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[Sunder]

Um, how's that agin?  How does Ballmer and Gates force you, Adam Shostack
to run Microsoft Office?  Did they put a gun to your head?  Did they
manage to twist Congress's arms to put a gun to your head?

Compatibility you say?  Well, that's your choice.  You can decide if it's
important enough to you and act accordingly.  I personally think MSFT is
evil, and provides nothing but mediocre software.  So I vote with my
wallet by not paying them for their junk and I won't buy upgrades of their
software if the previous versions do what I needed, and install Linux and
OpenBSD on new machines.

Yes, some of the older shittier machines I have run Windows, but that's
because I'm either too lazy to track down drivers for Linux or want them
to continue running what they run.  Doesn't mean I have to go to XP or
2003.

Yes, my work machine runs win2k, but I didn't pay for it, and I didn't
have much choice in it - actually I could either quit and find a new job
(really lots of fun in this economy) or reinstall Linux over it and live
with Open Office and other open tools or have paid for Crossover office
out of my pocket, etc.  Wasn't worth the trouble and we already have a
site license for win2k + office 2k, so that's the path I went.   Not my
money, the company's money.  They chose to pay the Redmond Beast, so what
do I care?

But for home use, I have no real use for much more than OpenOffice and
Linux.  There's no need for me to pirate garbage from Microsoft.  I can
live without it.  

These are some old pentium1- 100Mhz notebook machines I have that came
with Windows 95 and 98 - turd OS's really, but they serve a purpose - mp3
players and light web surfing in my living room and other places for
example.  And before you ask, no, I didn't pirate the mp3's.  They're all
ripped from CD's that I owned, and I still have the CD's as proof of
ownership.  Yes, I could go to linux on them, but why bother wasting half
a day tracking down drivers and tuning kernels for them when they're
already built and working the way I want them to?


So why do you feel it's required of you to either pay Microsoft for, or
pirate Office XP and Server 2003 and TCPA enabled junkware?  What's so
important that you can't live without them.


----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos---------------------------
 + ^ + :25Kliters anthrax, 38K liters botulinum toxin, 500 tons of   /|\
  \|/  :sarin, mustard and VX gas, mobile bio-weapons labs, nukular /\|/\
<--*-->:weapons.. Reasons for war on Iraq - GWB 2003-01-28 speech.  \/|\/
  /|\  :Found to date: 0.  Cost of war: $800,000,000,000 USD.        \|/
 + v + :           The look on Sadam's face - priceless!       
--------_sunder_ at _sunder_._net_------- http://www.sunder.net ------------

On Sat, 14 Jun 2003, Adam Shostack wrote:

> Well, sure.  And no one forces me to run Microsoft office, either,
> except Microsoft's monoploy.  And when the document format can phone
> home to prevent piracy or openoffice from running, no one will be
> 'obligating' me to pay monopoly rents to Microsoft.

<SNIP>
 
> In the same way, no one forces me to have a drivers license.  But its
> damned hard living life without one.
> 
<SNIP>