At 01:34 PM 10/22/97 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote:

Or it's like buying a Ford Mustang that comes with brown carpets. Auto manufacturers "bundle" lots of things with their cars... Where's the DoJ when we need them?!?

Not sure where I stand on this. An OS is more like a highway than a car. Or, better, a rail track -- since it imposes severe compatibility requirements on those who want to utilize it. Imagine that someone owned the rail track standard & had the exclusive IP-rights to manufacture it. Non-standard tracks exist, but they don't go nearly as many places. Then the company uses its position as owner of the tracks to demand... Oh screw it. I don't feel like going down analogy road any further. Detail is the enemy of ideology, & the significant detail re: Microsoft is the rare & happy (for Bill Gates) character of its business that it is more important to have a standard OS than to have a quality OS. Therein lies his billions, & it seems to me reasonable to scrutinize attempts to parlay that counter-ordinary-market reality into dominance in other areas. Perhaps this could be settled as the online service spat was: bundle Netscape with Win98 (& Opera, Arachne &c). Or perhaps the US could nationalize Windows. Whoo-hoo! Therein lies a Plan... Paul Her name was Julie, she wore Batman sneakers, And she laughed when she sang, "Money can't buy me love!" North of Petaluma where the 1 meets the 101 -- Oh man, we took a lot of drugs...