From: Geoff Smith (geoffs@unixg.ubc.ca)
Date: Sat Oct 04 1997 - 18:01:20 MDT
On Sat, 4 Oct 1997, The Low Golden Willow wrote:
> On Oct 3, 5:52pm, Geoff Smith wrote:
> } Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>
> } > How nice of you to wish death upon the one man who has done more
> } > for humanity than any other in history.
>
> I think Newton and Darwin did rather more, among others. James Watt?
> Adam Smith? Tom Paine? The inventor of the alphabet, if there was a
> single one?
The Latin alphabet, or just alphabets in general? If you mean the English
alphabet, then there is more than one inventor, since it has mutated from
the original Latin one.
> } > absolutely anything one does to
> } > cajole as many people as possible to give you money--voluntarily--
> } > is, by definition, providing a benefit to them.
> } What benefit are con artists to their victims?
>
> } Can't argue with that. I don't really wish death to Microsoft, just
> } healthy competition. Maybe Linux will go public? (or has it already?) Of
>
> *cough*. Linux is very public. The source code is freely available and
> modifiable. People can try to make money by installing it for people
> who are ignorant of it, but production is mostly a labor of love.
Sorry, I should have been more specific. I meant go public with shares.
Businesses tend to take a company more seriously when they can look them
up on the stock market and get their annual business report.(although, if
I'm not mistaken, Microsoft took its sweet time going public...)
Whether businesses accept an OS will make all the difference for the
company. Just look at the success of IBM/Microsoft. When the IBM
personal computer was introduced, it was in no way superior to the apples
already on the market. It took off solely because businesses trusted IBM
(because of their reputation with mainframes in the business world) I
can't see Linux really taking off until they start seeing $$$. The market
is huge, but Linux business sense appears to be lacking. (not that I have
a problem with programmers programming for the sake of it. I just hope
someone comes along and gives Microsoft some worthy opposition)
> Personal computers have the advantage is easy setup and use, some
> applications, and advertising.
Setting up personal computer is getting uglier and uglier. I like
Microsoft's "plug and play" concept, but, of course, it's not new.
> In internal technical details they are
> still playing catchup to Unix, which is about a decade older. But Unix
> came out of AT&T, which some people said would have trouble selling
> eternal happiness.
>
> } software. Do you have any ideas on how this monopoly might be felled?
> } (which to me seems inevitable, but I'm not sure how)
>
> Java is being touted these days. If Microsoft ported Word and Excel to
> Jave people at least wouldn't have to deal with Windows.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Java is not an OS, it's a programming
language, a lot like C.
geoff.
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