
  http://wh.gov/wHLq
  
  Remedial actions are always too late, coming after the harm. and usually too little. For anything to have an effect, it has to be proactive or else be really massive. About the only option in either case there at this point is just growing a pair and stop using M$ products, services and technologies. It's not going to be pain-free. It does mean, in many cases, a clean sweep of staff in some departments if one wants to go after the source. M$ crap doesn't buy and install itself.

• NotZed

  2013-03-05 23:07:35

  When fines are just against a company all it is is another business expense passed onto the customer. Unless it's really big it will make no difference to a microsoft or intel - already they have outrageous margins from being monopolies and yet people still blow their wads on their junk.

• Dr. Roy Schestowitz

  2013-03-05 23:25:51

  The 'free' -- as in deregulated -- market sure is working. It boosts innovation, doesn't it? All our products are made overpriced by patents and new competitors (entrants) are not allowed or cannot survive without hijacking government (through lobbyists and campaign funding).
  
  If corporations own the state or vice versa, then we may have fascism. It's a tricky problem to get around or completely resolve. I suggested making the penalties and remedies more immediate; that's what I came up with given that letting governments run companies (like many arms factories) is not a great idea, shows history.
  
  A good start would be to increase or actually *apply* tax law to large corporations and their owners; austerity is largely caused by their parasitic tax-free existence for decades.

• kozmcrae

  2013-03-06 03:19:05

  I used the link you provided to login and sign the petition. Just out of curiosity I checked to see if I could find the petition without the link. No go. It doesn't show up on any search and it doesn't show up on the 169 active petitions. If you don't have a link to find it you're out of luck. You won't be able to sign it. By the way, it only needs 52 more signatures and it's only been four days. That's quite remarkable.

• Needs Sunlight

  2013-03-06 08:38:19

  Yeah, it's hidden. Unfortunately you have the numbers flipped, it needs over 99,000 signatures to get anywhere. Sadly, too many people are jaded and cynical about both M$, the Department of Justice, and the Obama administration as a whole. That mean that few even try the petition. Even if it is only a symbolic effort, it is something that people need to try.

• Dr. Roy Schestowitz

  2013-03-06 09:40:54

  Every petition starts off with a few; we've begun spreading the link in some social networks.
  
  The FSF has a popular petition against UEFI (I think over 30,000 people signed it).

• kozmcrae

  2013-03-07 05:37:45

  Ouch! I guess I saw what I wanted to see.
  
  I checked again and I still couldn't find the petition without the link. I'll try to spread it around but it needs to pick up steam fast if it's going to get 100,000 signatures by March 31st.