Microsoft vs. open source

[Arthur Dent]

Bill Gates on the Stand

Mr. Kuney also questioned Mr. Gates's testimony that Microsoft already goes to great lengths to disclose technical information so software developers can write programs that work well with Microsoft products. He produced an internal memorandum from Mr. Gates instructing employees to stop trying to make Microsoft Office documents work with rival Web browsers.

"We have to stop putting any effort into this," Mr. Gates wrote in the December 1998 e-mail message. "Anything else is suicide for our platform."

"You read it correctly," Mr. Gates said, bristling just slightly.

In many ways, Mr. Gates's objections to the states' proposals echo the same philosophical and technical disputes that have been at the core of the case since it began. Microsoft has long maintained that there is no clear line between what is in the operating system and what is a separate product because it is all a collection of the electronic 1's and 0's of computer code.