“Responses among members of the Linux community to Judge
Jackson’s “Findings in Fact” have been somewhat anticlimactic.
Whereas some folks in the community appeared to be offended by
Judge Jackson’s conclusion that the Linux operating system is not
yet a serious market competitor to Windows, others were almost
sorry to see the judge strike back so strongly against the Empire
that is Microsoft.“
“The “Findings in Fact” were, in and of themselves, no great
surprise to most in the Linux community. That Microsoft was and
remains a monopoly which has used its monopoly power to smother
other operating systems and to kill competition in the Internet
browser market was no mystery to the legions of Linux hackers
around the world, many of whom use Windows NT daily as professional
system administrators. If anything, I suspect some Linux
enthusiasts were surprised that Judge Jackson was able to discern a
number of the subtleties (and lack thereof) in Microsoft’s business
practices. For example, the attempt to see the operating system and
its Internet browser as effectively one product is not inherently
correct. After all, where is it written (yet) what an operating
system can and cannot include? However, in the context of
Microsoft’s monopoly power, Judge Jackson correctly noted that the
combination was in fact a combination, and was potentially ruinous
to both the development of future operating systems and to new
browsers.”