That's pretty much what I was talking about. Consider why there are programs that require Windows...if it wasn't used so widely, software manufacturers would always have multiple versions of their programs available.

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Insurance Co. v. New Orleans, 13 Fed. Cas. 67 (C.C.D.La. 1870). Not being citizens of the United States, corporations accordingly have been declared unable 'to claim the protection of that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which secures the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States against abridgment or impairment by the law of a State.' Orient Ins. Co. v. Daggs, 172 U.S. 557, 561 (1869). This conclusion was in harmony with the earlier holding in Paul v. Virginia, 75 U.S. (8 Wall.) 168 (1869), to the effect that corporations were not within the scope of the privileges and immunities clause of state citizenship set out in Article IV, Sec. 2. See also Selover, Bates & Co. v. Walsh, 226 U.S. 112, 126 (1912); Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U.S. 45 (1908); Liberty Warehouse Co. v. Tobacco Growers, 276 U.S. 71, 89 (1928); Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 244 (1936).

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The Constitution does not guarantee the unrestricted privilege to engage in a business or to conduct it as one pleases. Certain kinds of business may be prohibited; and the right to conduct a business, or to pursue a calling, may be conditioned. . . . Statutes prescribing the terms upon which those conducting certain businesses may contract, or imposing terms if they do enter into agreements, are within the State's competency. ~ Nebbia v. New York

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There is some more fascinating reading. You might want to try some Omega.

Part of constitutional scholarship is reading the court cases that actually interpret clauses, sections and amendments to the Constitution. So whilst you say the 14th Amendment does not allow for such regulation, the federal courts clearly say that you are, well let me check here, yes, wrong. Incorrect. Not right as it were.

Moreover, until a law is declared unconstitutional in the federal courts system, that is the constitutionality of any given law called into question by legal challenge in the lower federal courts, the Supreme Court had the final constitutional say, laws are valid. And as such they require implementation by the agencies given authority in the law as passed by Congress. In the case of the Antitrust laws, the FCC and the Department of Justice. The point here is not to argue the essential nature of a monopoly by Microsoft (although a federal court has ruled that it is a monopoly), rather to argue that the laws are valid having suffered no constitutional challenge.

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Compadres, it is imperative that we crush the freedom fighters before the start of the rainy season. And remember, a shiny new donkey for whoever brings me the head of Colonel Montoya.
~C. Montgomery Burns

And be sure to visit The Field Marshal project http://fieldmarshal.virtualave.net/

Power flows from the people downward towards the governments, ending with the federal government. The members of each echelon bands together to form a larger, lesser one, each time giving up some of their privelages to be part of the still more limited whole. The federal government is in fact the lowest level. Not the highest.

You are effectively claiming that a corporation does not have the rights of a single person. But what is a corporation but a group of people? It in fact comes from a word meaning "body". As an individual I have rights, but as a member of a group, I have none? I think not.

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Compadres, it is imperative that we crush the freedom fighters before the start of the rainy season. And remember, a shiny new donkey for whoever brings me the head of Colonel Montoya.
~C. Montgomery Burns

And be sure to visit The Field Marshal project http://fieldmarshal.virtualave.net/

Indeed.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3:

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The Congress shall have Power To...To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes...

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The etymology of the word "commerce" carries the primary meaning of traffic, of transporting goods across state lines for sale. This possibly narrow constitutional conception was rejected by Chief Justice Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden, which remains one of the seminal cases dealing with the Constitution. The case arose because of a monopoly granted by the New York legislature on the operation of steam-propelled vessels
on its waters, a monopoly challenged by Gibbons who transported passengers from New Jersey to New York pursuant to privileges granted by an act of Congress. The New York monopoly was not in conflict with the congressional regulation of commerce, argued the monopolists, because the vessels carried only passengers between the two States and were thus not engaged in traffic, in "commerce" in the constitutional sense.

"The subject to be regulated is commerce," the Chief Justice wrote. "The counsel for the appellee would limit it to traffic, to buying and selling, or the
interchange of commodities, and do not admit that it comprehends navigation. This would restrict a general term, applicable to many objects, to one of its significations. Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more--it is intercourse." The term, therefore, included navigation, a conclusion that Marshall also supported by appeal to general understanding, to the prohibition in Article I, Sec. 9, against any preference being given "by any regulation of commerce or revenue, to the ports of one State over those of another," and to the admitted and demonstrated power of Congress to impose embargoes.

