Linux-Advocacy Digest #235, Volume #26 Tue, 25 Apr 00 11:14:09 EDT
Contents:
Re: Sell Me On Linux (Charlie Ebert)
Re: Corel Linux Office 2000 and Win32 Emulator Making Progress (T. Max Devlin)
Re: QB 4.5 in Win 2000 (T. Max Devlin)
Re: Why Linux should be pronounced with a long I (Joe Kiser)
Re: Why Linux should be pronounced with a long I (Bit Twister)
Re: Why Linux should be pronounced with a long I (Streamer)
Re: Rumors ... (Jianmang Li)
Re: Why Linux on the desktop? (Full Name)
Re: MS caught breaking web sites (Jianmang Li)
Re: Windows2000 sale success.. (Jianmang Li)
Re: Something to "advocate" about.. (Bart Oldeman)
Re: Rumors ... (Osugi Sakae)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Charlie Ebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Sell Me On Linux
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 00:11:31 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> >Charlie Ebert wrote:
> > Allow me to now point out a few KEY things Jason which will be affecting
> > your career as a Network Administrator.
>
> Well, Charlie, I am not Jason, but I felt compelled to comment. I read
> the entire post you wrote, and cannot agree more with what you are
> saying.
>
> A well done job and good luck in your transition. I just wish I could
> get serious consideration by companies like yours in terms of finding
> work in software configuration, help desk, and so on.
>
> Anyway that's for another time and place. Again, good luck, your are
> doing the right thing.
>
> Terry
>
> --
> We don't own this place, though we act as if we did,
> It's a loan from the children of our children's kids.
> The actual owners haven't even been born yet.
> -- The Grateful Dead
Let me say thanks and also,
Every dollar you invest in Linux from a programming standpoint is not
lost like it is
with NT or Windows 2000. These skills your company will develop are
ASSETS and
are in NEED by other companies.
So the conversion itself could snowball as it's carried across the board
to OTHER
insurance companies, in my case.
In your case, it would be the bell companies who would snowball.
But of the areas of software configuation, help desk and so on as you
put it,
Redhat and others already offer competitive business training for
administration
at rock bottom prices. A certification of sorts has already developed
at RedHat.
So, every dollar you invest in re-writing your software to run on linux
and the
experience you gain in doing so is directly re-marketable to others.
It could very well turn out that our development cost could be halved or
even PAID FOR
with this very idea!
And this is something which I can't emphasise too much is that Linux PA
is actually
an ASSET in the form of revenue production. IT's not just an
amortizable line item!
It's a cash producing asset for your company!
And when you realize what I'm saying, you see you've been given a gift
from god!
A real gift from god.
Think of it in these terms.
Charlie
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Corel Linux Office 2000 and Win32 Emulator Making Progress
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 20:21:13 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Quoting Roger from alt.destroy.microsoft; Sun, 23 Apr 2000 14:54:36 GMT
>On Sun, 23 Apr 2000 02:42:07 -0400, someone claiming to be T. Max
>Devlin wrote:
>You claim to have been forced to accept the terms of a EULA which you
>as good as admit below do not exist (the terms, not the EULA.) [...]
No, I didn't claim what you stated. Thank you for your time.
Boring!
--
T. Max Devlin
Manager of Research & Educational Services
Managed Services
ELTRAX Technology Services Group
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-[Opinions expressed are my own; everyone else, including
my employer, has to pay for them, subject to
applicable licensing agreement]-
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======= Over 80,000 Newsgroups = 16 Different Servers! ======
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.lang.basic,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: QB 4.5 in Win 2000
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 20:22:53 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Quoting Roger from alt.destroy.microsoft; Sun, 23 Apr 2000 15:00:12 GMT
>On Sun, 23 Apr 2000 02:31:59 -0400, someone claiming to be T. Max
>Devlin wrote:
>>Quoting Roger from alt.destroy.microsoft; Sat, 22 Apr 2000 23:20:40 GMT
>>>On Sat, 22 Apr 2000 17:28:55 -0400, someone claiming to be T. Max
[you get the idea...]
>My assumption, being an optimist, is that if you had been willing to
>answer the question you would have done so since you took the trouble
>to respond.
