– In his written testimony, Paul Maritz cited Be Inc’s BeOS and Red Hat Inc’s Red Hat Linux as viable platform competitors to Windows on the desktop. Prosecutor David Boies produced a San Jose Mercury News interview in which Be CEO Jean-Louis Gassee said his operating system does not seek to supplant Windows on the desktop, but rather to coexist with it. As for Red Hat, Boies introduced the January 1999 Washington Post article in which Red Hat CEO Bob Young was quoted as saying: It just tells you how desperate Wndows is for a competitor that they’re holding up a software box produced by 100 guys in the hills of North Carolina. Who are they trying to kid? We are absolutely not a viable competitor at this time.
– Boies completed his cross-examination of Maritz at the antitrust trial on Wednesday afternoon, and Microsoft attorney Joel Warden began his redirect of the witness. The next witness for the defense is Microsoft’s Jim Allchin. Allchin’s testimony was released on Wednesday morning, implying that Allchin would take the stand today, Thursday, but with Warden still to complete his redirect and Boies then having to re-cross-examine Maritz, it seems likely that Allchin will not be called until after the weekend.
– As expected, Warden’s redirection of his witness tackled the most troubling testimony that emerged from Maritz’s cross- examination: his explanation to the judge that the decision to integrate IE with Windows 98 was made with browser market share in mind. What would have been the consequence for Microsoft had you not put Internet Explorer into Windows? Warden asked. Why, plague, pestilence and famine, sir: We would have put Windows on the path to a slow but eventual demise, Maritz said.
– Judge Jackson, never shy to ask about a technical term that eludes him, inquired this afternoon about the open source movement. Maritz explained that this is a community of volunteers working together over the internet to develop complex applications in what is essentially their spare time. Is there a subsidy of some sort? Or don’t they make any money? asked the puzzled judge. Believe it or not, some people really do derive a lot of satisfaction from writing software, Maritz said, it’s as if the village blacksmiths of the world had got together to compete with General Motors. That’s what is happening out there. It is one of the phenomena of our time.
– Development tool time? One of the TV cameramen stationed outside the courthouse told another: You were looking for the witness yesterday, right? Well, you know the fat bearded guy from that sitcom, Tool Time? He looks exactly like that. á
