What shell we do with the Microsoft.....

[Austin Godber]

On Thu, Mar 30, 2000 at 09:02:05PM -0700, Mark R. Myers wrote:
> My vote is to do nothing and leave Microsoft alone.
> No one put a gun to anyone's head and said that they had to purchase a
> Microsoft product.

When you use a Microsoft product why do you do so?  My answer is: Because
someone else used some specific MS product which I can't get for my OS
and I need to share information with that person.  For example (Word/Excel
documents) other Office suite manufacturers try their best to keep up with
MS "improvements" in their document format and provide filters so you can
read MS documents.  But they are always a step or two behind so I am
forced to use an MS product to share.  The gun HAS been placed to my head.
I did not choose to buy a MS product I simply chose to work with someone
else who chose to buy an MS product.
	As for microsoft's business practices ... they are intended to
ensure that this gun is placed on as many temples as possible.  MS is much
like a one way hash function.  If someone uses an MS product anyone who
wants to share with them must also use an MS product ... examples:
	document formats (word, excel)
	Windows media files (ever find a way to convert back to an MPEG?)
	kerberos (we'll see about that one)
MS is in a particularly good position to apply "leverage."  With their
desktop OS and Office suite market share no one has a chance of competing
since there is little ability for sharing.  "Nobody gets fired for buying
IBM^H^H^H Microsoft)."  I know some people have been sucessful switching
to StarOffice or maybe someday back to WordPerfect Office ... but try
going to your Boss and saying: "We're shifting over to StarOffice but
we'll be unable to open those powerpoint presentations from XXX Marketing
and unfortunatly we will have to use ASCII text for all of our contracts
with our customers."
	Maybe I am exaggerating a bit here, but there IS a gun to my head.
And this is one area which could use some working on.  It would be nice if
every time MS (or anyone else for that matter) came out with some new
screwy "standard" format we (the non MS world, free software whatever)
could quickly reverse engineer that so that the free software world could
have access to all content which has gone through the MS hash function.
They screwed up kerberos so that you need an MS client and MS server?
Well figure out how and work around it ... uhhh ambitious I know ... not
to mention NEVER make undisclosed changes to proven cryptographic
protocols ... actually don't make any changes, unless you don't care if
they work or not.

KERBEROS REF: http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0003.html

> No tobacco company got someone addicted to nicotine against their will.

Including addatives which make them more addictive was admitted to by
tobacco companies they settled out of court for BILLIONS.  Oh, you who
smoke ... Did you start smoking with the intention of getting addicted to
nicotine?  (This 

> With the AOL/Time Warner merger, it will make them a much larger company
> than Microsoft and should provide some formidable competition.



> I like free software, but more importantly, I love free enterprise.
> I say, let the buying public decide, not a judge.

I simply dont think that the public is in a position to decide.  

> There were no lawsuits by Sony when the VHS format (invented by JVC) beat
> out Betamax, even though Betamax was a better product.

But did VHS win because JVC owned 90% of the TV market and distributed a
free VHS VCR with every TV purchase thus winning the battle?

I don't think splitting MS up will solve any problems though.  I think
we'd end up with 1-4 new .5 Trillion Dollar companies that Bill Gates has
intimate relationships with.  The only good thing I have heard of is to
"encourage" MS to publish the standards for some subset of their document
formats thus allowing others to make compatible software.  Perhaps the
gov't could require that all gov't offices/activities use programs whose
files have a published defined standard.  Maybe it's a large enough entity
to impact the situation.  But, what do I know.