Almost everybody here is missing the point. The guy has been sentenced to jail time. He's been OFFERED parole by a judge. He has three (at least) choices:
Decline parole, stay in jail, presumably without access to his computer. Out-of-pocket software cost: $0 Accept parole, decline opportunity to use a computer at all. Out-of-pocket software cost: $0 Accept parole, accept TERMS of parole wrt OS. Out-of-pocket software cost: $$$ for Windows, and possibly for any other software he's required to purchase IN CONSEQUENCE of HIS CHOOSING to accept parole AND use a computer. Granted, the first two are tough choices, but it's an economic equation that has nothing to do with open source, except to say that if 90% of the desktops in the world ran OpenBSD, the govt would probably have only OpenBSD-based monitoring software. And it would probably work better than whatever they're currently using, and it MIGHT be portable to say, Linux. This entire discussion has nothing to do with whether the law he's accused of breaking is just, or whether Microsoft is a greedy, lobbying company. Just my two -- way offtopic -- cents. Marti On 8/29/07, Jack J. Woehr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Aug 29, 2007, at 11:57 AM, Jona Joachim wrote: > > > It's not about the guy, it's about the fact that Microsoft makes > > money out of his punishment. > > I'm with you, Jona. > > > The fact that the government supports Microsoft is contrary to the > > "free market" philosophy that the US government preaches. > > And it is ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL that Microsoft during the 1990's > threw a long series of million (10^6) dollar parties for members of the > US Congress as they lobbied for various bills aimed at removing > software freedom! :-) > > -- > Jack J. Woehr > Director of Development > Absolute Performance, Inc. > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 303-443-7000 ext. 527 > > -- Systems Programmer, Principal Electrical & Computer Engineering The University of Arizona [EMAIL PROTECTED]