The only thing wrong with this response is that it is BORING!!!
>Of course, your intention could simply have been engage in a personal
>attack [...yada, yada, more boring things...]
--
T. Max Devlin
Manager of Research & Educational Services
Managed Services
ELTRAX Technology Services Group
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-[Opinions expressed are my own; everyone else, including
my employer, has to pay for them, subject to
applicable licensing agreement]-
====== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ======
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
======= Over 80,000 Newsgroups = 16 Different Servers! ======
------------------------------
From: Joe Kiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Linux should be pronounced with a long I
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 20:46:43 -0400
Carl Banks wrote:
>
> So it doesn't have the same vowel sound as in the first syllable of
> "Windows." It's bad enough they have to share a consonant.
Maybe they should get rid of that damn vegetable of a penguin, and
replace him with a dinosaur.
--
-Joe Kiser
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
WWW: http://www.mindspring.com/~joekiser/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bit Twister)
Subject: Re: Why Linux should be pronounced with a long I
Reply-To: This_news_group
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 00:58:53 GMT
Gees, NOT again. Go here and let the man who name it
sound it out for you.
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/SillySounds/
On 23 Apr 2000 23:08:08 GMT, Carl Banks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>So it doesn't have the same vowel sound as in the first syllable of
>"Windows." It's bad enough they have to share a consonant.
>
------------------------------
From: Streamer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why Linux should be pronounced with a long I
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 20:06:42 -0500
Joe Kiser wrote:
> Carl Banks wrote:
> >
> > So it doesn't have the same vowel sound as in the first syllable of
> > "Windows." It's bad enough they have to share a consonant.
>
> Maybe they should get rid of that damn vegetable of a penguin, and
> replace him with a dinosaur.
Nah, Let MS keep their monopoly in the dinosaur era.
------------------------------
From: Jianmang Li <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Rumors ...
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 03:32:00 +0200
"Se=E1n =D3 Donnchadha" wrote:
> =
> "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> =
> >
> >We weren't talking specifically about Netscape. Even so, Netscape dro=
pped
> >the ball by allowing their code base to become such a mess that it req=
uired
> >a complete rewrite (and 3 years) to achieve. They couldn't keep up
> >technically. They couldn't support the latest W3C standards, and they=
had
> >hit a brick wall in terms of performance and stability.
> >
> =
> Netscape also screwed up by letting twentysomething Marc Andreessen go
> out and shoot his young mouth off about how Microsoft was finished
> because the browser was the new OS and Windows was just a set of
> device drivers. Instead of letting the giant sleep, Marc decided to
> whack it with a baseball bat repeatedly.
You absolutely right. Using one of investment consultant's words:
"I haven't see a single company that beat their check shouting
anti-Microsoft
slogan had ever survived"
Strategic wise, Netscape is stupid. But that does not justify the tactic
that
Microsoft. Have you hear of auti-dumping - It is illigal to massively
selling =
goods at the price lower than the cost. Do you say that the development =
costs of IE is 0?
> =
> >>
> >> Actually, I did answer the question, but you snipped my answer
> >> from your reply. MS used their monopoly power to kill Netscape
> >> because it exposed non-Windows API's that developers could use
> >> to make programs that would be at least easier to port to other
> >> operating systems or even possibly would be independent of the
> >> OS.
> >
> >So your argument was that Navigator was a competitor to Windows itself=
, and
> >not just the browser market, correct?
> >
> >If that's the case, then the argument that the browser is a unique pro=
duct
> >seperate from the OS cannot be supported. Since the browser is an OS =
in
> >itself if you are to be believed. That means that Integrating IE into=
the
> >OS wasn't anti-competitive, since The browser is the OS itself.
> >
> =
> Excellent point.
X-Windows, QT, GENOME all post API. None one in Linux community call
them competitor
of Linux OS. Strangly enough in Windows world, you call any one who post
API
a competitor of OS maker itself. 25 years of brain wash really did a lot
of
damage to people. =
> =
> >>
> >> Personally, I doubt that either Netscape or Microsoft pioneered
> >> any monopolistic practice. Be that as it may, surely you realize
> >> that there is more to being a monopoly than just market share.
