Wasn't sure if everybody had seen this yet. That's what I get for writing
a web browser I guess. :)
-Bill P.
Washington, D.C. -- The U.S. Department of Justice today announced a
major new antitrust action against the Free Software Foundation of
Cambridge, MA. "After our successful prosecution of Microsoft, we feel
ready to pursue similar cases elsewhere in the software industry," said
Attorney General Janet Reno in a press conference. "The FSF, under the
guidance of Mr. Richard M. Stallman, has pursued, and continues to pursue,
anti-competitive practices designed to perpetuate its illegal monopoly of
the so-called 'free software' market."
In particular, the Attorney General cited the FSF's ongoing effort to gain
market share in various product categories by illegally bundling other
products into their successful Emacs text editor. "Thanks to Judge Jackson,
we now have legal precedent that a web browser cannot be considered part of
an operating system," she said. "We feel that this finding is also
applicable to text editors. Emacs, in fact, does include a web browser as
well as e-mail and other capabilities that are not normally considered to be
part and parcel of a text editor." Responding to a reporter's question, Ms.
Reno confirmed that "Emacs is the primary focus of our action."
Ms. Reno also addressed the FSF's ambitions in the operating system niche.
"FSF had been attempting for some time to dominate the market for free
operating systems with their 'GNU' platform. However, while they produced a
number of user-level tools, their kernel was even more mythical than a
reliable version of Windows 98 until their successful takeover of the Linux
franchise, now known, significantly, as 'GNU/Linux'."
Federal prosecutors Joel Klein and David Boies, both veterans of the
successful Microsoft suit, are heading up the FSF enquiry. "I realize that
some users feel that they use FSF products by choice," said Klein. "But how
many Linux systems have you seen that don't have the core GNU utilities
installed? Our estimate is that these programs are present on 100% of Linux
machines. When such a high percentage of market share is held by one player,
it's clear that an illegal monopoly exists."
Initial analysis/speculation by various media talking heads failed to find
consensus regarding the possible outcome of the government suit. At minimum,
the government will most likely seek to have the FSF break out the various
functional components of Emacs into separate products and discontinue the
use of the anti-competitive GNU Public License, which has been described as
a "free-software virus" which forces third-party software developers to
release their products under terms dictated by the FSF. Other possibilities
include punitive damages and even the breakup of the FSF into separate
operating system and application groups.
