From: Paul Spirito <berezina@qed.net>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 08:26:58 +0800
To: Fight Censorship <fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Bill Gates, the Bully Savior
In-Reply-To: <v02140b0bb04c1c1277c7@[206.221.201.7]>
Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19971022201255.007ba6a0@207.198.253.29>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 01:34 PM 10/22/97 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote:

>Or it's like buying a Ford Mustang that comes with brown carpets. Auto
>manufacturers "bundle" lots of things with their cars... Where's the DoJ
>when we need them?!?

Not sure where I stand on this. An OS is more like a highway than a car.
Or, better, a rail track -- since it imposes severe compatibility
requirements on those who want to utilize it.

Imagine that someone owned the rail track standard & had the exclusive
IP-rights to manufacture it. Non-standard tracks exist, but they don't go
nearly as many places. Then the company uses its position as owner of the
tracks to demand...

Oh screw it. I don't feel like going down analogy road any further. Detail
is the enemy of ideology, & the significant detail re: Microsoft is the
rare & happy (for Bill Gates) character of its business that it is more
important to have a standard OS than to have a quality OS. Therein lies his
billions, & it seems to me reasonable to scrutinize attempts to parlay that
counter-ordinary-market reality into dominance in other areas. Perhaps this
could be settled as the online service spat was: bundle Netscape with Win98
(& Opera, Arachne &c).

Or perhaps the US could nationalize Windows. Whoo-hoo! Therein lies a Plan...

Paul

Her name was Julie, she wore Batman sneakers,
And she laughed when she sang,
"Money can't buy me love!"
North of Petaluma where the 1 meets the 101 --
Oh man, we took a lot of drugs...