Re: Microsoft vs Linux, Monopoly vs upstart

[Paul Bramscher <brams006_nospam@xxxxxxx>]

Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> __/ [ mlw ] on Monday 25 December 2006 16:18 \__
>
> > ray wrote:
> >
> > > On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 22:23:31 -0500, mlw wrote:
> > >
> > > > No monopoly has ever had 100 percent control, but has had "enough"
> > > > control limit or eliminate viable competition while dictating pricing.
> > > > That was the story with Standard Oil as well as Microsoft Corp.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Microsoft, despite conviction sentencing being reduced to nothing under
> > > > the current corrupt administration, has been proved and convicted of
> > > > using their monopoly position to reduce or eliminate competition.
> > > I'm sure we'd have seen much better results under previous corrupt
> > > administrations.
> > I get  kick out of clinton bashers, they accuse the administration of being
> > corrupt, but all they have ever done with the vast investigatory resources
> > of the U.S. government is to find that he had an affair with a consenting
> > adult and tried not to let that be public knowledge, like 75%~80% of all
> > other married men.
> >
> > Clinton was a great president by all measures.

A well financed right-wing fringe kept hammering against Clinton, but 
for all the wrong reasons.  Most everyone who comes to power, including 
the Clintons, should be help in some healthy suspicion.  Who are their 
backers?  Unless you're on the payroll of big energy, big bombs, big 
pharm, big insurance, a foreign country, etc. you'll most likely never 
make it to D.C.

But the fact that they nailed Clinton on a technicality (lying under 
oath) on something as trivial as a sexcapade, does tell us something: 
they had to reach exceedingly far, well into the realm of pettiness.

> The current administration makes Clinton look like mother Teresa. I know many
> people who have been missing the 90's for a very long time (and not only
> because of the bubble).

> Let aside the gas emissions, the broken treaty with the Russians and, more
> recently, censorship in newspapers and scientific papers (on environmental
> issues in particular... the oil tycoons have intere$t$ and impact). It's
> worrisome and sad to see how rationale can be superceded by one person's
> (with group pressure) goals. It's neither democracy nor (healthy)
> capitalism. It sometimes seems like a perfectly self-controlling and
> supervising system can evolve to adopt concepts from totalitarian nations.
> The paraellels in the IT industry is, of course, gradual changes to the law
> that's perceive as illegitimate. Changing civilisation. One goalpost at a
> time...

I'm wondering if it'll ever be illegal to write your own code, compile 
your own programs, or run open source software in general.

This is a legitimate question to ask, since there are a number of 
parallels between the settling of the Americas and the settling of 
digital space.  Early barons -- and people pushed aside -- for starters.

There was also this issue of the Commons in Europe and elsewhere 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons).

Basically, it's a crime for people to hunt, fish, gather, etc. unless 
they purchase land -- or do so on publicly-owned property under certain 
guidelines.  You can't just go out and dig up a tree in public space, 
and transplant it to your yard.  Instead, you must do all of your 
rearrangement-of-matter in the economic grid or marketplace: it's 
perfectly fine to get a tree from a tree farm if you paid the asking 
price.  It's a system built on conquest, and ensuring that most people 
are propertyless -- forced to work, and buy what they need from a wider 
marketplace, where leeches are there to skim off profit twice (first, by 
paying you less than what your labor is actually worth), and secondly by 
charging you more for the product than what it actually look to build 
it.  I'd have no problem if the craftsman himself were earning the 
difference, but unless you're buying hand-made items in your local 
region, that's simply not the case.

Linux and the free software movement defies this economic-fascistic 
model in that there is no skimming, and no limit on the 
hunting/gathering of the digital space.

So I think it's a legitimate question to ask: when will the fascists 
make open source software and compiling your own code illegal?  They 
basically did it in the bricks & mortar world.