Re: [aclug-L] M$ Halloween

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Nov 10, 1998 at 03:53:45PM -0600, jdavis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Mabye they are putting up all this because they are in the middle of an anti
> trust suit, and If there is substantial evidence that there really is decent
> competition out there, they can get off clean....

Well, this has been brought up a few times, and sounds plausible at first,
but there are a few problems with that line of reasoning.

First, it casts certain Microsoft practices in *very* bad light.  They
admit to spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt; a marketing ploy
designed to discredit the competition).  They also admit to trying to using
their powers to kill Open Source (by "proprietarization" of existing open
protocols).

Secondly, anti-trust does not apply only to the here and now, but also to
the past (hence the usefulness of the evidence of their hacks to DOS/Windows
to make certain competining products not work.)  In fact, the case goes back
to before Linux was even a blip on anybody's radar screen.

-- 
John Goerzen   Linux, Unix consulting & programming   jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx |
Developer, Debian GNU/Linux (Free powerful OS upgrade)       www.debian.org |
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