From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Aug 6 7:44:44 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from picard.skynet.be (picard.skynet.be [195.238.3.131]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4854037B401 for ; Mon, 6 Aug 2001 07:44:38 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from brad.knowles@skynet.be) Received: from [194.78.241.123] ([194.78.241.123]) by picard.skynet.be (8.11.2/8.11.2/Skynet-OUT-2.11) with ESMTP id f76EgYY27273; Mon, 6 Aug 2001 16:42:34 +0200 (MET DST) (envelope-from ) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: bs663385@pop.skynet.be Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <20010806150653.C96762@jake.akitanet.co.uk> References: <20010806142544.A64348@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <20010806150653.C96762@jake.akitanet.co.uk> Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 16:40:44 +0200 To: Paul Robinson , j mckitrick From: Brad Knowles Subject: Re: How did the MSFT monopoly start? Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 3:06 PM +0100 8/6/01, Paul Robinson wrote: > Once you own the industry standard, it's not that hard to bring OEMs into > line with restrictive licenses regarding competing OSes, and before you know > it, you have effectively a monopoly. :-) No, there were competitors like DR-DOS, and I recall at least one or two others as well. For a while, Microsoft was perfectly happy to produce customized versions of MS-DOS for various companies and otherwise bend over backwards to serve them, and as the same company that produced PC-DOS, they got the default call when another company wanted to create a clone. However, at some point, they stopped creating customized versions of MS-DOS, and started being more restrictive on what licensees could do with the product. I believe that the original questioner would be interested in knowing when that change happened, and under what circumstances. I'd be kind of interested in that answer, too. -- Brad Knowles, H4sICIFgXzsCA2RtYS1zaWcAPVHLbsMwDDvXX0H0kkvbfxiwVw8FCmzAzqqj1F4dy7CdBfn7 Kc6wmyGRFEnvvxiWQoCvqI7RSWTcfGXQNqCUAnfIU+AT8OZ/GCNjRVlH0bKpguJkxiITZqes MxwpSucyDJzXxQEUe/ihgXqJXUXwD9ajB6NHonLmNrUSK9nacHQnH097szO74xFXqtlbT3il wMsBz5cnfCR5cEmci0Rj9u/jqBbPeES1I4PeFBXPUIT1XDSOuutFXylzrQvGyboWstCoQZyP dxX4dLx0eauFe1x9puhoi0Ao1omEJo+BZ6XLVNaVpWiKekxN0VK2VMpmAy+Bk7ZV4SO+p1L/ uErNRS/qH2iFU+iNOtbcmVt9N16lfF7tLv9FXNj8AiyNcOi1AQAA To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message