🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3300C7...@pass.wayne.edu>,
Michael Edelman  <m...@pass.wayne.edu> wrote:
>Mark Sutton wrote:
>> 
>> Ketil Z Malde <ke...@imr.no> writes:
>> 
>> This is exactly correct.  And why was "the combined marketing of just about
>> every other electronics manufacturer" behind VHS?  Because JVC (the inventor
>> of VHS) licensed the technology FOR FREE to any manufacturer demonstrating
>> that it was adhering to a certain minimum compatibility standard.
>> 
>> The PC enjoyed it's success for exactly the same reason.  IBM let any
>> manufacturer copy the architecture FOR FREE.  Had either Apple or Comadore
>> (Manufacturer of the Amiga) done the same thing, instead of leaving
>> their architecture proprietary, one of those architectures may very well
>> have emerged as the standard.
> 
>Bingo. Amazing how many people come up with nonsense like the "path
>dependancy" arguments when the facts are so clearly laid out.
>
>--mike

Quick history lesson though: IBM didn't "let" anyone copy the architecture
for free. They, for reasons of cost, built a very open platform with a BIOS
that was relatively easy to reverse-engineer (as opposed to the Apple II or
Mac ROMs, the former being clearly off-limits after a lawsuit or two, and
the latter never really being sucessfully cloned; I don't understand the
reasons precisely).

Anyways, IBM never licensed its platform or any sort of nonsense like that.
They just unwittingly built a very clonable platform. They eventually lost
control of the platform specs too, about the time the first 386s came out.
Nowadays Intel has as much "control" over the hardware as anyone, and
Microsoft is pretty clearly dictating the path of the software.

I do think that Apple's decision to license the Mac's hardware was the
right one, and for more or less the reasons the other posters gave above.
Open is generally more fun than proprietary. In the case of Linux, it may
be a little too fun for the average consumer.

Share and Enjoy,  
--
Ryan Cousineau, Fool, Catholic, Motorcyclist Errant. rcou...@sfu.ca
http://www.sfu.ca/~rjcousin/
"I hate you. And you can quote me on that" --Paul Jungwirth