After taking note of how the general public perceives the Microsoft Antitrust
Suit (of 1998) and from what my friends, students and clients have asked me, 
I started thinking of a better way to explain the story in that arena.  Thus 
came about, the saga of ...

BILLY AND HIS DIGITAL CHOO-CHOO
By "Tarry Faster"
taryfast@sonic.net


Once upon a time, there was a young man named Billy who liked to play with
digital choo-choo trains.  Most of all, he liked to sell digital boxcars.  He
was very good at selling boxcars and his reputation rapidly spread throughout
the land.

One day, a Mr. Blue came by to see Billy about providing some boxcars for his
secret new railroad.  Mr. Blue wanted to make the biggest and best digital
railroad in the country, and he wanted to do it in a hurry.  He asked Billy if
he would sell him some of his boxcars and since Billy was very excited and
anxious to please Mr. Blue, they rapidly made a deal.

Then, as Mr. Blue was getting ready to leave, he mentioned that they were
having trouble finding someone to make a steam engine for their train.  Billy,
knowing of some teenagers who were trying to make a copy of an already famous 
steam engine, told Mr. Blue that he thought that he could get a steam engine 
for them.

The very next day, Billy went around the corner to see the boys who
were building a copy of the really good steam engine and bought as much of the
copy as the guys had completed.  Now, the steam engine wasn't even close to 
being finished, as it had a lot of missing parts.  For example, it didn't 
have all of the wheels or lights, and many of the handles didn't work at all.

However, since everyone was in a hurry (and Billy's mom had spoken with Mr.
Blue to make sure that Billy was not being taken advantage of), Billy made a
deal to provide Mr. Blue with not only several boxcars but a steam engine
for Mr. Blue's new railroad, as well.  Because Mr. Blue was in such a hurry, he
didn't take the time to notice that the steam engine was faulty and missing a
lot of parts.

Mr. Blue, with much fanfare, started up his railroad, which was very
successful.  Because of Mr. Blue's very good reputation, everyone in the land
was anxious to get on his new railroad and ride around.  Billy was having a lot
of fun playing engineer, buying and selling boxcars, and keeping the cranky 
steam engine running.  

Everyone pretty much liked the boxcars, but the steam engine seemed to have
problems and was always in need of a lot of tending to.  When problems with it
occurred, everyone usually just looked at each other (and Billy) and then kind
of shrugged.  They just thought that was how new steam engines worked, and in 
time, the problems would work themselves out since Billy kept running
around trying to make small improvements on it.  He couldn't make any major
repairs because he really wasn't a qualified engineer, as he had dropped out of
engineering school in order to play with his new digital choo-choo train.

Then, one day, Billy's friend Steve announced that he was going to start a brand
new railroad with a new engine and boxcars.  Billy got very excited and went to
Steve asked him if he could try out his new railroad.  Steve said sure and
Billy took a ride.  He really liked Steve's new railroad.  It had a
revolutionary, well-designed diesel engine with coordinated boxcars that
easily connected together.  And everyone who rode on it liked its smoother
ride much more than Billy's steam engine-powered choo-choo.

When Billy asked Steve if he could buy his new railroad and Steve said no,
Billy just left in a huff and went to work trying to make his railroad run like
Steve's.  However, rather than starting from scratch and building a whole new
railroad (which most any fully trained engineer would have done), Billy could
only do some remodeling to his cranky old steam engine and then give it a new
name.

Now, years before Billy and Steve started in the railroad business, Mr. Blue had
put down a lot of railroad tracks.  When Mr. Blue and Billy made their original
deal, they agreed that whenever anyone wanted to buy a ticket on Mr. Blue's
railroad, they would only be offered one for Billy's digital engine.  Over
the years, everyone got used to riding on Billy's and Mr. Blue's railroad and
began to forget about Steve's railroad.  Since it seemed that everyone was
buying tickets to Billy's choo-choo, Steve didn't think that it was fair that
Billy had copied Steve's new railroad design.  So Steve went to the Railroad
Commissioner and complained.

Now, the Railroad Commissioner (who was very old and quite out of touch with
what had been going on in the railroad business) announced that it was quite
okay for Billy to steal Steve's design, as it looked to him like everyone in
the railroad business was stealing designs from everyone else, anyway.  Steve,
in disgust, just walked away from his railroad and left it for the employees to
run.  They didn't manage it very well, and in a few years, it fell into
disrepair and abuse.

