Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 14:12:58 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: Gary Kline <kline@tera.tera.com> Cc: freebsd@atipa.com (Atipa), freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why we should support Microsoft... Message-ID: <13887.895612378@time.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 19 May 1998 11:37:15 PDT." <199805191837.LAA17231@athena.tera.com>
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> That's well and good, Jordan, but what M$ overloads into > their OS isn't the crux of the matter. What is is > how Microsoft forces vendors to handle only their products. Which has nothing at all to do with setting an unwonted legal precedent over what M$ is allowed to put in their OS and should never have been bundled into the same argument. If the DOJ wants to attack specific legal agreements with Dell or Compaq or whatever in regard to distribution then fine - there have *always* been restrictions on how one can buy and sell things in the common market which have very little to do with intellectual freedom (I don't think that anyone would argue that my freedom to buy Apple shares, for example, would be unduly infringed by the SEC if they found out I was getting insider info and shut me down). What I object to here is similar to what I object to about the war on drugs here in the U.S.: You don't give a man the right to knock your house down arbitrarily and at any time just because you'd like to hire him to get rid of your mice - that's clearly stupid. When we gave up our right to protest search and seizure without due cause in order that other people could go after the problem of a bunch of lawyers and actors sticking white powder up their noses, that was stupid too. Now we want the DOJ to tell Microsoft just what does and does not constitute a "fair" operating system so that we can be saved from yet another problem who's magnitude will be dwarfed by the problems resulting from its "solution" - just where does this stupidity end, anyway? Did we all just ingest a lot of lead paint chips in the 50's and 60's as children or what? :-) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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