It seems that you're very confused. The OP claimed, mistakenly, that Microsoft won the case. They did not. When two parties settle a case, there is no winner or loser, and the case isn't decided by a judge or jury.
The DoJ and Microsoft settled the case. There was no winner or loser. If Microsoft had won the case, then the notion of settlement doesn't even make sense. And depending on the law and jurisdiction, legal fees can be awarded to the winner of a case. But with a settlement, one party doesn't usually pay the other party's legal expenses as a stipulation; that would be weird. So I really don't know what in the world you're talking about, and maybe you don't either.
The question here is a simple factual one: Did Microsoft win the case? No, they did not. The OP's assertion was wrong. You seem to be contemplating a different question, namely, does it make sense for parties to settle before going to judgement, which is why you think the answer is "extremely obvious". And of course it makes sense to settle, which is precisely what Microsoft and the DoJ did. They settled. Microsoft did not win. When you win, you don't settle. And the issue of legal expenses is irrelevant to the question of whether Microsoft won or not.
The word "win" does have more than one meaning, a collquial one an a legal one. Nonetheless, whynotminot clearly meant it in the legal sense.
drooopy: "Nearly twenty five years ago, the DoJ nearly split Microsoft into two companies"
whynotminot: "Didn’t Microsoft win that case?"
We all know that Microsoft was not split into two companies. That was even stipulated by "nearly" in the initial post. That was obviously a "win" in the colloquial sense, so if that was the intended meaning, then why would whynotminot have even posed a question in the first place? There was no question. Yes, Microsoft "won", colloquially, and just got a slap on the wrist. That was the very background and context of the initial post by drooopy.
So no, you're mistaken about which sense of "win" was under question.
The question would have been phrased differently if it was meant in the colloquial sense, something like, "Didn't Microsoft win in that settlement?" But really, nobody would even phrase that as a tentative question rather than as a statement, because obviously Microsoft came out very well in the settlement, and besides, that was never in dispute with the original post by drooopy, because drooopy was lamenting the fact that monopolists have faced no consequences. Your interpretation of the conversation makes no sense.
Furthermore, whynotminot specifically said, in reference to the Wikipedia article about US v. Microsoft, "which is why I replied skeptically because it says Microsoft had most of it overturned on appeal." This again points to the legal sense of win.
This is a ridiculous, nutty criticism. You're complaining that I left off "lol I did" and instead replaced it with "in reference to the Wikipedia article about US v. Microsoft"? That's exactly what you did by adding "[read the wikipedia article]"! In fact, you left off a part of the sentence too, the "lol" at the start.
> this very clearly is the poster explaining they meant it in the colloquial sense rather than the strict legal sense. If they had meant it in the strict legal sense they would have claimed _all_ of it was overturned on appeal.
No, this doesn't follow at all. It's still the legal sense.
Moreover, that wasn't the end of the case, which was my point in responding to whynotminot. We don't have to guess about what whynotminot meant, because they said exactly what they were referring to: the appeal. They were not referring to the settlement. Nor did they consider that the case was remanded back to district court. So any legal or colloquial "win" was temporary at best.
> bolster your own argument, namely that people who can win don't settle
No, my argment was that people who did win don't settle. As I explained above, the appeal judgment did not actually end the case, which is why the parties ended up settling.
> and now here you are, cherry-picking quotes to try and make an argument. Very alpha of you.
