David Blomstrom wrote: > "Everytime someone compares MS's behavior with some > less controversial criminal behavior, you act like > they > accused MS of holding people up at gunpoint." > > Screwing literally millions of consumers and taxpayers > and holding entire schools hostage is far worse than > holding up an individual at gunpoint. The name > Microsoft is virtually synonymous with crime, even if > many people are too stupid to recognize it as crime - > or the courts are too corrupt or inefficient to > convict Bill Gates for many of his crimes.
A) I don't much care if people wander off topic from time to time - that's what filters are for. But as a matter of general courtesy is it too much to ask that the subject line be so marked? B) Rhetoric is not Reality. "Crime" has a very specific definition. It always has one or more of Fraud, Force, or Threat. No such case against Microsoft has ever been levied. Just because *you* don't like market outcomes doesn't make it a "crime". Here is some *thoughtful* counterpoint (instead of the ignorant foaming that has characterized this thread): http://www.cato.org//pubs/pas/pa352.pdf http://reason.com/0111/fe.dk.antitrusts.shtml http://www.cato.org//pubs/pas/pa-405es.html C) Hate Microsoft all you want. But those of us old enough to have actually done this for than 10 minutes recall the days where every single hardware vendor was also a unique software and systems vendor. Absent a Microsoft/Intel-style de facto standard, you'd never have seen the ascent of Linux or Open Source as it exists today. Drivers are painful to write, so oddball or vendor-specific systems don't get them very rapidly. Microsoft/Intel commoditized the space whether you like it or not. They (perhaps unintentionally) created the computer equivalent of "standard connectors" as found in audio systems. D) Your ranting is puerile. If you are going to waste bandwidth on OT matters, at least make it intelligent and/or interesting. E) I prefer Unix and its variants. However, I (and you) are direct beneficiaries of Microsoft's success. F) There are *more* choices than ever today for both systems and applications software. Stop foaming, and go do something useful with them ... No Cheers, -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tim Daneliuk [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list