From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Jun 29 22:32:47 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.169.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9C60C37B428 for ; Fri, 29 Jun 2001 22:32:38 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) Received: from tedm.placo.com (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [206.29.168.154]) by mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) with SMTP id f5U5WYl18684; Fri, 29 Jun 2001 22:32:35 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: "Shannon Hendrix" , Subject: RE: Lets not bash Windows or M$ at every opportunity {was: FreeBSD and Microsoft} Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 22:32:33 -0700 Message-ID: <000f01c10126$10525220$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 In-Reply-To: <20010629230718.C3383@widomaker.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 Importance: Normal Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Shannon Hendrix >Sent: Friday, June 29, 2001 8:07 PM >To: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: Lets not bash Windows or M$ at every opportunity {was: >FreeBSD and Microsoft} > > >On Fri, Jun 29, 2001 at 11:08:03PM +0300, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: > >> If by 'better products' you mean Windows, then I'd have to be the >> devil's advocate and suggest that Windows does have some good things >> that Linux and/or FreeBSD don't have. For instance, they do have >> support for more multimedia file formats. >[snip] > >This is by design. They create a constant stream of new and different >media formats, and refuse to disclose the details so that all platforms >can easily use them. There is no reason for this other than your basic, >predatory, monopolistic tactics. > No, that's not it - the problem here is that every company in the Multimedia game thinks that creating a proprietary media format is their ticket to riches. If Microsoft had anything to say about it there would be only one media format - they are just being dragged along like the rest of the users. Frankly, I fail to see what is so exciting about Multimedia on a PC anyway. Sure, games are fun but gaming isn't multimedia, it's gaming. It seems to me that so far the only people that have ever built a sustainable business model with multimedia are the porno sites. Perhaps that is who is really secretly funding all of the development on the new streaming video formats because there's nobody else in the business that is making any money doing it. > >The government would never do that, because then the sums of money >thrown to the pigs in DC would also grow smaller. You need to think more >like a CongressCritter(TM) sometimes... :) > Actually the sums probably would get larger because if you bust up one big company you get several smaller ones all of whom are competing with each other and so they all now have to pay the congresspeople to lobby against each other. However, in the US anti-trust law, despite what people think, isn't intended to be used to bust up large companies. Instead it's intended to create a _threat_ that the large companies will be busted up, which gives the trust regulators in Washington power to force large companies to divest from particular markets. What has happened with Microsoft is that before the trial they wern't legally a monopoly, and so when the trust regulators attempted to tell them to divest from particular markets, Microsoft basically told them to "fuck off" This was most unusual because just about all other large companies in US history have quietly submitted to the trust regulators when it became obvious to a blind monkey that they were too big. Even Intel did this several years ago with the FTC - why do you think that AMD is still in existence? Since Microsoft refused to submit, it had most of the Beltway scratching their heads attempting to figure out what to do about it. It was up to Justice to take Mr. Gates out to the woodshed and give him a whipping, which they pretty much did. Note that Microsoft is now calling for government settlement, whereas before they claimed that the government had no authority over them. Now, from most of Washington's point of view, things are back to normal, Microsoft's fate is in the hands of the governmental regulators where it should have been from the beginning. It will be interesting to see what happens, because Bill Gates has had a history of weaseling out of agreements. This particular agreement is going to be a political nuclear bomb, and whatever bureaucrat in Washington attempts to negotiate it will be throwing their career away because nobody is going to like it. You are sure not going to see the Bush administration get involved with the Senate elections coming up. I think there will be tremendous pressure to have the courts do the dirty work. I don't think that anyone can quite imagine what will happen if in the next 5 years Microsoft is back in anti-trust court again, but I can say that nobody then will stick their necks out for them. Their fate is equivalent to the criminal who was about to be executed in the electric chair, and in the final hour the governor pardoned them. If they so much as step out of line again, they are dead. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message