At 3:43 PM -0500 3/6/01, JayHolovacs wrote:
While I find it difficult to discount the examples of path dependence so glibly, this begs the question.
Even if path dependence occurs, there is no reason why the government (or any other body) is in a significantly better position to pick the winners and losers than the market is. When a standard evolves, it is useful that the government keep one party from locking out others from access to the standard, but not determining what the standard should be.
Needless to say, many of us believe it is no business whatsoever of the government to "keep one party from locking out others from access to the standard." If I am developing my Superaptical Frammalobber, it is no business of the government to enter my premises and/or demand that I reveal its secrets so that others may jump in. In fact, the government supports bother "trade secrets" _and_ patents. And, more generally, many of us do not even support "obvious" applications of the Sherman Antitrust Law. Haloid, later Xerox, was not required to help others match its undeniable standard. Likewise, and more recently, Intel is not compelled to share its design tricks, or its bus specifications, with other chip companies. I realized this post will not reach Cyberia-L or fight-censorship. I wish this promiscuous cross-posting would cease. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns