MicroShaft Is a Monopoly

[Gurm]

I'm with Jammrock. What happens if the supreme court breaks up Microsoft?

Let's see:

Possibility 1:

The break the company up into OS and Apps. This is fine, unless they decide that Internet Explorer is an app. If this happens, the OS goes back to the performance and compatibility level of Windows 95. In other words, crap.

Possibility 2:

They decide to make MS "license" the windows kernel. If this happens, nobody will use anything except Windows ME and 2000. We won't see another OS evolution for 5-10 years, and the industry will fester.

In NEITHER of these situations does Linux somehow rise up like a phoenix from the ashes, because it's NOT A DESKTOP OS. How many bloody times do we have to go over this? My grandma will never EVER EVER use a Unix-based OS. BeOS, maybe. Linux, no.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[mj12]

MS will not be broken up for one. And god forbid they did, the courts would not make MS open up the kernel. That is ridiculous. Almost as silly as the idea that Linux is a consumer OS. Linux is fine for a server, but for a consumer desktop OS it doesn't cut it. No application or hardware support. First of all, X is the biggest pile of crap and the way's it is being used is not it's intended purpose. If Linux every figured out their target market then they could focus their efforts and give MS a headache. But too many people want it to be something it's not nor ever will be.

[Gurm]

Yeah, the Linux people need to realize that being a desktop OS and being Open Source are mutually exclusive goals. The current situation is DETRIMENTAL to the goals of the OS. Having Red Hat support and sell their own distribution is bad bad bad for OpenSource, even if it's good for consumers.

They need to make up their mind - is it going to be powerful and stable and 100% Open, or is it going to be closed, fixed, perhaps less stable, and targeted to consumers? Once they decide, they might get somewhere.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Alec]

Maybe the creation of two versions, one open source and the other for the consumers...

[Jammrock]

Ahem, let me explain the kernel thing a little more clear. M$ would still control the kernel. It would still control all the hardware layer stuff, like Direct X (which is a legitimate part of the OS) and the development of the kernel. M$ would still be allowed to create whatever extras for the OS they wanted, BUT other companies would be allowed to license the kernel and make software for the kernel, instead of via a M$ API.

That way Symantec and Netscape/AOL could get together. They could integrate their own tools and browsers into the kernel and modify portions of it to fit their software or vise versa. M$ would still make their money and still have their own version of the OS.

The only thing this does is allow people to make competing OS's that are still compatible with Windows. It would be like the Linux distribution thing, but the Windows kernel would not be open source in any form.

Jammrock

[LAMFDTK]

http://www-csag.cs.uiuc.edu/individual/pakin/complaint

[Gurm]

Jammrock,

The point is that even if that occured nobody would buy it. I don't mean nobody as in "zero people", I mean nobody as in not a statistical amount of people.

As an example - what you describe was quite possible (and even commonplace) with Windows 3.1 - at my work Norton Desktop was the standard windowing shell for Windows.

HOWEVER, we had to patch it religiously, because every new program that came out crashed it. Eventually, they stopped patching it and we were just SOL.

If they had continued to patch it, we would very likely have given up anyway, since there comes a point after which it is just easier to use MS's shell.

So, like I said - if they are forced to license the kernel, nobody will buy anything other than MS's shell. If the government prevents MS from selling their own shell, nobody will upgrade from WinME and Win2k - and things will stagnate for 5 years minimum.

Of course, maybe by then Linux will have finally died of old age and BeOS will be viable.

- Gurm

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* How old are you? *
* Thiry. *
* Thirty what, revisions? *
* No, thirty YEARS! *
* What's your name, old-timer? *
* Linux! *
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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.