bad: I’m hating writing this paper, tentatively titled “Access Remedies after Open Standards: Can An “Open” Technology Be Successfully Regulated?”
good: I got to write the following very satisfying footnote: “Indeed, their work is valuable primarily for the thorough and exemplary historical research presented in it; the conclusions drawn about software development processes reflect a remarkable lack of insight about best practices in software development.” I almost turned that footnote into a paper itself, which would have been much easier to write but ultimately much less satisfying.
Your paper sounds like it answers a very important question. I’d love to see a draft (even a very rough one) if you want some early feedback.
It is due tonight, so the feedback would be late. :) Frankly, I’m also embarassed by the quality (see: hating writing it), but I’ll probably end up sharing anyway.
Core tentative conclusions:
(0) design-by-lawyer, even for MS, really doesn’t work (the EU’s apparently sincere belief that someone would want to buy Windows XP-sans-WMP for the same price as Windows XP is exhibit one)
(1) mandatory open standards are probably a least bad mechanism by which to regulate technology monopolists- e.g., rather than force WMP off the platform, just mandate that windows media format be implementable by everyone (and perhaps that Windows implement other formats if they are open)
(2) open standards are still not going to be great; they have significant problems/loopholes which suggest that MS will be able to avoid at least some oversight by continuing to do things like OOXML.