> >> If just having 90% of the market were enough to earn a company a
> >> monopoly, then the DOJ wouldn't have had to work so hard to
> >> prove that MS has a monopoly on desktop operating systems. What
> >> power did netscape have to punish OEM's or consumers who didn't
> >> choose Navigator? The very fact that IE 1, 2, and 3 were able
> >> enter the market and compete shows what a hollow "monopoly"
> >> Navigator had. If, as you claim, IE won on technical merit, that
> >> also shows that there was real competition in the browser market
> >> and thus Navigator did not have a monopoly.
> >
> >Well, let's use the same logic, except let's apply it to Microsoft.
> >
> >The very fact that Linux is able to enter the market and compete shows=
what
> >a hollow "monopoly" Microsoft has.
> >
> >See the fault in your logic?
> >
I won't say you got logic flaw but you confused yourself on the concept
of monopoly
AT&T was monopoly does not mean as individual you can't make phone (if
you
have the skill) and wire them in your own house. A monopoly make it =
economically unfeasible or near unfeasible for other commercial
undertaking
in the same market.
I like you Linux argument. If Linux is developed by Linus himself then I
tend to believe you that the MS monopoly is a "hollow". But it is
developed
in 9 years time by thousands of talent programmers. It still only get
very
margainal market share. If you ask me to commercially investment on such =
inititive 9 years ago, I have to be crazy to do that.
Monopoly can break any commercial company in its market. But it can do
nothing
if the competitor is non-for-profit. The fact that it can not kill =
non-for-profit does not say monopoly none-exist. =
> =
> Yep, it's the fatal flaw of "negative advocacy". When you're that
> concerned with slapping every possible negative label on someone, it
> won't be long before you start making claims that make no sense. Let's
> see now. Microsoft's prices are both predatory and monopolistic
> simultaneously. Microsoft enjoys an impenetrable monopoly, yet is
> powerless against "Tux The Terminator". Microsoft's products are only
> popular because OEMs can't afford not to provide them (that's my
> personal favorite).
Don't understand what you trying to say.
-- =
Jianmang Li
Stachanov
Phone: +31-72-5646664 +31-6-22977904
Fax: +31-72-5627410
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Full Name)
Subject: Re: Why Linux on the desktop?
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 01:50:42 GMT
On Thu, 13 Apr 2000 11:29:51 -0600, "John W. Stevens"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Sascha Bohnenkamp wrote:
>>
>> > If I write a .h file in C containing the following:
>> >
>> > int a;
>> > I give a property to a but not an algorithm (but in your view this .h file
>> > already contains an algorithm)
>> It gives an algorithm, the empty one (no joke)
>
>Urmmm . . . no, not really. The algorithm, in pseudo code, is something
>like:
>
>1) Allocate sizeof(int) bytes of memory in the data segment.
>2) Store 0 in this memory.
>3) End
>
Initialisation of a declared variable is not part of the standard
implementation of the C language.
Perhaps you should stick to "programming" in HTML :-)
------------------------------
From: Jianmang Li <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.security,comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip,alt.conspiracy.area51
Subject: Re: MS caught breaking web sites
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 03:59:08 +0200
Gary Connors wrote:
>
> in article [EMAIL PROTECTED], laugh at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on
> 4/16/00 1:07 AM:
>
> > Robert,
>
> > And with Linux growing to 35% of all servers and 10% of desktops this year
> > alone
> > (half of those being NT replacements), there won't be much of an audience
> > for any future releases of windows when and if they do make it out.
>
> If its a "NT replacement" is not on the desktop. In the real world, NT is
> not a desktop OS.
I'm always puzzled when people calling Desktop and server. From software
point
of view, what is the different. MS had difficulties to let Windows9x
offering
network services so it call it Desktop. In Unix world, if you got the
right
hardware nobody stop you offering network services from your "Desktop" -
they
are the same.
--
Jianmang Li
Stachanov
Phone: +31-72-5646664 +31-6-22977904
Fax: +31-72-5627410
------------------------------
From: Jianmang Li <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows2000 sale success..
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 03:45:28 +0200
billwg wrote:
>
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:8drd59$36d$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >
> > BTW, MSFT just reported a new kind of record earnings for this quarter.
> > Zero.
