[Am-info] A GREAT Atricle from our own Joe Barr!!

[Paul Rickard]

========== On 2002.07.30 05:56 PM, Mitch Stone typed: ============

>To Joe's second point: the potential for Microsoft to develop a Windows 
>GUI for Linux has intrigued me for a long time; in fact I'm pretty sure it 
>came up around here a year or so ago. This scenario actually makes quite a 
>bit of sense (and dollars), when you consider the markup on Windows versus 
>Office. Opening up new markets for software at this point might be more 
>lucrative then opening up new markets for Windows.
>
>As Joe rightly points out, Windows is about control, and Microsoft might 
>be able to exert as much control over the computing platform with a 
>proprietary GUI as they can presently with the entire OS -- and at the 
>same time, offload the boiler-room work to somebody else. In a way, they'd 
>be tearing yet another page from Apple's book (Darwin + Aqua).

      Microsoft wouldn't need to port Office or any other applications. 
All modern Microsoft apps access hardware through OS APIs. The GUI does 
too. All Microsoft would need to do is port some key aspects of Windows 
XP to work on top of the Linux kernel. Office for Windows will work on 
Linux through those APIs and the GUI, so will IE, VisualBasic.net, IIS, 
etc. Sort of how WINE is now, only it would be the real thing.
      Microsoft will then release the package as Microsoft Window Manager 
XP for Linux. Give it away or sell it cheaply. Call it "shared source" by 
letting two key partners view but not copy or memorize the code. Tie .net 
to it. Make sure DirectX works with it. Sell full versions of Office XP 
to run on it. Get Linux developers hooked on producing slick games and 
apps that need that subsystem to function. (The hell with the users, 
developers are the ones who determine what users use.) Within 18 months 
there will be no difference between Linux and the Microsoft interface. 
Linux isn't the problem to Microsoft, the problem is that on Linux 
there's a replacement for everything Microsoft has a monopoly over with 
Windows. Linux Web browsers, productivity suites, programming tools, 
e-mail clients... Fix it so all those run on Linux, dependant on 
Microsoft. Then in a few more years hook Palladium into it so nothing 
produced outside Microsoft will run right. The end of Linux.



======== Paul Rickard, Editor of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign =======
--------------------------------[ Http://www.msboycott.com ]-----------

  "But for Microsoft's interference, the market would be much more
   dynamic as new technologies and fresh innovations challenged the 
   company's present dominance."
       -Judge Robert Bork, former US Supreme Court nominee