Thomas Vinje Quotations

Leaving aside the copyright issue, the source code is simply not needed.

Most software makers reveal for free the sort of information Microsoft is being ordered to license, because anyone not in a monopoly situation has every interest in making their software as widely available as possible.

But it's more than money that's at stake during this hearing.

What Microsoft is talking about is freedom for them to innovate, not others.

There is no compliance yet and it is about time there was compliance.

Market developments have validated the Commission's concerns. It is vital that the court confirms the Media Player decision because it provides a legal precedent that could be used to prevent Microsoft continuing its abusive bundling practices in future.

Microsoft has not given up its exclusionary policies...Indeed any settlement in fact validates the Commission's case. Since the Commission is not bound by any private settlement, ECIS therefore urges the Commission to vigorously defend its 2004 Decision.

Microsoft has been playing games with the Commission from the beginning, but now it realizes its time is up.

Microsoft are trying to turn this into an intellectual property case when it's not.

Microsoft only started mentioning intellectual property rights once it was clear it would lose the case two years ago. It's an after-the-facts strategy and I hope the judge will see it for what it is.

Microsoft is trying to turn this into an intellectual property case when it's not...This is a case about abuse of a dominant position, about refusing to provide information to vendors.

Microsoft is repeatedly engaging in clearly illegal, anti-competitive behavior because the benefits of extinguishing competition clearly outweigh the costs.

Microsoft is perhaps the most powerful company in the world. Companies have legitimate reasons to fear retribution for making their concerns known.

Microsoft is merely trying to delay the proceedings and to avoid effective implementation of the commission's decision until it has no meaning at all.

The credibility of the Commission is at stake, and the meaningfulness of the decision is at stake, so I don't think the Commission is going to allow delay.

We believe the commission is right to insist on the rapid and efficient implementation of its antitrust decision.

We have evidence that Microsoft has refused to disclose formatting and other information. Word processing, spreadsheets and presentation programs can't achieve full interoperability with Microsoft Office.

People don't pay $761 million dollars unless your opponent has a pretty solid case,

Any such settlement should not result in the closure of the EU (Microsoft) case. The Commission should, and we expect it will, proceed vigorously with its case against Microsoft,

This is about whether Microsoft can go on bundling products with Windows and pushing out competitors.

There's a striking similarity between Microsoft's efforts to evade compliance with the European decision and its failure to properly comply with the U.S. settlement.

It's a typical Microsoft tactic to draw things out as much as possible, and in a way it's working because E.C.I.S. is so busy working on the appeal that it hasn't had time to submit a fresh complaint against Microsoft.

It's merely, entirely and completely a public relations ploy to try to divert attention from the extremely strong case the commission has against Microsoft for failure to comply with the commission's decision.

Its very clear that there has to be solid documentation in place...The specs have to be fully documented.

They would dump millions of lines of code and finding what competitors need to interoperate would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Even the most sophisticated software engineers would be lost.

The settlement strengthens the Commission's case. Real has already provided evidence for the case, and that record is complete and in Luxembourg.

In his final summing up he talked about ways forward by identifying the problems Microsoft must solve. That's not a plan.

In other words, exactly what the commission predicted would occur as a result of Microsoft's illegal bundling behavior has occurred: Real has been marginalized, ... The lesson is that the commission is right to have found Microsoft to have engaged in illegal conduct, but that it erred in taking so long to decide the case and in imposing an ineffective remedy.

Hes very good at pulling rabbits out of hats, but the rabbit disappears in the end.

For the last eight years, the commission has been extremely careful to follow every procedural rule to the letter. From a legal point of view, everything I know indicates the commission has been very correct.

This has crucial implications for Linux on desktops.

The draft law does a good job in preserving and solidifying the country of origin principle for e-commerce, but it is not good news for offline publishers,

The commission has a very strong case, I think the strongest it's ever had.

The meaningfulness of the 2004 ruling is at stake here. So far no one has bought a license to see Microsoft's technical documentation. There is a danger that this side of the case could be rendered meaningless.