On Wed, 6 Mar 2002, Uri Bruck wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wed, 6 Mar 2002, Shlomi Fish wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Uri Bruck wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > I think the newsforge article misses an important point. From the article:
> > >
> > > "
> > > I have friends who work for Microsoft, and they are perfectly nice people.
> > > But I'm sorry, this is over the line. A company that makes this kind of
> > > threat in response to requests that it follow the basic rules of free
> > > enterprise and competitive capitalism
> > > "
> > >
> > > Microsoft *is* playing by the rules of competitive capitalism. That's how
> > > it got to a big near-monopoly. The emergence of such monstrosities is an
> > > inevitable consequence of a free market economy.
> > >
> >
> > What? Can you honestly call the U.S. market, much less the global market,
> > a Laissez-Faire Capitalism one? I don't.
>
> When I read my own quoted text, the one you reply to, it seems to me a
> very clear criticism of the people who pretend that it is, and then go on
> to idolize it.
>
I cannot really follow your sentence
>
> > The reason Microsoft became so big is because it used many techniques
> > which its competitors did not. Most of which were and are legitimate.
> > (refer to the Corel-Draw thread for a small example). In an LFC economy,
> > other companies would have had the sense to do the same. Or they would
> > have revolted against Microsoft and endors an alternative to Win3.11,
> > MS-DOS, Win95, and the rest of Microsoft gaining-power trail.
> This has nothing to do with an LFC economy. There was nothing in the
> existing economy that prevented them form doing so.
>
> "Laissez-Faire is the theory that if we all act like hawks we'll end up
> like doves" - Idonotrememberus (cousin of anonymous)
>
What does hawks and doves have to do with intelligent, productive,
conscious human beings? I think this metaphor is completely flawed.
Laissez-Faire does not mean that everyone can do _whatever_ he pleases.
(or "Ish hayashar be'eynav ya'aseh"). It means that everyone can do
anything _legal_ he pleases. I don't think there will be a wolf-eat-wolf
society when everyone obeys the objective law, yet acts on their own best
interests.
>
> >
> > And here's a funny quote about the subject (I think it's from the FreeBSD
> > fortunes):
> >
> > <<<
> > There were in this country two very large monopolies. The larger of the
> > two had the following record: the Vietnam War, Watergate, double-digit
> > inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the 8-cent
> > postcard. The second was responsible for such things as the transistor,
> > the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity stereo
> > recording, sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative feedback,
> > magnetic tape, magnetic "bubbles", electronic switching systems, microwave
> > radio and TV relay systems, information theory, the first electrical
> > digital computer, and the first communications satellite. Guess which one
> > got to tell the other how to run the telephone business?
> > >>>
>
> There are legitimate arguments that claim that breaking up was the best
> thing that happened to Bell, but that's besides any of the above points.
>
> You cannot compare the communications market to the market in which MS
> grew and thrived. MS grew in an environment that was not highly regulated,
> partly because it was growing along with the market.
>
Linux is also growing in an environment that is not very regulated. Would
you rather replace MS, as abusive as it is, with a government imposed
lack-of-freedom? I'd take some competition, FUD, etc. from MS anyday, just
that free software (or any software for that matter) can remain free,
unregulated and non-restricted. Think about it.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
>
>
>
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Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
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"Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups..."
"Wait a second - is n a natural number?"
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