Message-Id: <200201032210.g03MAsSr028379@svr3.applink.net>
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From: Timothy Covell <timothy.covell@ashavan.org>
Reply-To: timothy.covell@ashavan.org
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: more M$ theft
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 16:07:13 -0600
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Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org

MS didn't give IE away they just made it part of the windows tax.
That's NOT what they said under oath in court:  For those of you doing the 
Internet long enough to remember, you may recall that MS wasn't up to writing 
a browser of their own to challenge Netscape:  So instead, they decided to 
buy one (or actually, steal one, as you'll see in a moment.)
The only thing that was even close to being a Netscape competitor in those 
days was the original  NCSA Mosaic code, which was spun off for 
commercialization by UIUC(.edu) as a company called Spyglass.  Spyglass tried 
unsuccessfully for a while to land big buyers in hopes of competing with 
Netscape, but their code wasn't nearly so good as the Mozilla crowds' (back 
before Mozillla meant open source...)  Finally, they landed the biggest fish 
of them all, Microsoft:  They struck a deal with Microsoft to be the 
Microsoft browser: with backing and volume like that, they couldn't lose!  
Spyglass poured millions into develpoment and features that Microsoft wanted 
in the product - they knew they'd get their money back because the contract 
with Microsoft guaranteed them a percentage cut of every copy sold.
But Microsoft NEVER SOLD A BROWSER!  Instead, it simply became "part of the 
operating system" (avoiding having to pay Spyglass was one of the biggest 
reasons BillG wanted to claim this.) 
There was, of course, a law suit about this, which Microsoft won by swearing 
that since IE was an integral part of the OS, and not something that was even 
possible to buy separately, they owed Spyglass nothing for the millions of 
copies of their code that they distributed: Since they had'nt sold any IE 
they owed no royalties!  Microsoft won leaving Spyglass with nothing for all 
its hard work and destitute to the point that they finally had to sell out to 
OpenTV in the hopes of becoming a niche browser for set-top boxes...
-- 
timothy.covell@ashavan.org.
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