Stewart Stremler wrote:
begin quoting Tracy R Reed as of Fri, Dec 30, 2005 at 10:57:21PM -0800:
Todd Walton wrote:
I wish people would use a more accurate word than "monopoly".
Microsoft is not a monopoly.
How isn't it a monopoly? In law monopoly does not mean having literally
zero competition. It means effectively having zero competition.
Of all the charges laid against microsoft, this is the one ("it's a
monopoly!") that I don't care about anymore.
-Stewaart "The government should stop buying all COTS" Stremler
I tend to agree. It matters less (to me anyway) today than five years
ago. As long as I'm free to use the products I wish, I'm fairly happy.
But for anyone who actually RTFA, Microsoft's status as a monopoly is
not the current issue. Their overwhelming wealth and the way they are
using it for political influence in order to expand into (and attempt to
dominate) other markets is more troubling.
Strong arming OEM's is one thing. Strong arming the politicians and the
very government itself is another. If M$ becomes as adept and political
influence as they have at marketing, we have big problems ahead. Gates
and Co. are not content to own the computer software market. They
apparently want to own everything. They may not be content even then.
Maybe owning every person will satisfy them.
Who knows, maybe the natural order of Human behavior is that all forms
of government eventually degenerate to Fascism.
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
