Subject: RE: MS targets Linux
From: Jan Zumwalt (jwzumwalt@neatinfo.com)
Date: Fri Jan 11 2002 - 13:48:22 AKST
George Washington & Thomas Jefferson were both in favor of hanging horse
thieves- they can't be all that bad!
JZ
-----Original Message-----
From: aklug-bounce@aklug.org [mailto:aklug-bounce@aklug.org]On Behalf Of
civileme
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 12:04 PM
To: arthur@corlissfamily.org; Greg Jetter
Cc: aklug@aklug.org
Subject: Re: MS targets Linux
On Friday 11 January 2002 10:23 am, arthur@corlissfamily.org wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Jan 2002, Greg Jetter wrote:
> > I am still wondering , with this kind of information avaible why the
> > DOJ and the courts look the other way ? It must be nice to be richer
> > than God and buy off everyone that gets in your way.
>
> The DoJ looks the other way because our government just swung to the
> opposite extreme last year. We went from a socialist, anti-capitalist
> regime to a ultra-business-friendly capitalist regime. The little guy
> isn't going to catch a break under either. :-P I say we all start
> gene-splicing in our backyards, and clone some of our founding fathers.
> Maybe they can stop the madness. . .
>
> > MS will never suceed , when the last time you heard of an MS Windows
> > Install fest ? or active user group ? , they have lost the grass roots
> > population , it the DOJ could break all of those marketing agrrements
> > with OEM's , MS would be history....
>
> I don't think it's that simple. I know all too many MS cheerleaders --
> people who have been hoodwinked into thinking that being hacked and
> rebooting daily is *normal*, and hence, not MS' fault. I swear, the
> marketing dept. at MS must be half-staffed with vampires. They're always
> working on some new angle.
>
> --Arthur Corliss
> Bolverk's Lair -- http://arthur.corlissfamily.org/
> Digital Mages -- http://www.digitalmages.com/
> "Live Free or Die, the Only Way to Live" -- NH State Motto
Clone our founding fathers?
Like Jefferson to take over the Patent Office? Or Franklin to develop the
NMP generator and place one near Redmond? I think you would definitely get
more fun than you can imagine... The founding fathers are revolutionaries
who want to see the little guy with a chance....
Or maybe Sam Adams to rob the banking system of a chunk of its wealth--now
THAT would be far-reaching in its implications, particularly if records were
corrupted in the process.....
Remember that many of our founding fathers are inventors and scientists
turned politician. A single angry scientist these days with the correct
approach to our weaknesses could destroy civilization as we know it. A few
banded together might manage to turn things upside down without a resulting
collapse.
But I don't think we need to worry overly much. If this news article is
true, it means we need to get out of the shadow of a falling giant. .NET is
there to shore up failing revenues from the "Microsoft Tax". And no matter
how asset-rich Microsoft is--when any company starts to shove money at
problems instead of inventiveness, that is the beginning of the end.
And MS does not have the worlds best engineers, only the greediest. If it
becomes clear that things aren't going so well, a massive cash-out of stock
options could occur, leaving Microsoft without enough cash to prop open its
doors.
But look at it this way,,, Microsoft has expenses of x dollars a month, and
has never needed to acquire the management skills to reduce them. It's
revenues have been x+y dollars a month until the slowdown last year in new
computer sales, when they were reduced by about 20%. If y<.2(x+y), we are
observing the frantic activities of a falling giant, the IBM syndrome
repeated. After all, no one stays top dog forever, and we came close to
losing IBM altogether.
I can't think of a dumber move than upsetting a whole bunch of linux
enthusiasts, by trying to crush linux as if it is a commercial competition.
True, they might get my employer, and RH and SuSE and Caldera, but they
would
play a different game trying to eliminate Connectiva (in use in Brazil's
schools and businesses) or Debian (no obvious financial leverage).
Plus the chances of being able to hire the quality engineers they used to be
able to command falls significantly as they make enemies in Universities
around the world.
No one seems to have good numbers on the market penetration in Korea, China,
Indonesia, India, Malaya, and so on, but I suspect linux has more than
parity
with pirated copies of Microsoft. I base this on the number from that
country on IRC running linux clients versus the number on IRC and AOL
Instant
messenger running Windows. Microsoft's "strategies" mean nothing to people
who cannot afford to pay for them.
And now Visual Basic programmers frustrated with its limitations can use a
_really_ powerful BASIC (so much so that its compiler is written in the
language) on windows and move seamlessly with the same widgets and
drag'N'drop coding to linux -- (XBasic--the ugly language. Visual Basic
skills will translate) The enterprise version of the (GPL) Xbasic package
plus the source code is available on better terms than VB, and the LGPL
license on the libraries allows proprietary software to be written using it.
Crush linux? Reminds me of a mouse running up an elephant's leg with
murderous intent.
Civileme
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