Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Intellectual Property Law Blogs -> Groklaw

Intellectual Property Law

: Groklaw

A Battle Over Deposing Bill Gates in the Novell v. Microsoft Antitrust Litigation

By Pamela Jones et al.

So, guess what has been happening in the Novell v. Microsoft antitrust litigation? A battle over deposing Bill Gates. I have the transcript [PDF] for you of the half-deposition that happened already. Yay!

Total fun. Performance art. After the deposition, came the fireworks. The parties fought about doing the other half.

Billg, as you'll see him referred to in the exhibits, well, at the deposition, he don't know nuttin'. Not much, anyway, less in the specificity. I know. Shocker. Asked if he knows what the term evangelizing meant as used by Microsoft, his first answer was that it's used in different ways by different people. His answer when he is pressed for his understanding of the purpose of evangelizing is that it's "usually to convert somebody to a religion belief." Right. That's the ticket.

He must have forgotten the 1997 "Evangelism is War" confidential Microsoft memo. Well, he's a busy guy. His brain is full. Who can recall all this stuff?

Guess what the subject matter at issue is now? Interoperability. Or more exactly, extensibility, shell extensibility in Windows 95. This is the litigation over WordPerfect, if you recall, and the charge is that Microsoft deliberately withheld documentation to make it harder for competitors like Novell to compete. Like *that* would ever happen. What? Further, Novell's claim is that it was Bill Gates who personally decided to "de-document" certain shell extensions. Just as they were getting to that topic at the half-deposition, Novell tells the judge, Microsoft unilaterally halted the proceedings.

Don't be lulled by this all happening more than a decade ago. Instead think about the latest interoperability fiasco, Microsoft's non-interoperable ODF "support" in Office 2007 SP2, and see if the dots align. Plus ça change, y'all.

Full post as published by Groklaw on May 24, 2009 (boomark / email).