While most of Microsoft's outspoken critics in the Macintosh and Linux camps are eagerly anticipating the penalty phase of the historic antitrust trial, there isn't much consensus about what penalties should be imposed.
"The first inclination is to go 'Yipee,'" said Shawn King, host of the Mac Show, a pro-Macintosh Internet radio show. "The bully of the schoolyard has been sent to the principal's office. We don't know yet what the principal is going to do, but all the other kids are breathing a sigh of relief."
King said he didn't advocate breaking up Microsoft (MSFT) because the smaller companies would probably dominate its niche markets the way the Baby Bells dominate local phone markets.
Instead, King said he'd like the company to come under closer government scrutiny.
"I want the principal to look over their shoulder a bit more," he said. "To let them know there's an eye being kept on them."
Bruce Perens, co-founder of the open source movement and president of Linux Capital Group, also praised the judge's finding -- with reservations.
"I think it's nice to see," he said. "But it's 10 years too late."
Perens said so far the Department of Justice had done little for the open source movement, which in stark contrast to companies like Microsoft believes software should be freely copied, distributed and modified.
At best, the trial had prevented Microsoft from launching an all-out attack on Linux, he said.
"I think it's kept them off our back a little but the real contribution is they've made us look good by being so bad," he said.
Perens said ideally he'd like to see the Windows source code opened, which he believes is possible if the company changes tack and negotiates with the government during the penalty phase of the case.
Perens said he'd also like to see the company broken up to split the operating system from applications.
"I'd like to see several smaller companies. They might target Linux and would compete with each other a bit more," he said.
Phil Greenspun, CEO of ArsDigita and creator of the Bill Gates personal wealth clock, said he'd rather see the government, the largest buyer of computer technology in the world, invest resources in the development of Linux.
"I would much rather see the government put resources into improving Linux so that it serves all their needs than [go] after Microsoft," he said. "It wouldn't take that many resources to bring Linux and Star Office up to the point where people wouldn't need to use Microsoft products."
Greenspun created the wealth clock as a tutorial for students at MIT and as a perverse illustration of the maxim that for every rule there's an exception -- in this case, that wealth is a function of creativity and innovation.
"Bill Gates is interesting because MIT people think you have to be an innovator to be successful," Greenspun said. "He turns MIT wisdom on its head because he's never contributed anything to technology or to life and has become rich by making bad, copycat products."
Mitch Stone, a technical writer who maintains the Boycott Microsoft site, said he had mixed feelings about the verdict.
On the one hand, it vindicates what consumer advocates have been saying for years: that Microsoft has been using its power in the operating systems market to muscle into other markets, such as Web browsers.
On the other hand, it's been four years and the trial hasn't done anything to stop Microsoft from wielding its monopoly power.
"It'll drag on for another couple of years and meanwhile Microsoft will continue to do what they do," Stone said. "I'd rather see an effective settlement in the short term than a long, protracted battle that would end in an indelicate solution [like breaking it up]. It's like cutting up an earthworm. You'll get nothing but smaller earthworms out of it."
Instead, Stone said he would like to see greater government oversight and an end to monopolistic business practices like discriminatory pricing of the Windows operating system and the bundling practices that tied the browser into the operating system.
Robert Tracinski, chairman of the pro-Microsoft Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism, a nonprofit that supports "laissez-faire capitalism," said the dice were loaded against Microsoft from the very beginning.
"We regard it as an injustice against Microsoft," he said. "They are being punished because they are successful and not any other reason. We will continue to fight this to the very end."
Tracinski hoped the judge would simply impose a modest fine on the company.
"The least punishment the better," he said.
Tracinski finds an unlikely ally in Jesse Brown, publisher of the fanatically pro-Macintosh site, the Mac Marines.
"I'm in the minority but I'm a free-market capitalist and I believe the market should make the decisions about Microsoft and not the government," Brown said.
"No one is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to buy Windows," he said. "I don't use Micrsoft products and I don't like them but the market should make the ultimate decision."
