From: She Devil With A Modem <redsonja@liii.com>
Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 20:08:20 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Suit with braindead tie
Message-ID: <199805200308.XAA06738@rowan.liii.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Also Sprach Anonymous:
> 
> time.com / The Netly News
> May 19, 1998
> 
>        There was blood in the water in Washington, DC yesterday, and
>    Microsoft's foes hardly had a chance to rejoice over the government's
>    anticipated antitrust lawsuit before they were asking for more.
>    Longtime Microfoe Gary Reback, an attorney with the Silicon Valley law
>    firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, still thinks breaking up
>    Microsoft AT&T-style would be a good idea. At a press conference
>    yesterday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) predicted the lawsuit "will
>    become even broader. I have no doubt about that." Netscape dubbed it a
>    welcome but only an "initial step."
>    
> [...remainder snipped...]

I wonder if anyone else has picked up on the "Braindead military 
action" of awarding Microsoft the dubiously coveted intelligence 
desktop? It may not be as braindead as you think.

Yes, if standard kickbacks and BS occur as they have in the past
(those who are not free to speak about the mistakes of the past 
may be doomed to see them repeated) then technical support for
the poor troopies required to maintain the shitty, buggy NT ports
may end up making "Blue Screen Of Death" have an entirely new and
sad meaning. It's sad that the lack of the intelligence community's
desire to police itself as much as it would like to police America's
generic civilians results in the sort of kickbacking that yields
inferior weaponry, but I guess if they don't address that it will
end up biting them in the ass. And yes, that is indeed indicative 
of a braindead military, led by the supreme oxymoron of a braindead
military intelligence community, where the dutiful are asked to 
turn their eyes away (for reasons of classification, of course)
from the acts of the greedy. 

But assume for a moment that it might be the military and not M$oft
that holds the leash on the contract. Imagine a Microsoft that 
has sold it's soul to the US Intel community. Couldn't happen to a
nicer company, don't you think? Microsoft HAVING to port their NT
stuff to the Unix boxes that hold the databases and the communications
servers. Microsoft HAVING to provide a certain amount of "mission 
critical" tech support. Microsoft HAVING to deal with adapting to 
the real world, rather than forcing the world to adapt to it.

This could be the beginning of a beautiful "friendship". >;-7

-- 
"Good evening, Mr. Burglar! My name is Jowles!   | Do not           CD  c
 Would you care for a cocktail before I attempt  | taunt --------P===\==/
 to intimidate you with my aggressive behavior?" | happy fun         /_\__
                     -- Miss Manners' Attack Dog | fencer!             _\ \
S