On 2003.04.10 13:17 Brad N Bendily wrote: > > This article wasn't just about microsoft not being a monopoly, there were > linux discussions too.
There's something that irritated me about it. Sure, he talks about all sorts of things, but he starts and finishes with the justice department's anti-trust case. Between fawning over the vision and wealth of a few successful commercial implementors of other people's ideas and the very tired automobile OS metaphor, this guy grated on my nerves. Reading it was kind of like listening to someone run their fingers down a chalk board. There's just so much that's, well, wrong. Even the praises he had for free software had some implied criticisms. It all kind of bugged me, but the anti-trust wrapper was the worst. The overall feeling I get from it is of disinformation, like a more sophisticated M$ switcher advert or an IT level astroturf. I could spend some more time picking appart chunks of it, but I get the feeling it was designed in part to waste time. > > I think Microsoft has committed a lot of unruly practices, but just > people buy their products doesn't make them a monopoly. Sure forcing > PC makers to put their product on every PC they sell is a monopolistic > thing to do. But just because they have a popular product doens't > make someone a monopoly. > > bb > There's nothing wrong with making something that other people like and use. Nor is there anything wrong with making lots of money. Screwing other people to do it is wrong. Anti-competitive practices are harmful enough to have been outlawed and Microsoft's activity was blatant enough to have been noticed by the Federal Government. A parade of hardware and software industry leaders told all sorts of stories about abuse by Microsoft and Microsoft's own email confirmed the accusations. Forcing PC vendors to pass on a Microsoft tax is only the tip of the iceberg. Four years later, it's still hard to find a PC for sale without Windoze on it, and the PC with an alternate OS generally costs more even when the OS is low or no cost (Dell did this with Red Hat!). While that's visible damage, the destruction of hardware standards has cost us all far more than that in paperweight equipment. The fact that PCs cost companies as much or more than their mainframe and terminal predecessors should give you another indication of the tremendous cost we all bear to support the richest man in the world. Besides costing you, me and the world lots of money, it directly cost some people their jobs and livelihoods. The Federal Government, investigating the Netscape case, took note of the rest of it and put it into the public record. The author may have been ignorant in 1999, but the kind of reasoning found in the last paragraphs does not float today. Existence of competition does not prove that Microsoft has not and is not abusing it's position in a way that's against the law and harmful to us all. It was hardly good reasoning when there was reasonable suspicion of abuse.
