GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd)

RedRook redrook at yahoo.com
Wed Sep 30 05:16:03 PDT 1998



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Choate [mailto:ravage at einstein.ssz.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 1998 4:38 PM
[deletia]
> The reality is that we don't live in a free-market, 
> but rather a rather lightly regulated one. 
> Microsoft got a tad too greedy in fixing their
> software so that specific competitors would 
> not be able to use it, this in
> itself may not be a crime. However it 
> *does* deny the consumer the choice
> and that most certainly is a crime.

Please elaborate. Netscape works fine on Windows 98, and faces the
same restrictions with installation that original Windows 95 had. 

As for Java, Java works as well on Windows as on any other platform. 

It's funny how giving the customers more value for their money, always
ends up being anti-competative. It's a thorny issue that's not easy to
deal with. Especially with Microsoft. They have such a large pool of
source code, so many employees, and such an effective distribution
network, that they can quickly add a jillion features to any program,
and make so much money off of it, that it's difficult for anyone but a
multi-million dollar company to compete

And no, taking the browser out of Windows is not going to change that.

Harv.
RedRook at yahoo.com
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