> >
> Huh? The announcement on Thursday after the day market close was:
>
> "SEATTLE, April 20 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. <MSFT.O> on Thursday said its
> third-quarter profits rose 23 percent, beating Wall Street estimates by 2
> cents a share despite what the world's biggest software company said was
> light demand for business PCs in the period.
> The Redmond, Wash.-based giant said net profits for the three months ended
> March 31 rose to $2.39 billion, or 43 cents a share, compared to $1.91
> billion, or 35 cents a share a year earlier."
>
> Somehow or other the buyers were expecting even more than that and MSFT was
> down about 4 bucks a share in the after hours markets, but $2.39 billion is
> a lot more than zero.
I'm not amazed that MS start to manipulating the earning figure by
selling of
their investment. This year will be financial difficult year for MS.
Last
year, 36% of their cash flow were coming from tax office after their
employee
exercise their options (Interesting, US firms regarding option gain as
part
of the salaris so make it tax deductable). This means this year the cash
flow
from tax office will be in trouble. 36% is a big hole. So their start to
sell
of their investment. What is more they have to pay more to keep their
underpaid
(without options) employees. Trouble! I smell big trouble.
--
Jianmang Li
Stachanov
Phone: +31-72-5646664 +31-6-22977904
Fax: +31-72-5627410
------------------------------
From: Bart Oldeman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Something to "advocate" about..
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 01:17:13 GMT
On Sun, 23 Apr 2000, Marshall F. wrote:
> Unless I am seriously mistaken (and I hope I am not), wouldn't a prime
> reason to advocate GNU/Linux these days be the fact that the default privacy
> (laff) settings for Microsoft Windows places it's users in peril for any
> that use the internet?.
>
> I am not talking about general security issues, of which I know there are
> many, but more importantly (to my topic) the ever increasing problem of
> internet advertisers and data collecters that are profiling anyone they can
> slip a cookie, trojan, 1 by 1 pixel
> (http://www.tiac.net/users/smiths/privacy/wbfaq.htm), god, err techie's know
> where or how it ends.
<snip>
> So, how about it, in what ways does GNU/Linux offer more privacy out of the
> gate compared to Microsoft Windows latest incarnations?. I would like to
> know what regular users (with an eye toward privacy) of GNU/Linux have to
> say (even better if you use both O/S's for the sake of objectivity).
Well, out of the gate, there just is no IE.
There are simple tricks you can do, but they are also possible for
Windows, I guess, with a little creativity. I generally get the feeling
that this sort of stuff is more transparant under Linux than under
Windows, where many things are hidden away in stuff like the registry or
who knows where.
Some simple tricks:
limit your ~/.netscape/cookies file to
# Netscape HTTP Cookie File
# http://www.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html
# This is a generated file! Do not edit.
and make it read-only. Most sites think you accept cookies, but you still
don't store them.
Add things like:
127.0.0.2 ad.doubleclick.net www.valueclick.com
to /etc/hosts.
This maps those sites to localhost so they are not accessed in reality at
all.
There's also the Internet Junkbuster which offers this, and is also there
for Windows users.
Bart
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Rumors ...
From: Osugi Sakae <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 19:09:53 -0700
In article <HIPL4.346$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Erik
Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<snip>
>The companies you mention that are doing well in non-microsoft
competing
>markets also probably do not have many competitors in those
markets either.
Actually, I didn't mention any.
>
>> Second comment: none of the examples you give are pertinant to
>> the anti-trust trial. The trial was (partly) about the way
that
>> MS abused their monopoly power to kill netscape. I don't
>> remember anything in the FoF about Wordperfect or Lotus.
>
>We weren't talking specifically about Netscape. Even so,
Netscape dropped
>the ball by allowing their code base to become such a mess that
it required
>a complete rewrite (and 3 years) to achieve. They couldn't
keep up
>technically. They couldn't support the latest W3C standards,
and they had
>hit a brick wall in terms of performance and stability.
A few comments:
1. I thought we were discussing the MS-DOJ anti-trust trial.
Specifically any areas of the FoF and FoL that might be on weak
legal ground and therefore possible avenues of attack for MS on
their appeal. This is not the same as discussing Netscape, but
still makes Wordperfect and Lotus irrelevant to the topic.
