From: Matthew James Gering <mgering@ecosystems.net>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 17:27:36 +0800
To: "Cypherpunks (E-mail)" <cypherpunks@cyberpass.net>
Subject: RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd)
Message-ID: <33CCFE438B9DD01192E800A024C84A19284710@mossbay.chaffeyhomes.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Petro wrote:
> >> Had Microsoft, for example, been required to publish their
> >> API's by the market we wouldn't be spending all this effort
>    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> >You state free-market and then you are *requiring* someone to 
> >do something? How do you resolve that contradiction? Require 
> >= Force != Free[dom]
> 
> Required as in purchasers large and small saying "You 
> don't include your source code, we won't buy it".

*Require* per say is a bad term for the use of economic power. But the
market didn't "require" Microsoft to do so (see Microsoft's financial
statements), so why should the government step in and force something
that is contrary to the market?

The rest of Jim's sentence read "we wouldn't be spending all this effort
and money on the current [Department of Justice] proceedings."

Which tells me that require means certain segments of the market telling
Microsoft you will do this or we will fuck you over with the borrowcrats
we own, which is exactly what has happened. The elements lacked
sufficient economic power to sway Microsoft, and they lacked sufficient
political power until they ganged up together. A loose coalition to gain
via use of DOJ antitrust force what they good not gain in a free market.
That is political power, not economic.
What is rather ironic is that the same Antitrust laws they are trying to
bash Microsoft with are what prevented them from forming an economic
(instead of under-the-table political) coalition that could have made
Microsoft change its practices without resorting to non-free-market
forces.

	Matt