Today was the first day in court in this latest Microsoft vs. the Department of Justice fracas, and things went about as expected. Judge Thomas "Pokey" Jackson made no ruling in the case, but asked what we thought were some surprisingly good questions, which fact is somewhat alleviating our fears that he may not be computer-literate enough to grasp the particulars of the case. There's some pretty detailed coverage over at PC Week.

Microsoft continues to state that they are operating within the bounds of the 1995 consent decree when they require all PC vendors to ship their Windows systems preloaded with Internet Explorer, because IE is an "integrated component" of Windows 95. The DoJ still states that Microsoft only decided to "integrate" IE into Windows well after the consent decree was put into effect, as a way of dodging its restrictions. There were two particularly noteworthy points made: First, Microsoft insisted that it's consumer demand that is driving the preinstallation of IE, to which the DoJ responded by asking why Microsoft is therefore requiring the bundling in their contracts. Secondly, Judge Jackson asked the Microsoft representative exactly what was different about the "integration" of Internet Explorer and the possible integration of Word or Excel into the OS, to which Microsoft replied that there was no technological difference (though it wouldn't make "economic sense" for them to integrate those products).

The case has been submitted and Judge Jackson will give a ruling in his own sweet time. More as we get it...

One of the things we love about Mac OS Rumors (and there's a lot to love) is their unhesitating willingness to print information that is so wacky, it borders on the bizarre. Today they skeptically include a nifty little piece about how most of the Macintosh Toolbox (the collection of routines that Mac developers use in their programs) actually exists within the Windows distribution of Quicktime. Seems that when Apple was porting Quicktime to Windows, they figured the easiest way to do it was to port any of the actual Mac Toolbox routines that the Quicktime code used. Since Quicktime uses almost all of the Toolbox, almost all of the Toolbox was ported... and all of those routines exist within the free Quicktime for Windows developer kit today.

Why is this noteworthy? Well, because the act of porting Mac programs to Windows involves ripping out all of the Mac-specific Toolbox calls and replacing them with Win32 routines. But if those calls are in the Quicktime for Windows developer kit, most of those original Toolbox routines are sitting there ready to be linked in and compiled into a Windows executable. Yes, in theory you could take the source code of any Mac program, link in the Quicktime for Windows libraries, and compile a ready-to-run Windows version. So whaddaya think? Is the Quicktime Media Layer actually a Trojan Horse to sneak a Mac onto every Windows system? Well, if you've been watching us for any length of time, you know the answer is "undoubtedly." Conspiracy theories kick ass.

There are obvious caveats to this maverick porting approach, however: since the ported Toolbox routines were only written for Quicktime's use, there's no guarantee they'll work in non-Quicktime contexts. Still, the possibilities are pretty interesting. If anyone out there tries this, we'd love to hear how it goes. We'd dust off our copy of Codewarrior and try it ourselves, but we have no Windows system on which to test the executable.

By the way, everyone think happy thoughts about Rumors' head honcho Ryan Meader, who underwent oral surgery today to remove some impacted wisdom teeth. AtAT hopes he heals up nicely and is back on his feet soon.

When it comes to FTP rights, Mac developers are "in the box" for an indefinite period of time, following Apple's lockdown of its Developer Seeding FTP site. Up til now, Apple has made beta software available on the net so that developers could get the fastest access possible, without having to wait for the monthly CD-ROM shipment. Now, though, Apple has pulled the plug, claiming that far too much beta software has been leaked from the FTP site, and that's hurting their business position.

Many developers are understandably bummed about this turn of events. One widespread opinion, echoed at Reality, is that the total shutdown was totally unnecessary; it turns out that Apple had been allowing anonymous access to the seeding site, thus enabling anyone to download the software with no password. Reality's take is that Apple could issue logins and passwords to members of its developer program to restrict access, rather than shutting the whole thing down. A reader at MacNN, however, notes the massive administrative load involved in dealing with lost passwords, etc. when 10,000 users are involved... and while the individual software archives were freely downloadable, each required a distinct password to allow the unlocking of the software.

Hopefully, some kind of logistical compromise can be decided and some form of the Developer Seeding FTP site will be re-established soon.