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Date:      Thu, 21 May 1998 08:26:30 -0700
From:      Josef Grosch <jgrosch@superior.mooseriver.com>
To:        "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb@FreeBSD.ORG>, "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
Cc:        fpawlak@execpc.com, hasty@rah.star-gate.com, kline@tera.tera.com, freebsd@atipa.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Enough already! (Re: Why we should support Microsoft...)
Message-ID:  <19980521082629.B25066@mooseriver.com>
In-Reply-To: <199805211256.FAA02436@hub.freebsd.org>; from Jonathan M. Bresler on Thu, May 21, 1998 at 05:56:41AM -0700
References:  <21093.895690380@time.cdrom.com> <199805211256.FAA02436@hub.freebsd.org>

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On Thu, May 21, 1998 at 05:56:41AM -0700, Jonathan M. Bresler wrote:
> Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
> > FWIW, I don't believe in anti-trust laws either.  If it's in mankind's
> > nature to create and support robber barons in their pillaging then
> > mankind deserves whatever it gets, period.  This whole legal system
> > for regulating our own worst impulses has always struck me as
> > equivalent to hitting oneself repeatedly with a hammer and then
> > pointing to the first-aid kit every time someone comes up and asks you
> > what you're doing about this weird compulsion you have to harm
> > yourself.  It's not solving the fundamental problem and it's not going
> > to get any closer to solving the fundamental problem as you make it
> > more and more complex and intrusive.  Maybe that makes me an
> > Anarchist.  I don't really mind. :-)
> 
> 	the fundamental problem is not solvable, at least as far
> 	as i can see.  anti-trust laws allieviate some of the
> 	results of the fundamental problem, no more than that.
> 

yes, yes. Enough of this. Bill Gates and company are a monopoly, yes. They
are in volation of US anti-trust laws, yes, The justice department is
setting a bad presidence trying to tell microsoft how to write software,
yes. All these things are true, so what were you planing on doing about
this? Quoting Ann Ryan is not a solution. Ann Ryan was a 3rd rate novelist
and a great one for not letting facts and common scene get in the way her
crackpot theory's. To paraphrase, the quasi-fascist, Ubermench rantings of a
3rd rate novelist is no basis for a system of government. 

All this whining and posturing remind me of kids complaining about the rules
of a game. My kids were big on this; they would start to play Monopoly and
then when things were not going their way they would complain about the
rules. Sorry guys, but here in America, in the closing years of the 20th
century, this is the way things are. You are unhappy about the way things
are? Fine, what are you planing on doing about it? When was the last time
any one of you wrote or called your elected representative. You say he/she is
unresponsive to to you? Fine, elect another one. Thats right, fire the
bozo. In theory they are employees of "We the people". Go out and _WORK_ to
change things. If you are not part of the solution then you are part of the
problem. (My past is beginning to show) 

The fact is this is not going to end tomorrow. This case is going to drag
on for YEARS. IBM and DOJ slugged it out for 13 years. Say what you will,
and any of you who know me know there is no love in my heart for microsoft
but you have to give them this, they do not back down, they stand their
ground. 

What is really pissing me off about this entire thread is all of you have
missed the fact this this is a golden opportunity to advance FreeBSD. In case
you have not noticed, FreeBSD is in microsoft's cross-hairs. 

At the last BAFUG meeting I had a conversation with the head tech person at
a large ISP here in the bay area know for it's use of FreeBSD. He told me
the story of how microsoft was putting serious pressure on ISPs to drop
Unix in general and switch to NT. microsoft was at the same time going
behind this ISP's back and telling their suppliers and major customers that
this ISP was switching to NT and when were they (the customer) going to
switch to NT. microsoft was then telling this large ISP that all of the
ISP's customers were switching to NT and the customers wanted to know when
was the ISP going to switch. I have heard this from other people and other
ISPs. 

This combined with NT's disaster over at HotMail leads me to this;
microsoft knows who we are and they are coming after us. NT's growth is not
coming at the expense of Unix but at the expense of Novell. microsoft is
not having much luck in the server and/or ISP market. Not as much as they
would want. We, along with Linux, are doing very well in the small to
medium size ISP. microsoft knows this and they know that NT does not scale
well and so they don't bother much with the very large ISPs like AOL. Where
they are beginning to push hard is with the small and med size ISP and that
means coming after FreeBSD and Linux.

So, rather then spend all out time theorizing about anti-trust and
Objectivism (or what ever they are calling Ann Ryan's bullshit these days)
lets focus on how we can make the FreeBSD the OS of choice for the ISP and
server market and fuck microsoft & the horse they rode in on. 


Josef "maybe I should switch to decaf" Grosch

-- 
Josef Grosch           | Another day closer to a |    FreeBSD 2.2.7
jgrosch@MooseRiver.com |   Micro$oft free world  | UNIX for the masses


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