Re: Boycott Microsoft

[wsmith@NOSPAM.ctron.com (Will Smith)]

On Mon, 18 May 1998 23:54:04 GMT, nhughes@sunflower.com (nate) wrote:

|>What would stop Compaq from installing OS2, Linux, BE or whatever?

nothing at all, except none of the OSs you list have as large a
software base as WinDOZE.  granted, that's changing (thanks in a large
part to the GNU and the realization by many software houses that Linux
can be taken seriously), but it's slow.

besides all this, PunySquishy's habit of not making file formats
public knowledge until "after the fact" (if at all) means that other
comanies have a hard time writing applications capable of dealing with
documents generated by M$ Office apps.  i'm not saying that they CAN'T
(Applixware does a nice job of it most of the time), but sometimes
they're a version behind (to my knowledge, Applix can deal with M$
Offiice 6 stuff, not Office 95)...

|>Could it possibly be that people actually want WInodws, and not some
|>other OS?  If M$ was a monopoly (which it isn't), then it would be so
|>because it is what people want. 

it's the ONLY OS that is capable of running "popular" applications
with a minimum of hassle without resorting to emulators and similar
"middle-ware"...  i am aware of one lawsuit against M$ that claims
that their software (like Word, Excel, etc) actually does an
undocumented system call that checks to see that it's being run under
Windows...  if it isn't, it'll crap out. it'll be interesting to see
what the courts decide....

|>That's where all this monopoly crap breaks down.  I and everyone else
|>can buy any of a dozen computer architectures with a few more
|>different OS's anytime we want.  On top of that, We can use an FTP
|>client and download at least 4 different internet browsers, install
|>them and forget that IE exists.   Monopoly my ass.

you're forgetting something: YOU and -I- know how to install an OS,
and we could do it without much forethought.  John Q. User, as a group
being largely computer-illiterate, wants his system to work as soon as
he puts in on his desk and plugs the bugger in.  he doesn't want to
deal with any problems larger than "which hole is the keyboard, and
which one is the mouse?", which i've noticed that some OEMs (Gateway,
for example) have been color-coding the plugs...  i've learned from
personal experience that some urban legends have some basis in fact.
i am actually AFRAID to think about people that think that the mouse
is a foot pedal, or the plastic wrapping on it is a shield of some
kind, or even that the cdrom tray is a built-in coffee holder.

for every computer-literate person, there's AT LEAST three more that
are clueless.  in this kind of situation, i'm sorry to say, Perception
Is Reality....

---
William Smith
#include <disclaimer.h>
Remove the obvious when sending e-mail...