From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Nov 10 15:37:40 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from serenity.mcc.ac.uk (serenity.mcc.ac.uk [130.88.200.93]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4EB0C153E4 for ; Wed, 10 Nov 1999 15:37:33 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jcm@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org) Received: from dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org ([130.88.200.97]) by serenity.mcc.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 1.92 #3) id 11lhIz-000Itp-00; Wed, 10 Nov 1999 23:37:33 +0000 Received: from localhost (jcm@localhost) by dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id XAA39645; Wed, 10 Nov 1999 23:37:32 GMT (envelope-from jcm@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 23:37:32 +0000 (GMT) From: Jonathon McKitrick To: Alfred Perlstein Cc: Angus Scott-Fleming , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Judge: "Gates Was Main Culprit" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Well said, as usual, Alfred ! :-) On Wed, 10 Nov 1999, Alfred Perlstein wrote: >On Wed, 10 Nov 1999, Jonathon McKitrick wrote: > >> On Wed, 10 Nov 1999, Angus Scott-Fleming wrote: >> >> >On 7 Nov 99, at 17:40, Pedro Fernando Giffuni wrote: >> > >> >> Isn't it a good time to be a FreeBSD user? :-). >> >> >> >> I read the complete document(WOW, I wasn't aware of everything there). >> >> Considering a Judge wrote this, I think M$ is in big trouble. >> > >> >I think the whole computer business is in Big Trouble - once the >> >government steps in and starts telling us how to run our businesses, >> >innovation will drop to a crawl as bus.people try to 2nd-guess the govt >> >regulators. >> > >> >Not saying MS is/was right, but my solution has always been not to do >> >business with people whose business ethics are lousy. This is the only >> >ethical way to deal with people like that. Bringing the power of >> >government ("the mob") down on them is a short-term fix, but it's a >> >long-term problem as others will drag the govt. into this arena and >> >IMHO we'll all suffer for it. >> > >> >Open-source doesn't suffer from this problem because you can go >> >elsewhere for support when you don't like the ethics of the business >> >that's using/selling it. >> >> Unfortunately, you *can't* go anywhere else if you want the windows OS and >> software that works best with it. If windows had at least given its >> source code to developers, they could have improved it. Much like MSDOS, >> PCDOS, IBMDOS, COMPAQDOS, etc. But no, they kept it all a big secret. I >> think if windows went open source, it would be optimized and enhanced so >> quickly, and the public would benefit. > >I don't think this is a fair assesment of what the case was about, >MS has been accused of several things: > >1) paying off lead developers of competeing software so they leave > the competing firm >2) buying into a market, then using it's push to penalize companies > using a competator's services in the markets that is already has > a foothold in >3) penalizing companies that have any association with a competator > by raising license fees and withholding products. >4) adding gratitous incompatibilities to thier OS to break competator's > competing programs such as browsers and office suites. > >That is what was unfair about MS's alleged business practices. > >In point of open source, I don't think anyone wants to look at code >little with variables named ThisIsMyFunkyWidget_32compat, it would >potentially set the whole opensource community back 10 years when just >the site of such source could turn one into a raving, frothing madman. > >:) > >-Alfred > > -jonathon To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message