Subject: Re: M$ Monitor: Source Code Secrecy
Mark J. Huisman (cinemark@mindspring.com)
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 18:09:19 -0400
Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19980823220919.006e8f38@pop.mindspring.com> Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 18:09:19 -0400 To: roundtable@cni.org From: "Mark J. Huisman" <cinemark@mindspring.com> Subject: Re: M$ Monitor: Source Code Secrecy
On 8/21/98, Audrie Krause <audrie@netaction.org> wrote:
>
> Microsoft compared it to being forced to disclose the "software
> equivalent to the formula for Coca-Cola."
>
> Microsoft seems to have an obsession with Coca-Cola comparisons --
> in a previous court decision involving bundling Navigator as an option
> with Windows..."
As you recall, Microsoft was recently discovered to have an extremely
detailed monitoring mechanism for journalists that wrote about it,
regularly or infrequently, and a plan of action to influence each writer
according to Microsoft's wishes. In adition, for years Microsoft has
also had a quiet policy by which a number of widely published freelance
writers were paid for every mention of the company or a product in
articles they wrote, regardless of the subject of those piece.
In order to break even with this MASSIVE budgetary expenditure,
Microsoft must have established a comparable program to geneate
offsetting revenue: Microsoft would be paid by OTHER corporations if it
mentioned THEM in press releases or public statements. Coke must have
been the first to bite, to wit, the events Audrie describes. (For all
you public interest bean counters out there Which would also account for
the fact that the comparison inserts six cans of COKE in every six-pack
of PEPSI, and not the other way around. )
AAAAh, free capitalism at work!!
Mark J. Huisman
The Independent
<cinemark@mindspring.com>
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