Re: If you could design a $300 homecomputer today, what would you choose?

[David Ogg <davidogg@nc.rr.com>]

In article <3B63844B.B6A8FDA3@inebraska.com>, millers@inebraska.com 
says...
> David Ogg wrote:
> 
> > In article <0avtj9.ed4.ln@ridcully.freenet.co.uk>, spike1@freenet.co.uk
> > says...
> >
> > > David Ogg <davidogg@nc.rr.com> did eloquently scribble:
> > > > What would the government do to Linux if Linux had "embraced and
> > > > extended" or anything else Microsoft has done? I wonder. Could they do
> > > > anything, even?
> > >
> > >
> > > Linux COUDN'T embrace and extend... Embrace and extend involves not only
> > > adopting and corrupting an accepted standard... It means keeping the
> > > additions and changes to that standard secret. (Or refusing to allow it's
> > > use elsewhere).
> >
> > Ok, not a good example, I'll pick another one, what if Linux integrated a
> > free web browser into it's interface? What if (hypothetically) this put
> > someone out on the street. What could the government do?
> 
> Nothing. Linux is not the product of a company that has a monopoly. So none of
> these questions apply.

The question was hypothetical, the situation posed in a hypothetical 
question need not be fact. The question I asked was "what if", and it's 
an interesting question, what if Netscape decided to become available 
free with every linux disrobution and became the almost exclusive 
browser? what could the government do?
 
> > Should they do
> > anything?
> >
> > > Kerberos is the perfect example.
> > > They took the code from the FreeBSD codebase. As FreeBSD license allows
> > > anyone to do anything with the source code they want as long as there's an
> > > acknowledgement, they extended it and then, when someone found out what the
> > > extensions were and posted source code, M$ forced them to remove it from the
> > > web.
> >
> >  This is where that double edged sword could hurt Linux. If the
> > government is empowered to bitchslap developers who change protocols
> > to extend them,
> 
> But they aren't so empowered.

If that was the case, then "embrace and extend" would be moot anyway.

> It's really very simple. The rules you have to play under change once you achieve
> monopoly status. You may not use your monopoly to maintain or extend your
> monopoly. So Micro$tuff is a very special case that doesn't apply to hardly any
> other high tech company (possible exceptions: Intel and IBM [IBM once came close
> to a breakup because of it's abuse of monopoly power, they backed down and played
> nice, something Micro$tuff doesn't seem to understand how to do])

A monopoly means more than "most people use Microsoft." Microsoft does 
not have a monopoly. Even, of all people, RMS has stated that everyone 
has a choice of what OS to use. A corporation is not a monopoly because 
the free will of the people chose one product over another.

Case in point: IBM, you /could not/ built an IBM PC without an IBM PC 
BIOS, therefore IBM had complete /exclusive/ controll of the market, 
regardless of the purchasing decisions of the consumer. This is what a 
monopoly is.

 (By the way, we broke that monopoly by reverse engineering the BIOS, 
see? Kind of like the kerberos example. The court should do the same 
thing they did then, allow an implementation of that functionality to
be duplicated.)

 Microsoft, on the other hand, was voted to where they are now by the 
purchasing decisions of the free willed people. There are alternatives, 
for crying out loud Microsoft has one of the hardest competitors in the 
world to compete with, a competitor who /gives it away/ (sound 
familliar) and has both the popular and (arguably) technological 
advantage over them. Not just in the OS market, but (especially) the 
server, and (mostly) the webserver market. Microsoft's momentum is 
/hardly/ increasing, and more and more options are developing every day.
 
