Feudal Law

http://www.lectlaw.com/def/f024.htm

"FEUDAL LAW - By this phrase is understood a political system which placed men and estates under hierarchical and multiplied distinctions of lords and vassals. The principal features of this system were:

"The right to all lands was vested in the sovereign. These were, parcelled out among the great men of the nation by its chief, to be held of him, so that the king had the Dominum directum and the grantee or vassal, had what was called Dominum utile."

A lord grants lands to vassals, who work the land, make money, and return some of it to the lord. Vassals, in turn, grant land to serfs, who perform the actual labor.

It also worked in the other direction, the lord had a duty to protect those who owed alegiance. This did not always work out.

This part is an opinion.

Feudalism, and its pecking order, are part of human nature, not the product of any specific culture. The hierarchy arises spontaneously over a territory. Some territories do not grow wheat. For example, street gangs sell drugs, and fight over the territories where customers will come to buy.

This part is a supposition

Over the territory of the computing industry, MicroSoft has claimed Dominum directum, the right to direct everything. They grant territories to vassals, and give each one Dominum utile, the right to use their one territory to make money.

For example, MS grants to hardware manufacturers the right to put "Designed for Windows" stickers on their products. They then pay MS for the stickers, and for MS to test their hardware and certify it is Windows-compliant.

Apple and Borland are permitted to exist because MS has granted them a territory, and because they have sworn fealty to their new lord.

Is this in fact interesting? Microsoft is in turn a vassal of the United States government and is licensed to do business in that country in exchange for payment of taxes, and loyalty to that government in terms of respect for its laws.

You have a peculiar grasp of global corporations. But the USA does not exercise Dominum directum over MS.