2. Considering everything that MS was doing to "cut off their
air supply", I am suprised that Netscape was able to put out as
good a browser as they did, for as long as they did. Netscape
couldn't keep up because an enormous company with a monopoly on
desktop operating systems was willing to lose lots of money
killing their product.
3. <off topic> Speaking of code becoming a mess and requiring a
complete rewrite, isn't Windows ME still just a gui running on
top of dos? Didn't MS claim they were going to get rid of DOS
all together? Are they still working on that rewrite of Win 3.1?
</off topic>
4. As for complying with standards, isn't MS catching flak from
the W3C for not making their recent versions of IE compliant?
With the "browser wars" supposedly over, why can't (won't?) MS
make IE comply with standards? Netscape 6 is probably better
than IE 5 (5.5?) in this regard.
BTW, the time required for a rewrite of Netscape is irrelevant
to the topic at hand, since it came after the events that the
trial deals with.
<snip>
>> Actually, I did answer the question, but you snipped my answer
>> from your reply. MS used their monopoly power to kill Netscape
>> because it exposed non-Windows API's that developers could use
>> to make programs that would be at least easier to port to
other
>> operating systems or even possibly would be independent of the
>> OS.
>
>So your argument was that Navigator was a competitor to Windows
itself, and
>not just the browser market, correct?
That is your inaccurate reformulation of my argument. See below
for comments.
>If that's the case, then the argument that the browser is a
unique product
>seperate from the OS cannot be supported. Since the browser is
an OS in
>itself if you are to be believed. That means that Integrating
IE into the
>OS wasn't anti-competitive, since The browser is the OS itself.
The browser is not a competitor to the OS. I challenge anyone to
get a pc working - reading disks, sending data to the screen,
reading and writing files, printing, connecting to and
communicating over networks, and running other programs with
ONLY a browser (IE, Mozilla, or any flavor of Navigator). It
ain't gonna happen. Period. A browser is a program that runs on
top of an os and allows one to "browse" data on the internet.
Read the FoF. The judge clearly says that Netscape exposed non-
windows APIs that other programmers could take advantage of when
writing programs. Because programers might - in the interest of
portability, or because they liked the Navigator API better, or
for any other reason - choose these API over the ones provided
by Windows, MS saw a threat to their desktop market share and
acted to nullify the threat.
"exposing APIs" might seem to make the exposing program similar
to an os, but the fact remains that that program (Navigator in
this case) cannot run itself - it requires an OS in order to
run. I cannot run Navigator for Mac on my linux box, regardless
of the fact that the APIs that the linux version and the mac
version of Navigator expose are similar / (perhaps) the same.
Get it? Navigator is not an os, does not compete against os's,
it just made it a little easier for programers to write their
programs without worrying (as much) about which os it would be
running on.
MS did not like this thought and used (illegally as it turns
out) their Windows market share to nullify the threat.
As far as I understand the situation, merely integrating IE into
the os is not an abuse of monopoly - the abuse came from the
reason that MS integrated it as well as the lengths that they
went to to get people using their browser.
Please explain how losing millions of dollars just to make sure
every one is using your free software makes business sense. The
judge ruled that it does not make business sense unless it was
done with the intent to preserve an existing monopoly.
>> In both cases, MS was reacting to competitors' innovations -
>> innovations that threatened to lower the "applications barrier
>> to entry" that protected MS's monopoly of the desktop os.
>
>Isn't that precisely what a company is supposed to do? React
to competitors
>who want to take their market share? Aren't corporations
required by law to
>do so in order to satisfy their shareholders?
If the company in question has a monopoly, there are certain
things they cannot do in response to threats. Abusing the
existing monopoly in order to kill off competitors who threaten
that monopoly is one of the things that are not allowed. At the
very least, MS's lawyers should have warned the company that
they were on thin legal ice with many of their actions.
>> Wordperfect never threatened MS's OS monopoly. Neither did
>> Stacker, Lotus 1-2-3, RealPlayer, or AOL instant messaging.
>> Netscape and java did threaten that monopoly and MS reacted to
>> crush them. Unfortunately for MS, the court has found that
MS's
>> actions were an illegal abuse of their monopoly.
