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!!!