🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Pine.SUN.3.90.97012...@spof01.gsfc.nasa.gov>,
Chris Raymond <ray...@spof01.gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:
> In my case it's because I believe in the "Anything But Microsoft" (ABM)
> theory of the market.  Microsoft has become a bloated, money-grubbing
> company that seems incapable of true innovation.  Anything that pushes
> them off that position is to be encouraged.

   That's roughly where I stand- with some variations on the theme. I
don't _care_ if they make bloated windows programs. I will never have to
use them as I constitute part of the MacOS userbase and personally support
developers on that platform to the best of my ability. But...

> Let me put it to you this way:  you probably believe that government
> control of the Internet is a bad thing.  What about de facto control
> of all the "on-ramps to the information superhighway" passing under
> the control of one company?

   ...this is where I draw the line.
   Such a course of action is _precisely_ the sort of thing Microsoft will
be evolving towards. I've already heard rumors of new Internet protocols
which they want to replace the existing ones with. This latter possibility
is not currently a serious threat- they are far from being able to
implement it, and the process of locking in sufficient users and servers
to make it self-sustaining is not a simple one. Basically, they'd need to
be able to replace internet backbones, which they are very far from doing.
However, they are capable of inching in that direction, and some of us see
them doing it and really can't just sit by and watch even the _hints_ of
such a thing beginning to happen.
   In this, the Mac people, the Unix people including the growing Linux
camp, the Amigans, the OS/2 people, and so on, are together whether we
know it or not. On the average all the systems _we_ are using promote
diversity. Macs read and write PC disks, Amigas can run Mac programs with
the right emulator, Linux can run some Windows programs, the Unices are
well practiced in working around the little differences between
implementations- the sum total of all this is diversity, and allows the
space for a new great product or OS to appear and subsist, to have a
chance at greatness.
   The only profitable course for Microsoft is to eradicate this. When you
have arguably 90% of the market where do you go? The financial rewards to
MS of destroying diversity are great. If they can lock down all the
desktops they can go after enterprise and intranets. If they can lock down
all the intranets they have a position of strength to go after the
servers. If they can lock down the servers they can go after the very
network protocols themselves... the end result goes well beyond 'computer
hobbyism'. I ask again, where do you go after you get 90% of the market?
Is Microsoft a company to say 'enough'? I think not. All the signs suggest
that given the chance, Microsoft will attempt to control not only all
networks anywhere, but all electronic content, and possibly areas only
indirectly related to desktop computers such as home and office
automation, security systems, traffic light automation... yet again, where
do you _go_ after you get all the computers, if you can do that?
   If this sounds like '1984' it's no accident. The plain and simple fact
is that Microsoft does _not_ stop expanding willingly, and so unless they
either blunder and fail (a strong possibility in coming years) or _are_
stopped, their sphere of influence will expand into areas you probably
hadn't even considered.
   Government regulation? OK, fine... now you have (let's postulate) a
worldwide computer network of servers, traffic lights, security cameras,
'controlled' by a government which basically does not _understand_
technical matters. Past a certain point government regulation is
ineffective- all it can do is ensure that your Microsoft Home Security
camera, linked to Microsoft's central servers, is easily affordable. As an
amusing sidelight, the government regulation could make unlinking the
camera from the putative server _illegal_. Can't have you running around
editing the data, can we? It would throw doubt onto the legal worth of
evidence you got with the camera, and that's why you got it, to film
possible burglars in a way that holds up in court. So the link from your
house to MS's central servers stays...
   Taken this far it sounds almost funny, farcically overblown. I'm aware
of that, I just ask again, where do you go if you're Microsoft and have
taken over all the computers? Do they seem like a company who would settle
for that? If so, why are they buying electronic _content_ as fast as they
can?

   The little pockets of MS-resistance are interesting but not terribly
impressive. They are not organized and they do not have a cohesive plan.

   Microsoft is, and does. It is not a technological plan at all-
technology is not their forte, they buy it wholesale. Their plan is best
described as _sociological_.

   _That_ is what I object to.

   Jinx_tigr
   (aka Chris Johnson)