WASHINGTON -- Here's Scott McNealy's verdict on Microsoft: His arch rival has been judged guilty of antitrust wrongdoing and now must pay the price.
During a luncheon speech at the National Press Club this week, the Sun Microsystems (SUNW) chairman said the Department of Justice should not settle the antitrust lawsuit and should instead fight Microsoft (MSFT) in the appeals courts.
"They've been convicted. It's over," McNealy said. "The trial happened. Do we believe in the court system? Do we believe in the rule of law? ... It's going through the appeals process. The DOJ, I believe, ought to just follow it through."
McNealy, who lobbied for the lawsuit and funds an anti-Microsoft group, said he was the only executive in Silicon Valley capable of speaking out against Microsoft.
"Hewlett-Packard is a big customer of Microsoft's. IBM is a huge customer. Compaq's a huge (customer). Dell, all the Japanese, all the European computer companies," McNealy said. "Even Apple is owned; Microsoft's a big shareholder of Apple, and if Microsoft Office doesn't run on the Mac, the Mac is gone -- boom."
He also slammed the current rules that make it a crime to distribute encryption products in unapproved ways.
"Encryption and export control laws are out of control," McNealy said. "Encryption is all about helping honest people protect their information from bad people."
Bad news for Judge J: Microsoft is using an appeals court decision in New England as ammunition against U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that a district judge should not have given an interview to a Boston Herald reporter about an ongoing case involving the school district.
According to the appeals court: "The problem, however, is that regardless of (a judge's) actual impartiality, a reasonable person might perceive bias to exist, and this cannot be permitted.... With such public attention to a matter, even ambiguous comments may create the appearance of impropriety that (the rule) is designed to address."
That was enough to prompt Microsoft attorney John Warden to send a note bringing that ruling to the attention of the appeals court hearing the Microsoft case.
In that case, Jackson likened Microsoft executives to "gangland killers" when chatting with reporters. (Jackson ruled that Microsoft should be split into two firms.)
The Boston judge didn't go nearly as far. All U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner said was that in another lawsuit, "it was absolutely clear every woman had a claim. This is a more complex case."
Banning e-mail: A California state appeals court says that prisons can ban printouts of e-mail that are sent to inmates.
The first appellate district court ruled this week that prison officials should have a great deal of discretion to run their institutions as they see fit, and that an e-mail-printout ban was within their power.
"We conclude that the policy at issue is reasonably related to legitimate prison security interests at Pelican Bay and is facially valid," the court said, overruling the trial court's decision.
Declan's D.C. Notebook (continued)
Inmates at Pelican Bay, a maximum-security prison, do not have access to e-mail. But a service called Inmate Classified allows correspondents to send e-mail to inmates, which the company then prints out and forwards via U.S. mail.
One of the reasons that prison officials cited for the ban was the potential anonymity of e-mail. But the officials, apparently, did not notice that physical mail can be just as anonymous.
Voter.com is voter.gone: The death of dot-com sites continues.
Proving that it's terribly difficult to keep political websites alive in non-election years, voter.com closed its doors this week.
"We were not able to secure sufficient funding to maintain the quality site that you have come to expect and that earned us our reputation as the top political site online," says a statement posted on what used to be the website's home page.
Criminal copyrights: A federal judge in Michigan has sentenced the operator of the "Hacker Hurricane" website to three years probation and home confinement.
Under U.S. law, sharing copyrighted computer programs or music files with friends, family or the public is a federal crime -- even if you're not making any money doing it.
A Department of Justice press release says the defendant, Brian Baltutat, will be "prohibited him from engaging in Internet activity without approval of the probation department."
Speaking of intellectual property, the Business Software Alliance this week sent a letter to President Bush asking for -- you guessed it -- "strong enforcement of copyright protections."