>
>The fat lady has yet to sing on this issue.
Current score: DOJ 1, MS 0.
>
>> It is all right there in the FoF.
>
>The Findings of Fact are proveably wrong in many areas. But in
any case,
>the Findings of Law superced this, and the FoL are not anywhere
near as hard
>lined as the FoF is.
Deja vu. Isn't this where I got into this conversation? Someone
mentioned that the FoF are wrong and I asked for examples. So
far, the only one I've heard that I agree might offer MS a
chance is the definition of the relevant market.
Where are the FoF "provably wrong"?
I'm no lawyer, but I don't think that the FoL "superceed" the
FoF. One (FoL) is the judge's legal verdict and the other is a
listing of the "facts" of the case (as presented at trial) that
lead him to the verdict.
>
>> >They didn't do anything that Netscape wasn't already doing.
>> Netscape
>> >pioneered every "monopolistic practice" that Microsoft used
>> against them.
>> >When Netscape had 90% of the market, nobody else could get
in.
>> Even when
>> >Microsoft included IE for free with the OS, Netscape
continued
>> to be a
>> >monopoly. It wasn't until IE actually became a peer with
>> Netscape (around
>> >IE3) that IE began to take market share away from Netscape,
and
>> it wasn't
>> >until IE became better than Netscape that they actually
gained
>> more market
>> >share than Netscape.
>> >
>> >IE won mostly on it's technical benefits. The market proved
>> with IE1, 2 and
>> >3 that even if the product is integrated and ISP's promote
the
>> product, that
>> >customers won't drink the proverbial water they've been lead
to.
>> >
>> >
>>
>> Personally, I doubt that either Netscape or Microsoft
pioneered
>> any monopolistic practice. Be that as it may, surely you
realize
>> that there is more to being a monopoly than just market share.
>> If just having 90% of the market were enough to earn a
company a
>> monopoly, then the DOJ wouldn't have had to work so hard to
>> prove that MS has a monopoly on desktop operating systems.
What
>> power did netscape have to punish OEM's or consumers who
didn't
>> choose Navigator? The very fact that IE 1, 2, and 3 were able
>> enter the market and compete shows what a hollow "monopoly"
>> Navigator had. If, as you claim, IE won on technical merit,
that
>> also shows that there was real competition in the browser
market
>> and thus Navigator did not have a monopoly.
>
>Well, let's use the same logic, except let's apply it to
Microsoft.
>
>The very fact that Linux is able to enter the market and
compete shows what
>a hollow "monopoly" Microsoft has.
>
>See the fault in your logic?
>
You claim that merely having a 90% market share is enough to
qualify as a monopoly. I disagree. You said that Netscape had a
monopoly. I disagreed and gave an example of why I disagreed.
Which is why I called your "Netscape monopoly" a hollow one. In
fact, netscape never had a monopoly, so it cannot be compared to
MS at all.
MS on the other hand has a monopoly and has abused it not only
to protect the original monopoly, but also in attempts to
monopolise other areas.
Linux, btw, is a very special case. For starters, MS and friends
only claim Linux is a competitor when and where it suits their
purposes (ie, in the courtroom, during the trial). In public, MS
has repeatedly claimed that linux is, for various reasons, not a
competitor.
So which is it?
Linux is a special case because it is the first competitor to
any microsoft product to be immune to most of MS's usual
business tactics. It is free and decentralized so it can't be
out spent or bought and defunded. No company controls it, so
intimidation won't work. FUD definitately won't work. Vaporware
is a possibility, but few people trust any MS product
announcements anymore.
At any rate, even if Linux is today a competitor (and I
personally believe it is), it currently has perhaps 2-4 percent
of the desktop market. Lawyers can argue about it, but given
MS's power and entrenched position, I doubt that the presence of
Apple and Linux is enough for an appeals court to rule that MS
is not a monopoly, or that it faces serious competition. Also,
please keep in mind that linux did not really "take off" until
after the trial had started - making its current popularity more
relevant to the remedies phase (ie, ms is a monopoly and has
abused its monopoly power, what do we do about it) than the
trial phase (ie, at the time that the trial deals with, did MS
have monopoly powers in the desktop os market).
--
Osugi Sakae
Anarchist at large
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