Washington, DC -- The United States Department of Justice today launched an antitrust lawsuit against God Unlimited for what Attorney General Janet Reno called "a blatant conspiracy of systematically abusive and grossly anti-competitive practices."
At a news conference, lead government attorney Bruno Giordano sketched the DoJ's motivation in proceeding with the suit. "Surveys consistently report that over 90% of Americans use one version or another of God's lifeware. We found hundreds of equal or even superior operating systems that were driven from the market or marginalized by God."
He went on to explain that an investigation found the monopoly hidden behind a maze of companies. Privately held God Unlimited was identified as the parent company of Israel Incorporated. Israel is the source of the first-generation Judaism program used by hundreds of related companies, some old and others mere start-ups, that design unique interfaces to it. All the companies are controlled by God.
Evidence: License, Code, Execution, Incompatibility
The most damning prima facie evidence of antitrust violation is God's standard "shrink-wrap" license agreement. The archaic language of its ten clauses did not conceal its nefarious anti-competitive intent, and the second clause featured prominently in the DoJ's complaint. It imposes exclusivity by prohibiting the licensee from using any competing lifeware: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
Additionally, forensic programmers found subroutines in the source code suspiciously similar to programs no longer available. God's highly profitable Christ division seems particularly guilty, having taken most of its popular features from innovative products before driving them out of the market. Baptism, virgin birth, resurrection, apocalypse, day of judgment -- all were allegedly stolen from the flagship product of now bankrupt Mithras Manufacturing.
"God has pompously flouted our legal system," said Giordano, "But today its impunity ends." Amid speculation that he was tempting fate by opposing the infamously brutal monopoly, he looked pleased. "In fact, the terror and violence used by God to maintain its market dominance is a major part of our case. People must be free to use other lifeware without risking torture or execution."
Also expected is evidence that God's lifeware is universally incompatible and strongly resistant to upgrades. Users usually receive a particular version of God's operating system as young children and become locked in. This poses an almost insurmountable obstacle to would-be entrants to the market. Migration of users outside God's product line is rare, and even within it movement is unusual.
Open Source May Be the Future
Polls show that most of God's user-base is not bothered by the situation. Some market analysts suspect this is due to a lack of perspective. "They are like inmates who've been living in a cell for so long they've forgotten about the world beyond the bars," explained A. Theo Logia. "That the word god, which once described the products of a thriving industry, has become the proper name of (more or less) a single product is proof enough. Monotheism is just a euphemism for monopoly."
God acknowledges this and calls its business "unification of lifeware." Its defense team, headed by in-house counsel B.L. Zebub, is preparing to argue that the market is a natural monopoly because there is only one functional lifeware: God's operating system. However, advocates of open source lifeware dispute Zebub's claim and applaud the DoJ's action.
"Open source" describes a free, fully customizable, non-standardized, infinitely upgradable and highly compatible form of lifeware. Its users dismiss God's product line as archaic, arbitrary, needlessly complicated "bloatware." They are proof that commercial products are unnecessary and harmful.
Ever since its incorporation, God has fought against open source lifeware, but industry watchers see the antitrust suit as the beginning of the end for God and the start of a bold new open source era.
