[WEB4LIB] Microsoft antitrust verdict released

[Masters, Gary E]

I am not especially anti Microsoft or really anti anything, but I am tired
of people who have the idea that "you will never get fired for buying
Microsoft."  It used to be IBM.  Oh, for a security blanket in a changing
world.  I rather liked an other email system better.  Word Perfect had good
points but was not getting better.  

My library will be better off if I can have more choices in the future for
software.  It will be more work for me to select and more risk, but I get
paid to do that.  When bandwidth gets better, we may subscribe to
applications.  There may well be more competition in library management
systems.  I also get tired of thousand dollar a day trainers.  

So, we may be better off after the decision.  But as in many things, we will
need to wait and watch.

Regards,

Gary 



Gary E. Masters
Librarian (Systems)
CDRH - FDA
(301) 827-6893 

	-----Original Message-----
	From:	George Porter [SMTP:george at library.caltech.edu]
	Sent:	Wednesday, June 07, 2000 4:48 PM
	To:	Multiple recipients of list
	Subject:	[WEB4LIB] Microsoft antitrust verdict released

	Without getting into the partisan and sectarian issues surrounding
this
	court case, I'd like to contribute a point of information and raise
a very
	directly library/web-related question.

	The verdict has been released: 
	<http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/microsoft-all.html>


	How is your library going to handle the information?  We had a very
divided
	take on the most appropriate approach to take with respect to the
decision.
	In the end, we decided to post a prominent link on the library's
main
	webpage <http://library.caltech.edu> to the verdict, but not to any
news
	stories or analysis.  The link will stay on the page for a limited
time,
	probably only until the end of the week.  The rationale was that
this is a
	very high profile current event and the court decision is the kind
of high
	quality, primary source information which libraries are expected to
deliver.
	It is expected that there will be some significant amount of
interest on
	campus due to the ubiquity of Microsoft products.

	Where to other libraries stand on the potentially charged issue of
promoting
	access to this information?

	George S. Porter
	Sherman Fairchild Library of Engineering & Applied Science
	California Institute of Technology
	Mail Code 1-43, Pasadena, CA  91125
	Telephone (626) 395-3409 Fax (626) 431-2681