Kill MS, again, but sideways

[Eric Murray]

On Sun, Apr 13, 2003 at 05:04:10AM +0100, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
> I got a request from a (US) psychiatrist that m-o-o-t (m-o-o-t is a CD that
> boots on your computer, and does secure things) should include an
> implementation of VOIP, to allow his patients to securely connect to his
> server. I think they are mostly servicemen or spies, but so what.
> 
> It's actually easy to do a version that will do that, and if you're
> listening, I'll do it soon, and for free to you only  :)  - but m-o-o-t is
> based on OpenBSD, and isn't that good at modems. Linux isn't that good
> either...

Really?  You got this mail through an old modem and linux box..

> The problem is that the usual, everyday, modem is _only_ supported by
> Windows... which thereby gains a competitive advantage, based on it's
> monopoly position.

Google for 'winmodem' and linux finds:
http://www.linmodems.org/
plus lots of other links you may find useful.

Microsoft's lock on the winmodem appears to have been pretty short.

> While I have no beef (and being a UK person I eat no beef anyway) with the
> idea that there should be a single computing platform/ interface, and I
> don't expect manufacturers to do the work, I do think that interfaces used
> en masse should, in general, be communal property. 

Commonly used interfaces do eventually become well known.
While they do have owners, the amount of market interia they
develop makes then essentially unchangeable.

But demanding that they be "communal property" sounds like
the sort of socialism that can only be imposed by authority
and fails when it is imposed.

> I'd like to suggest that those who don't provide details of their modems'
> functionality (which is the main problem) should be boycotted. 

That's been done before-- Diamond refused for years to supply info
to Xfree86, so there was a boycott of Diamond graphic cards in
the Linux community.  They eventually saw the light (or market).

 
> It's not a very libertarian perspective, and I like to think I am a
> libertarian - but so be it. The alternative is...

1. figuring out the winmodem interface.  It's software, so its possible.
But it appears that others have already done the work for at least
some winmodem chips.

2. boycotting winmodem makers.  Not likely to work in this case since
most modem makers sell the things.  Besides, the market drive for
reduced chip count and the PC makers' hunger for anything that chews up CPU
cycles and drives consumers to buy faster machines is a lot stronger
than that for linux.

3. beg for some higher power to "do something".  You can probably
guess from my tone that I don't think much of this option.


Eric