Marshall qualified the word "intercourse" with the word "commercial," thus retaining the element of monetary transactions. But, today, "commerce" in the constitutional sense, and hence "interstate commerce," covers every species of movement of persons and things, whether for profit or not, across state lines, every species of communication, every species of transmission of intelligence, whether for commercial purposes or otherwise, every species of commercial negotiation which will involve sooner or later an act of transportation of persons or things, or the flow of services or power, across state lines.

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Once again from Find Law

And futhermore, the Sherman Antitrust Act was written under the authority of that clasue.

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Congress' chief effort to regulate commerce in the primary sense of "traffic" is embodied in the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, the opening section of which declares "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise," or "conspiracy in restraint of trade and commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations" to be "illegal," while the second section makes it a misdemeanor for anybody to "monopolize or attempt to monopolize any part of such commerce." The act was passed to curb the growing tendency to form industrial combinations and the first case to reach the Court under it was the famous Sugar Trust Case, United States v. E. C. Knight Co.699 Here the Government asked for the cancellation of certain agreements, whereby the American Sugar Refining Company, had "acquired," it was conceded, "nearly complete control of the manufacture of refined sugar in the United States."

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In short, what was needed, the Court felt, was a hard and fast line between the two spheres of power, and in a series of propositions it endeavored to
lay down such a line: (1) production is always local, and under the exclusive domain of the States; (2) commerce among the States does not begin until
goods "commence their final movement from their State of origin to that of their destination;" (3) the sale of a product is merely an incident of its production and, while capable of "bringing the operation of commerce into play," affects it only incidentally; (4) such restraint as would reach commerce, as above defined, in consequence of combinations to control production "in all its forms," would be "indirect, however inevitable and whatever its extent," and as such beyond the purview of the Act.701 Applying the above reasoning to the case before it, the Court proceeded: "The object [of the combination] was manifestly private gain in the manufacture of the commodity, but not through the control of interstate or foreign commerce.

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From Find Law

I do so love Constitutional history.

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Compadres, it is imperative that we crush the freedom fighters before the start of the rainy season. And remember, a shiny new donkey for whoever brings me the head of Colonel Montoya.
~C. Montgomery Burns

And this is Microsoft's fault how?

They happened to make a product that people either liked or could stand enough compared to others?

How can I disagree with it, but not think it's wrong and stupid?

And here's my argument against that interpretation of "commerce": if that were the meaning of that clause, then congress could effectively prevent anyone from leaving their state for any reason. Or the country, for that matter. Does it make any sense for congress to have such a power? Is there any conceivable reason for congress to have this power? Could this not easily lead to power being used in a manner similar to Fidel Castro and other communist countries forcibly preventing their people from leaving? I submit that said interpretation of the term "commerce" is incorrect in this context. I have a right to the persuit of happiness. What if that requires my leaving the country? This interpertation would seem to cause a contradiction.

Thus I disagree with many of the judicial interpretations of the constitution. Maybe we should have a jury of, say, fifty to make these interpretations, instead of one man.

And I still disagree with the judge's decision to declare Microsoft a monopoly, for the reasons I and Elim have already stated.

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"Nobody knows this, but I'm scared all the time... of what I might do, if I ever let go." -- Michael Garibaldi

It's the fault of the people (whether they be the people at the computer stores or the actual consumers) who bought so many copies of Windows. There wouldn't be so many games and programs if it weren't for that. Plain and simple.

This is what is known as the "demand" in "supply and demand."

Or you could blame it on Apple for not being as well-liked and competitive.

IMO, you can hardly fault Microsoft for taking something that the people (who the people are, exactly, I'm not sure; but it's someone else) gave them and running with it. That's the simplest bit of business sense.

Besides, nothing is stopping you from getting a Mac or a Linux-based machine and associated programs.

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Frank's Home Page
"People don't mind if you speak a subset of a natural language, especially if you are a child or a foreigner. (Except in Paris, of course.)" - Larry Wall

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Microsoft forced computer makers to bundle DOS with their products, or else they wouldn't have the option of including DOS at all.

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I think you missed Frank's first point. This is a problem. Its called killing the competition. A company makes a computer, but is told they either have DOS on it, or never have DOS on it period. This really kills the chances of other OSes being used on that computer.

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"Goverment exists to serve, not to lead. We do not exist by its volition, it exists by ours. Bear that in mind when you insult your neighbors for refusing to bow before it." J. Richmond, UB Student

"You either ship with DOS, or you can't have it at all."

See Spock's last line of ST6 for my response.