Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Alan Zinn 


> Seems to me that the government will see this as a
> restraint of trade issue.  I don't think a company
> would be so short-sighted, but then look at the
> antics of the DVD interests.

The legal definition of "restraint of trade" involves an agreement 
between two or more parties.  (The two parties COULD be a supplier 
and a retailer).  Virtually all the case law relating to restraint 
of trade involves anti-trust cases.   If HP or Epson inked coerced a 
retailer into ONLY carrying its brand of printers THAT would be 
restraint of trade because it involves an agreement between two 
parties - the printer company and the retailer.

A product manufacturer is under no obligation to make it easy for 
other companies to interface to his product.   Microsoft does not 
have to supply an API to its software products, or if they DO supply 
an API they are under no obligation to expose all possible behaviors 
or interfaces. 

Politically, I'm pretty conservative.  One tenet of conservatism is 
that governments should not be in the business of running private 
companies or telling companies how to run their businesses.  When 
governments mandate business decisions it's called socialism.  In 
Europe, where they do things like that routinely, their GDP growth 
rate is lower and their unemployment rate is DRAMATICALLY higher 
than here in the US. 

The whole question of chipped cartridges should be left to the free 
market.   How well do you think Ford cars would sell if you could 
only use Ford gas in them?   If consumers don't like buying printers 
with chipped cartridges they will vote with their wallets and buy 
some other brand.    There are a LOT of printer companies in the 
world.  My guess is that this is a non-issue for 99.9% of users and 
that we're trying to get GOVERNMENT to provide us with what we want 
because we can't get the market to do it.   To me that's socialism.