Re: Microsoft Linux!

[Adam Williams <awilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>>is a quality product.  But the right tool for the job.  Windows and 
Linux
>>>are apples and oranges.
>Hmm. Just because products differ does not mean they don't share 
markets. Is an
>SUV a farm/work truck or a passanger car? When my grandfather hauled 
farm
>equipment/supplies around in his Lincoln Town Car, did it become a 
pickup?

Vehicle catagories are defined by the Department of Transportation, that 
is
they are arbitrary.  This same issue applies to the DOJ case:  Where does
the OS end and the "application" begin.  You can argue about definitions 
all
day (and it's fun too), but basically, if the trade magazines reffer to 
both
Linux and Win32 variants as Operating Systems, then Operating Systems 
they be
and are thus in the same category, and comparable.  Language is the 
ultimate
form of democracy.

>>>cheerleaders.  Each attractive in their own way, cackling about how 
each of
>>>the other girls is ugly.  Btw, Character assassination is a fallacy of
>>>debate.  Even if Microsoft was the worst product in history and Bill 
Gates
>>>the Anti-Christ, none of that would make Linux a better product.
>Character assassination is one mainstay of rhetoric, a valid and 
reasonable skill
>and tactic (so long as rhetoric and dialectic (debate) are not unduly 
confused).

"Character Assaination" sounds so cruel, lets call 'em "Zingers".

>>>>>Can someone explain this to me?  Is it
>>>>>because the people who have co-opted Linux are really socialists and 
the
>>>>>real agenda is to push their political scheme?!? (Duh)
>Only if the socialist society represented is U.K. Le Guin's _The 
Dispossessed_.
>I am anti-Microsoft, for now, because of the well-known political 
principle
>that one's resources and markets should never be allowed to fall under 
the
>domination of one group.

I am anti-Microsoft products basically because they present and inferior 
return
on investment.  If Apache+PHP+Horde+IMP lets me read my e-mail from 
anywhere in
the WORLD, the cost is $0, the maintance/upgrade is $0 (OK, I'll budget 
$85 
an hour for the two hour install). The cost of Exchange at >$100 per user 
(time say 200 users) OBVIOUSLY yields less return on my investment.  This 
is 
important because (me, as a daft socialist) realize that corporations 
exists
to make their stockholders money, and money spent on software is less 
money
going to the stockholders.  This is obvious.  

>>>...if DOS/Windows hadn't raised the PC to prominance, things like 
Linux may
>>>have never come into existence. (Possible, hypothesis contrary to fact 
I
>>>admit, but a plausible scenario).
>Interesting factoid: One story goes that IBM hired M$ to write DOS 
because IBM
>was moving away from bundled software in an attempt to countercheck the 
DOJ's
>antitrust suit. (Anyone hear different?) Part of the suit charged IBM's 
bundling
>practices were monopolistic.
>Later, as MS-DOS/Win3.1 spread like a... well, like a spreading thing, 
only fast,
>cheap clone makers popped up because AMI and others reverse-engineered 
IBM's PC
>BIOS. So on the one hand, we have the government, partially, to thank 
for cracking
>open the PC market. On the other hand, government today, under the 
influence of
>Corporate America and the DMCA, might not allow AMI to repeat its feat.

Limiting reverse-engineering will KILL technological innovation,  but in 
the end
I don't think that will happen.  European nations seem less inclined to 
enact such
foolishness. And the DMCA itself is highly contradictory (you can reverse 
engineer, 
and you can't) and that will have to be worked out in the courts.  DMCA 
explicitly
allows reverse engineering for interoperability,  but where does the term
"interoperability" end.  And if I reverse-engineer a product (saw WinY2k 
security
tokens) so it interoperates with Samba, and I tell someone else what I 
did so they
can do the same thing (and the most convenient method would be to show 
them my code)
is that covered under the under the interoperability clause?  Or is that 
a violation
of the product's owner's intellectual property?  This is a lot of the 
same question
as where the OS begins and applications begin.  If source code (my form 
of expression
for my interoperability solution), is speech then a lot of the 
non-reverse engineering
clauses seem to become rather hollow.  If it's not free speech it 
inhibits my ability
to achieve interoperability.  Bring on the law suits!!!