WOW, I think that is the most informative, well thought out and intelligent posting I have read on this thread. Cheers to both of you.
Points made, counterpoints presented, and no technospeak, OS specific drivel mixed in.
Viva La Competitione
>From: Tobias Weisserth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: Ron DuFresne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>CC: Mary Landesman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: [Full-Disclosure] Anti-MS drivel
>Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:34:13 +0100
>
>Hi Ron,
>
>Am Di, den 20.01.2004 schrieb Ron DuFresne um 23:03:
> > > Up to now they rule the consumer OS market with more than 90% market
> > > share. Any error they make regarding default settings in their OS
> > > affects 90% of all end consumers. It is impossible to require that many
> > > customers to adapt. Rather the vendor has to adapt. This is only
> > > logical.
> >
> > What's the incentive to make the vendor change? It's going to take one
> > HUGE boycott to achieve that, HUGE becuase the market is worlwide, and we
> > can't get a few thousand users on this single FD list to agree to much
> > from one day to the next, let alone to get a large international boycott
> > up and running, despite the dependance of many gov's and home users, and
> > corps upon the M$ code. So far the feds and a number of state in the US
> > have not been up to forcing change in redmond, even with million dollar a
> > day fines once imposed.
>
>This isn't solved by just one incentive or pulling a single lever.
>
>The ultimate solution to solve this problem would be a free market with
>free competition and no entry barriers for potential competitors for
>Microsoft. It's not about slicing MS in two parts as the US prosecution
>wanted to. That's the wrong side.
>
>Deregulate the market. Make competition possible again. Limit the extend
>software patents are applicable to. Why should a patent on a technology
>like software be valid for DECADES? After that, no possible competitor
>has a value for that technology. Software patents are legalised
>monopolies. There's a VERY good reason most European software vendors
>are against software patents in Europe while the American,
>MS/Oracle/Sun/etc. led BSA is propagating software patents in Europe to
>extend their monopoly on certain technologies that define access to
>markets.
>
>Apply liability laws to software and IT products in general. When I buy
>hardware, I have a legally guaranteed period of 6 months to 1 year in
>Germany within which the vendor is liable 100%. Why doesn't such a thing
>exist with software? EULAs as MS is issuing them are contrasting current
>laws. In fact, a MS EULA in Germany isn't worth the paper it is printed
>on. The MS EULA in Germany isn't 100% valid since it doesn't comply with
>German law.
>
>Did I mention competition? Well, it's the most important lever to assure
>quality and low prices in products so repetition is not bad.
>
> > And let's face it, many of the folks on this and other lists that buy a
> > PC, wipe windows and install a *bsd or linux/*nix clone, are still
> > contributing to the redmond bottom line of their big buck, cause most
> > those PC's come pre-installed with a M$ OS underneath.
>
>Which PC vendors can't decide on their own since OEM contracts issued by
>MS are rather restrictive. Either you take it or you don't take MS
>products at all... This is a case where anti-trust laws should permit
>vendors to ignore the restrictive parts of such agreements whenever this
>excludes competition. Competition is capitalism. Capitalism is living of
>free markets with no entries. This MS situation is close to living in
>communist East-Germany before 1991 where people could buy one sort of
>car which was very expensive and sucked.
>
> > What do they care if that software license sits in a drawer and remains unused after first
> > turning on the system? They made their share
.
>
>That's absolutely true. But I guess real MS refuseniks don't buy
>hardware with OEM software attached to it and invest the additional time
>to buy individual hardware components and build their own system from
>scratch. That's cheaper anyway since you really get what you want and
>the OEM software attached to new PCs isn't really free because it's
>somehow included in the price.
>
> > And most on these list should understand as well, I do not disagree with
> > the anti-M$ sentiments, I've posted many of my own over the years, but, I
> > do know better then to lie to myself and think that M$ on the desktop or
> > in the corporate world is faced with any major threat at this time from
> > redhat or suse.
>
>Not yet but the ball started to move. Once the critical mass is reached
>we'll actually be moving into a situation again where competition is
>part of the market. Look at Munich, Germany. They may be having trouble
>doing so but they decided to switch 14.000 desktop PCs to SuSE. This is
>a small start. But with initiatives rolling in Asia and South America I
>don't think MS can count on being the only desktop OS vendor in the near
>future.
>
> > Understand this is not going to be a simple boycott by a few thousand or
> > hundred thousand buyers of bannanas from say nicaragua...
>
>I'm not speaking about a boycott. I'm speaking about vendor liability
>and free choice (actually free markets, but it's nearly the same).
>
>cheers,
>Tobias
>
>_______________________________________________
>Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
>Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
_______________________________________________
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