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Date:      Mon, 18 May 1998 18:38:26 -0700
From:      "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
To:        Atipa <freebsd@atipa.com>
Cc:        freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Why we should support Microsoft... 
Message-ID:  <6671.895541906@time.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 18 May 1998 12:02:55 MDT." <Pine.BSF.3.96.980518120049.4032A-100000@altrox.atipa.com> 

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> I know I am going out on a limbe here, but I do not think the Justice
> Department should make any decisions on the software industry, and I think
> Microsoft should be allowed to ship whatever the hell it wants. 

I agree totally.  The people who are so enthusiastically
rah-rah-rahing about the idea of the Justice dept. pissing in
Microsoft's breakfast cereal by successfully arguing that including a
browser with an OS constitutes some sort of anti-trust violation are,
not to put too fine a point on it, being complete idiots.  By
endorsing such a precedent, they are essentially building the
government a legal assault weapon, aiming it at part of the software
industry and then naively assuming that it won't be turned in their
direction once it's done shooting at Microsoft.

We're already in a hell of our own making over the issue of software
patents (we asked for these laws, the goverment said yes, now we've
screwed ourselves) and some people would now like to essentially say
that the U.S. government, those wonderfully intelligent people who
brought us export restrictions on cryptographic software which can be
printed on a T-shirt and walked out of the country, should judge just
which features a programmer can and cannot put into his or her OS.

Frankly, putting IE into Win95 was the next logical step for Microsoft
to make and I applaud Bill for having the guts to give the government
the finger on this one.  This government has no business saying what
Microsoft can or cannot put into its software products and they have
no business saying what can go into MY products either.  I'm at least
smart enough to see that I can't argue for my freedom and deny
Microsoft's without becoming a complete hypocrite in the process.
Think about it, folks.  The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily
your friend.

- Jordan

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