Re: Return Economics html trivial debate

["Gerry Britton" <gbritton@mail.bc.rogers.wave.ca>]

  On Sat, 1 Nov 1997 05:05:29 EST, moonwolf@earthling.net wrote:
  
  >> Ed, we've already tried petitioning IBM to pro-actively market the better alternative, and
  >> that didn't work. Talking Linux with anyone but another propeller-head is a waste of time. 
  >> 
  >> The only solution is the legal castration of MS.
  >
  >
  >I am not for creating another Microsoft out of IBM.  It is not IBM, but freedom of choice
  >and consumer education that I am for.  An educated consumer will not choose Microsoft
  >products.  Period.  End of story.  
  
  Don't put words in my mouth, and don't try to use my brief reply as a mental trampoline for the free expression of your current 
  anger. Nobody mentioned anything about turning IBM into MS. IBM _was_ MS when Gates was in kindergarten.
  
  There is _no_ freedom of choice if the choices are unknown. Consumers are only educated by commercial advertisments. The press 
  has no mandate to protect consumers from their own willing belief in bullshit.
  
  >The flagrant lies spread by the M$-Propaganda departments
  >(and such yellow journalists as they have at Ziff-Davis) have deluded the general public.
  
  In this space & time, journalism of any colour sells, if it shows enough colours. That is what the consumer sees. The glitz is the 
  media and the message.
  
  >The computer-knowledgable users have no trouble making their own choice, be it OS/2, Linux,
  >BeOS, or whatever.  It is the ignorant masses (including high-level management) that have
  >been enslaved by the M$-Monopoly. It is these who we must educate.
  
  "We", like any other educator, can only educate those who wish to be educated. You cannot teach someone who is not in the 
  classroom.
  
  >
  >Attacking M$ as the only solution is exactly what M$ wants.  Don't bring this down to a
  >personal level between Bill Gates and me (or you).  It is simply about Freedom.  M$ wants to
  >enslave your computer, your bank statement, your employment, your everything.  That needs to
  >be stopped.  Rationally.  M$ has created a product that holds its audiences like
  >the most powerful of drugs.  It _is_ a drug.  What we need is a program of recovery.
  >Education & recovery is my answer, not castration & incarceration. 
  
  I certainly never typed "incarceration", and I wouldn't waste the time on castrating Gates.
  
  I said the solution was the legal castration of MS. That means the removal of MS' one overpowering advantage, the PRELOAD. As 
  long as MS can dictate what software will be on a computer when that computer is loaded into the trunk of a consumer's car, MS has 
  a monopoly on what software that consumer will buy.
  
  So MS must be legally castrated, and legally pounded for its commercial crimes-to-date. MS has not only been guilty of bad program 
  design and bad programming, but commercial gangsterism too.