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[Terry Hancock]

On Thursday 03 November 2005 07:28 am, venk wrote:
> Microsoft can create a competing version of Windows. TCP/IP became a
> standard long before Microsoft even acknowledged it's existence. So did
> ASCII, the IBM BIOS, and serial ports, to name just a few. Does the
> term
> "ISO standard" mean anything to you?
Regrettably, the assumption that "ISO Standard" = "Open Standard" seems
not to hold. I have found a number of ISO standards that are not
meaningfully open. I am still a little confused about why anyone
would do that.
Regarding whether Microsoft has committed a "crime", I believe Tim Daneliuk
was attempting to draw the distinction between "criminal" and "civil"
offenses, and indeed, I do believe Microsoft has only ever been
indicted with the latter.  This is a pretty big distinction in the
US, I don't know how other countries characterize offenses.
For example, one of the big points about so-called "software piracy"
is that the recording and movie industry has been trying very hard
to conflate "copyright violation" with "theft" -- but the former is
only a civil offense, and the latter criminal. Big difference.
--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks  http://www.anansispaceworks.com