[Liberal snipping]
> > Thanks for what? Crippling every desktop PC in the country by, via a monopoly achieved through illicit business practices ...
>
> To add to that:
...
> In short, Bill has used his OS monopoly to muscle and unfairly influence all areas of the computer industry. He's using it to make an allout effort to permanently eliminate any and all competition to Microsoft. Once the competition has gone, he's free to charge us whatever he wants for his products, and if we want viable computers we'll have to pay it. This is in violation of US antitrust laws and he must be stopped.
>
> I really don't think the government would have stepped in if Bill had the only OS on the block...

I'm under the impression from my economics class and textbook that the wording of the antitrust laws is purposely rather vague. It basically said that, if the government thinks a business is harming consumers, it can break the business up. The government at any particular time gets to decide whether the business was practicing detrimental competitive tactics or just normal competitive tactics. Competition is *supposed* to be cutthroat, so it's very easy to confuse about the distinction. This is also why it's so easy to support either side of the Microsoft argument.

gab"Not a single Microsoft product on this computer; a monopoly?"by