Re: Your Microsoft Alternative to Antitrust

["tom hull" <thull@netway.com>]

  charles mueller writes:
  
  >        I've been privately asked to comment on a non-antitrust remedy to
  >the Microsoft monopoly.  The following is my response.
  
  i would like to react to his comments, but first i'd like to clear up the
  context.
  i am the author of the "non-antitrust remedy to the Microsoft monopoly" that
  he refers to, and i am the person who initially mailed him a copy. my piece
  is publicly available at:
  
      http://www.contex.com/ftwalk/FreeWorld.html
  
  the piece is called "Only the Free World Can Stand Up to Microsoft", and
  consists of 13 points: the first 8 points form a very brief critique of the
  economics of the software industry; #9 talks about free software as an
  alternative; and the remainder sketch out an approach to doing something
  about it. there is a second, longer file with notes to the first, including
  acknowledgment of a few problems that i see:
  
      http://www.contex.com/ftwalk/FreeWorldNotes.html
  
  ascii versions are also available, less the .html extension. i fill follow
  up and
  post these two pieces to the group, since they are certainly germane to the
  discussion. and i will respond further when i get some time to think through
  the commentary.
  
  two things for now:
  
  1) i'd like to thank charles mueller for commenting.
  
  2) i didn't actually make any direct references to "software economies of
  scale". that phrase came from a posting that was made to this group by
  martin gruber: a very interesting and i think important proposal, one that
  is very close to my own thinking. the phrase that i used was to describe
  what could happen due to the fact that software reproduction costs are
  for all practical purposes nil. the two points/phrases, of course, are
  pretty
  much equivalent, but they hang around with slightly different sets of
  baggage.
  
  --tom hull / thull@netway.com / http://www.contex.com/ftwalk