Prison for bill ?

[Colin McGregor]

--- Mike Oliver <moliver-fC0AHe2n+mcIvw5+aKnW+Pd9D2ou9A/h at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> ted leslie wrote:
>
http://news.com.com/Investor+outlines+SCO-Microsoft+link/2100-7344_3-6124125.html
> > 
> > well at a min. hopefully IBM launches what could
> easily be a 100's
> > billions of dollar law suit at MS over this,
> > especially if more incriminating evidence comes
> out.
> > Like to see a high level at MS do some time over
> this however.
> 
> I'm not a lawyer, but I don't actually see anything
> illegal
> in the reported behavior, particularly in a criminal
> sense.
> How would a criminal complaint actually read?

I am also not a lawyer, never mind one familiar with
US law. Still, I don't see anything here that could
result in a CRIMINAL case. Yes, Baystar MIGHT be able
to sue Microsoft for not keeping to their verbal
promises (a tough road to follow that). Yes, IBM,
Novell, Red Hat and Autozone MIGHT be able to sue
Microsoft for their actions. But, when all the dust
settles, worst case, very worst case for Microsoft
would I suspect be:

- Microsoft pays Baystar, IBM, etc. tens of millions
of dollars. For a firm with tens of billions of
dollars in the bank this is no big deal.

- Various government regulators take a greater
interest in Microsoft's actions, and gets Microsoft to
promise, yet again, not to do this sort of stuff.

- One or two munchkins within Microsoft are publicly
fired for doing bad things and some other munchkins
are brought in to more-or-less do the same stuff...

In other words I would be shocked if anyone went to
jail over this (we can hope, but it would be the same
hope as someone who plays the Lottery...). 


Colin McGregor

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