You develop the problem well.
I am entirely against patent protection (another government antic that costs us).
Microsoft surely built up its massive capitalization by using its patent and copyright protection. Although it has often in the past destroyed the competition by dubious maneuvering, it may be true that now it has to be more circumspect.
Meantime Microsoft tells us there are 500 sites on the web where MS products can be downloaded for free - cracked, hacked, or with serial numbers - perhaps a rebellion against the patent system.
Microsoft practically destroyed Netscape by offering its browser free. Netscape eventually began offering a free browser, but it was probably too late. I don't use the Microsoft browser. Until last month, I used Opera. I wasn't keen on the free Mozilla.
It has been using it's power for a long while. It stole Spinrite, was sued and lost, whereupon it bought the program. Geoworks came out with a pretty good multitasking OS but no-one would use it under threat from MS.
Windows seems always to have been a knocked together program that MS charged us for beta-testing. The company kept quiet about 3.11 (Workgroups) which was a far better program than 3.1. I used it for a long time, but I have a feeling that if more people had used it they would be less inclined to move up to the next "improvement".
A useful percentage of corporations are already using Linux. I rather think many are happy to get out from under MS.
For the last few weeks I've been using Phoenix, which is a free Mozilla spin-off. It's very good and is constantly improving. In fact, something that might appeal to you is their request for help in improving the program.
Try the Phoenix Project at:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/
In any event, you'll like the browser.
Harry
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Brad wrote:
Harry Pollard wrote:
[snip]
> A free market would break these lumbering monopolies, though monopolies
> based on natural resources demand a different and even more radical solution.
[snip]
I'm curious:
Would a free market break the power of Microsoft and other
quasi-monopolies (quasi because nobody gave them a legal
right to be a monopoly -- weren't these things called "patents"?) --
woiuld a free market break the power of Microsoft and
other quasi-monopolies thru competing in the marketplace?
Or would a free market break the power of the quasi
monopolies thru regulation and judicial/police enforcement?
People say that Linux competes with Microsoft Windows operating
system. But Microsoft is operating with its hands tied.
If Microsoft was free to compete in the market
my guess is they would
probably leverage their massive capitalization to
make Linux people wish they were Netscape, and
make Netscape people glad their company was already
no longer worth Microsoft's interest.
The way I see it, on a level playing field, the person
who achieves a small price/production efficiency
advantage can leverage it to keep increasing his
advantage until he wins and has driven all his
competitors (except maybe those with whom he
has entered into truces, AKA olgopolistic agreements)
out of business. And if the first persons to
gain a small advantage fails in this telos,
Darwinean Evolution will keep trying until
one does succeeds (I'm arguing that a market
is a meta-stable configuration of forces, i.e.,
a system that tends to fall apart rather than
to fall together AKA sustain itself, if left to itsself.)
Now, of course, if the winner is REALLY STUPID AND
GROSSLY INCOMPETENT like IBM became after the
Watsons departed from the scene, then startups
can do a David on Goliath. But a Goliath who
keeps in shape and hopefully even coopts some
Davids should be for all
practical purposes invincible. Imagine, for
instance, if the U.S. military understood military
strategy and tactics as well as AlQaeda does?
I hear you saying: "Impossible! And if AlQaeda
ever wins they will become apopleptic too!"
But that's why Jack Boyd interests me: The U.S.
military had at least one person who
knew how to make the Giant be also nimble; and
he did have a non-negligible impact on moving the Giant
in the direction of re-adaptation to reality.
And he believed a large part of the way to
do this is to treat the people who make up the
Giant in such a way as to arouse their
genuine loyalty and commitment (do you think
that paying people as little as possible
is a way to accomplish this?).
--
Let us grant for the sake of imaginative
exploration (to imagine bad things in order
that we may avoid living them...),
that all forms of social organization do
tend toward an integration of ossification and
osteoporosis. If that is the case, we
should thank our lucky stars that, at last, George W Bush
and Osama bin Laden (with a little help from
Saddam Hussein...) have teamed up to bring
us the blessing that only Europe and Asia --
esp. Germany and Japan -- enjoyed in the 1940s.
The last time America had such good fortune was
Georgia and Virginia in 1864, when Generals
Sherman and Sheridan invented modern scorched
earth warfare.
\brad mccormick
****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
