Christoph Reuss wrote:
>
> Brad McCormick replied:
> > I am saying that Microsoft
> > should be required to make public its code. But it could
> > still *sell* its products!
>
> What would be the point of that? To make sense, this would require
> that users have the right to *compile* the full source code and then
> use the resulting object code instead of M$'s WinDOS, M$-Office etc.,
> to make sure that M$ didn't sneak in a trapdoor in the runtime version
> on their desktop. But the lawyers won't allow compilation by the user.
> Much less would they allow modifications of the M$ source code.
>
> So, you see, it's EITHER closed source (M$) OR open source (with the
> right to compile and modify the code). "Public M$ code" would only be
> a PR gag (and M$ wouldn't want that anyway, because the public would
> die laughing at the buggy code).
Sorry, but IBM coped with this situation quite well
in the 1960s and 1970s, with their OS/360 and 370
operating system code!
IBM wasn't happy about users modifying their code, and
users understood that if they wanted IBM to fix a problem,
they should back their changes out of the code, and
report the problem against the unmodified code. If you
were a *big* customer, however, IBM was even more lenient.
[snip]
For all its faults, Microsoft finally got their
operating software, and Intel got the hardware... to a state where
I could deign to use it and not feel soiled by getting near it,
with Windows 95 on a Pentium (ca. 1995).
I still have my Pentium Pro Windows NT 4.0
"box" which cost me $5,000 in Fall 1995 -- which is where
my low-end $1,500 Mac was in 1990.... I also have
to admit that, as of Internet Explorer 4.0, Microsoft's
web browser became about as good as Netscape, and now
Netscape 6 is little better than a software teratoma....
Bill Gates got to where he is by
taking advantage of IBM's amentia
during John Akers' "watch", when
IBM demonstrated that, like the Titanic and the Lusitania,
a sufficiently incompetent Captain could cause
it to sink. Or maybe the Kursk is a better example,
if one views a CEO more at the Captain of a
warchip than a civilian transport. (Anybody
remember the orignial version of
"The Invasion of the Body Snatchers"?)
If only IBM had bought DOS from Midgetsoft instead of
licensing it, then maybe the PC war would have been between
a competition in *quality* between
the PC and the MAC, instead of the mess we had.
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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