Randall Randall wrote:
>
> >
> > with the microsoft case we extropians are on the horns of a
> > nasty dilemma. would we prefer bill gates to gain an iron fisted
> > control over practically everything that has a keyboard, or
> > would we prefer big brother (in the form of the federal
> > trade commission) to step in? the comments of those outside
> > the u.s. are most welcome, for you too are effected. spike
Microsoft as a monopoly is bad for the general technology, although better for the diffusion of technology, as they tend to heavily concentrate on interfaces and usability.
An exemple of bad effects? Java, corba, html, ansi C, DR DOS, stacker... and how many others?
But as a programmer, I'm biased against them. And yet they do make some great products, their people are very good in what they are doing, only their general model of doing business (pay for bugs, improve because of bugs, bully the resellers, add faked warnings, vaporware...) is bad.
> Well, as someone who uses a PC with no microsoft software at
> all, I don't think that he'd have much control. :) With no
> intervention at all, I think that Windows will go the way of
> MacOS (which has fewer users now than Linux, IIRC). The only
> reason he got *that* much market share is A) marketing, and
> B) usability. When Linux can match those, it will quickly
> overwhelm Windows, since it already has reliability, stable
> software (mostly), and a fanatical user base.
I'm all for it. Open Source Software is a great chance for a new model of development, and generally speaking as an economic model.
Manu.