After Mr. Blue entered semi-retirement, Billy owned the whole
railroad, which was becoming even more popular.  He was having more fun than
ever running his railroad and playing engineer now that there seemed to be
nobody around to bother him.  To avoid having to deal with someone like Steve
ever showing up again with a whole new train, Billy became very careful about
who he would let build boxcars for his choo-choo.

If someone came along with a really good boxcar, Billy would run out and offer
to buy it.  If they didn't want to sell it to him, he would either change how 
they connected up to his train and/or not tell them about changes to his steam 
engine (and he was always making changes).  The whole process, as a result, made 
it very difficult for new and unwanted boxcars to connect.

He would often buy a really good, new boxcar, put his name on it, and sell
it as one of his own.  Once in a while, he would tell some of the construction
people who worked for him to make a copy and let it ride on the railroad for
free until the first boxcar was forgotten about, and then he would raise the
fares.  And then, sometimes, he would just keep a new boxcar all to himself and
never let the rest of the people know about it, much less ride in it.

Now, one day, while Billy was in his office playing engineer and tinkering with
his steam engine, some of the people who worked for him interrupted him by
banging on his door, trying to tell him about an exciting new boxcar.  He told
them to go away and went back to work on his steam engine as it was always
needing more and more work the older it got.

The next day, his anxious and excited people came back and yelled at him to
look out of his window.  So, he went to his window and looked up, and there,
overhead, was a new FLYING choo-choo with LOTS of boxcars -- the likes of 
which he had never seen before!

Now, this new flying boxcar really caught Billy off guard.  One of the first
things that he did was go out and try to buy the new flying boxcar.  However,
he soon found out that it wasn't for sale.  So, he then ran around his office
yelling at everyone to stop what they were doing (which was mostly old work on
re-modeling the re-modeling of his old steam engine and boxcars) and go to
work building one of those flying boxcars for his railroad.  As they had done
many times before, Billy's workers ended up building a copy of the flying
boxcar designed to run on his railroad.

By this time, Billy often didn't bother to make workable connections for 
some boxcars.  He decided that since it was his choo-choo train and his steam
engine, he could directly connect (or not) any boxcar he chose to his old 
steam engine.

While they were building Billy's new flying boxcar (Which he named Explorer,
because he identified with the word "Explorer" ...  but had forgotten that he had
already named a map "Explorer" -- which was hidden in one of his old engine 
re-model jobs.) Billy told his construction people to make all direct 
connections to his old steam engine that was designed to run on his new flying 
box cars -- a secret.

Over the years, some of the other boxcar manufacturers got together, along
with some of the people who were having trouble riding on Billy's digital
railroad, and began to compare notes.  They began to see how Billy was
doing business and thought it wasn't fair.  Not only did they think
that it wasn't fair, but it was too expensive.  They figured out that it
was costing way too much to keep the old steam engine running, especially
since it couldn't pull very many more boxcars than it was already pulling.

They didn't like how Billy was making it difficult and often
impossible for them to get their boxcars to run on his old choo-choo train. 
They were upset when Billy would copy their new boxcars and then give his copy
away until the original boxcar was forgotten and then raise the fares.  And
they hated seeing really creative new boxcars being bought for Billy's private
collection -- never to be ridden on by anyone else.

So, after a while, a bunch of the more brazen boxcar makers (the main one being
the first flying boxcar company) got together and went to see the new Railroad
Commissioner (the old one had retired).  They explained their complaints to him
and he said, "Well, it seems like you guys have a case here.  Let me study
this situation and give you my answer on it, later."

To this day, nobody knows how the Commissioner is going to look at Billy's
Digital Railroad.*  If he digs down into his bag of wisdom, he may at least come
out telling Billy that he needs to open up his old steam engine and show
everyone how it works, with all the changes that he has made.  Or, he may tell
Billy that he can be an engine maker or a boxcar maker but not both, as they
are two separate and different parts of the same choo-choo.

In the meantime, since most of the people who ride on his railroad have never
ridden on another digital railroad, they just stand around and gawk -- not
really knowing if Billy's choo-choo is giving them the best ride possible or
not.

But one thing can be said for/to/about the people who ride on Billy's digital
choo-choo -- they all aren't going to go where Billy wants them to go, as some
(in Europe) have decided that they want to go here: 
European Commission Rules On Microsoft and here.  On top of all of that, Mr. Blue
doesn't even ride on Billy's choo-choo anymore!

*A second "Commissioner" ruled in Billy's favor, and today, Billy's trains run 
worse than ever.  Eventually, Billy grew tired of running his rickey railroad
and now tries to use his wealth to run the world. 


October 24, 1998 & Updated April 2, 2024