> Roy
> 
> > could not this empowerment also be used to bitchslap
> > developers who reverse engineer protocols to be compatible?
> >  I think the safest ground we could stand on would be that protocols
> > be considered speech, and be given the same standing constitutionally.
> > (Posting the source code is a different story.) Let Microsoft extend
> > whatever they feel like, we'll be right behind them developing tools
> > that integrate nicely with those changes.
> 
> Here's how it has worked with their "extensions", they made changes to Win 95 and
> Win 98 at the request of the Office programmers. Not too much wrong there. They
> made such changes available to the WordPerfect and Lotus Suite programmers, once
> those programmers learned of the existence of the changes, and then asked for the
> information.

 A lot of competing companies had inside knowledge of Windows, look at 
Adobe. Adobe knows more about the inner workings of the Windows Print 
architecture than Microsoft. You know why? Adobe /designed/ it! The 
public was highly skeptical about the quality of it before release, so 
Microsoft called Adobe in and had them completely overhaul the entire 
print archetecture. (there's actually a neat story behind this too)
 How about the inner workings of Microsoft Networking and the NetBEUI 
protocol? Did you know that it was ProComm who put that there? NetBEUI,
Microsoft's "plug-and-play" networking protocol, was purchased from 
them.
 Adobe has been successful in Windows printing, Procomm in networking. 
Microsoft doesn't even have the edge on alot of the code they themselves 
distribute.
 
> Do you see the difference? In house products teams had weeks, if not months lead
> time so their products were out first, and had a much closer working relationship
> with the Systems programmers than ANY competitor could possibly have. That
> allowed the Office products to maintain and extend their lead over their major
> competitors. American law prohibits that as unfair when done by a monopolist.

But the fact that others were developing and releasing competing 
products, and making money doing it, precludes Microsoft from being a 
monopoly at that point in time. If you remember, Lotus was very 
successful. In the end we mostly moved to MS Office because we liked the
product better, if we didn't we, to this day, still have the choice of 
using other products. StarOffice comes to mind as an excellent 
alternative (I can't stand the interface though)
 
> The kicker is that Micro$tuff is STILL denying that they have a monopoly. I
> suppose they would only acknowledge it when/if they achieve their wet dream of
> all computers everywhere using M$ OS.

I deny it too. I have plenty of options. I'll deny it untill there arn't 
any options. Then it will be a /monopoly/. A monopoly means NO options. 
Like Bell telephone, IBM making the only machines with an IBM BIOS. 
OPEC. Let's face it, it was Darwinism that built Microsoft, it's 
Darwinism that will bring it down, and it can and /is/ happening.
 
> > Both these practices should
> > be protected, as attacking one hurts the other.
> >  This way, any percieved improvements are realized by consumers,
> > regardless what product they choose, and competition is still occuring,
> > with the consumer benefitting from the race. That /is/ the only thing
> > the government is supposed to be concerned with in a monopoly case
> > anyway.
> >  Consumers do not benefit in any way by having the government soft-
> > enforcing a protocol tweeking taboo.
> >
> >  If you look closely at what's happening to GUI's right now, Microsoft
> > /is/ competing, everyone is. Apple is making drastic changes in it's UI,
> 
> On yeah, and how much has their market share gone up?

 Not relevant. It certainly can't be because of Microsoft Office, 
because Office on the Mac is better and more stable than Office on the 
PC (from what I've heard). This is (from "what I hear") typical, I hear 
Photoshop and alot of other apps that exist on both Windows and Mac are 
better on the Mac. This tends to put a few holes in the theory that 
Microsoft giving inside Windows OS info to Office developers made 
windows more popular, because that Windows OS Office is supposedly 
inferior to the MacOS Office, regarless of "inside knowledge"
 And the kicker is, You can have all the inside knowledge of the MacOS
you want now, at least the "Darwin OS" parts because it's OpenSource. So 
according to the inside knowledge leads to market monopolization theory 
posed, the Mac should be cleaning up, right? So how much /has/ there 
market share gone up?

