Microsot vs Linux

[pasithea]

Here's a little snippet from this article.

Microsoft and Novell also agreed not to sue any customer who uses both operating systems.

The article itself is interesting, but I would like to use just this line as a topic for debate. For several months now, Microsoft HAS BEEN threatening to sue people for using linux. This is an important lesson for the stupid right-winger sorts, especially Libertarians.

This is TRUE free-market capitalism. Someone makes something better and cheaper, does it take over? No. You use your power to bury it. You threaten and intimidate people. You attack the makers, you attack the people who use it, you try to make your own version and undercut them, even if it's not as good, you can use your name and power against them.

This is how we end up with crap.

Comments

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

That's what happens in a completely unregulated economy.

Or, as Stephen Colbert said, "I think that the best government is the one that does least -- so I think that Iraq has the best government of all."

[kajarainbow.livejournal.com]

That's what happens with people overall. You see it in government, too. Lobbyists fishing for business subsidies and regulation intended to push down competitors. Politicians accepting bribes (campaign contributions for the more subtle, more blatant gifts for the less so).

I will note that the pro-free market people I know don't really argue that such things won't happen in a free market, but rather that they can only gain a resulting dominant position for so long, less long than they could with government lock-ins favoring them.

Myself, I simply haven't seen any economic solution truly free of unscrupulous action--communism, fascism, socialism, corporatism (of course, that is itself by its very definition corrupt; the government bestowing favors upon selected companies), free markets, all of them.

In short, I think that blaming the free market for such nasty practices is missing the real issues here. They don't require a hands-off approach by government; indeed, they often benefit from a hands-on approach.

[sci.livejournal.com]

According to Ballmer, Microsoft is to offer sales support of Suse Linux, the Linux version that Novell sells. The pact also calls for the two companies to find ways for computers to run both the Linux and Microsoft operating systems.

Ummm.. dual boot?

How exactly were they intending to sue customers in the first place? Is there something in the Windows EULA that states it has to be the only OS on the machine?

[centauress.livejournal.com]

To dual boot, you need to be able to tap into the booting sequence of the operating system.

That could break the DMCA, and it certainly breaks DMA of the operating system.

[gerbilsage.livejournal.com]

That's completely stunning.

- M.