> > Linux is also,
> 
> Big market share their too. Esp in Best Buy, Sears, and Walmart computer depts.
> 
> > and Microsoft is changing the GUI at a faster rate than
> > they have ever done anything before. This race they're having is picking
> > up speed and the consumer is benefitting on all fronts. And this is how
> > it should be.
> 
> Ah, but what happened to DRI?
> How often do you see the Lotus Office Suite (assuming IBM didn't finally throw in
> the towel) bundled with a computer? Or the WordPerfect suite? How much shelf
> space do they get at the Best Buy, Office Max, Office Depot, Circuit City,
> compared to M$??

About the same amount as the customers ask for them. Shelf space does 
not a monopoly make, When I decide what to stock, it's based on demand, 
and customer demand is the free will of the people, nothing more.

> >  What we don't need right now is Big Brother stopping this race, so that
> > Linux and Mac might slow down,
> 
> You won't. Big Brother might slow down M$, but not competitors with less than 10%
> of the market place. In a case like this, Big Brother's job is to make sure that
> the race is fair to the little guys.

And what have the "little guys" been doing? Generally nothing untill 
Microsoft develops something they need to compete with. There's been a 
lot of companies resting on their laurels untill they /have/ to improve 
something because Microsoft is killing them. Don't believe me? let's 
take a closer look...

 PalmOS, who swore up and down consumers don't need color. fine everyone 
settles for b&w, and Palm own3Z the market. WinCE comes along, and Palm 
responds with the new color models, but by now they're already losing 
market share daily, and the palm VII I *just bought* is now on fire sale 
as best buy for half the price I paid a few months ago for it.

 Novell, once prime master of the universe in networking, decided it 
didn't want to make a VXD implementation of Novell client for Microsoft 
right away, they decided their legacy .386-file architecture was all 
anyone needed. Microsoft, who at first didn't even install networking 
protocols in win95 by default, and even included a limited novell 
client, responded to the delay imposed by novell by incorporating 
NetBEUI (mentioned above) as a stop-gap measure untill novell woke up
to consumer demand. Too late. novell is now largely irrelevant.

 OS/2, an Operating system more object oriented than Windows is /to this
day/ practically abandoned by it's creators even though people are 
practically begging them not to discontinue it. It's still a staple in 
most banks and runs a majority of the ATM machines out there. IBM has 
publically stated they don't plan on supporting this OS.

 BEOS, a very capable OS, but one that it's creators have no interest in 
persueing, deciding they want the embedded market, despite a loyal 
following of users and tinkerers. Heck, by the time I even discovered 
BEOS, they had already abandoned it!

 On the other hand, there are very good developers out there that make a 
killing competing against Microsoft because they are /good at it/ and 
the consumer /prefers to use them./ Adobe is a prime example here, as 
are Macromedia, Citrix, Borland, Sun, AOL, Symantec, Peachtree, Intuit, 
and many others. They have prospered because we vote for them with our
patronage when we choose them over Microsoft. They have responded to the
demands placed upon them by the consumer, faster or better than 
Microsoft has, and thus prospered. This is how it oughta be.

 Some people may feel sympathetic to Netscape, but the fact was they 
were charging money for a product that could have taken on microsoft and 
won, but they decided they preferred to be Adware instead. they could 
have improved their product, but they decided to open a portal during 
the portal craze and rest on the portal, and their laurels. If Microsoft 
didn't do it, someone else would have.

 that's the thing in a free market, you live with the fear that someone 
will be faster, better or cheaper than you are. You adapt, or you win 
the Darwin award.

 Anyway, back to your original comment, the government's job is *NOT* to 
make the race fair to the little guys. the goverments job is to make the 
race fair and beneficial to the *consumer*, even if it means the "little 
guy" goes out of business. the government has the power to grant 
monopolies for this purpose so long as it benefit's the consumer.

 But again, Microsoft is where they are because we put them there, and 
it's in our best interest to let them compete.

> 
> Roy
> 
> > and then we lose because competition has
> > stopped again. Besides, it's getting interesting ;)
> >
> > --David
> 
>