Why I Support Microsoft

Over the years I've sometimes joined in on the jokes about Microsoft and
Bill Gates...the jokes about the Borg, assimilation, and the habits of
Gates. And I've lately really enjoyed the "Saturday Night Live" skits
involving Bill Gates interrupting the Pope to announce that Microsoft has
merged with Christmas, and so on.

As a longtime Macintosh user, and only occasional user of MS products, it's
mostly of entertainment value to me to see what MS is doing.

(Caveat: I used Microsoft Basic on Intel MDS systems (8080-based), circa
1977-78, bought a PC in the early 80s, bought "Microsoft Word" Version 1.00
when most people were buying Samna Word, Wordstar, and other such vanished
products, and even bought the execrable, terrible, crufty, horrible
"Windows 1.0" when it first came out, circa 1984. And for my Macintosh, I
bought Microsoft Word 1.05 and used it for many years in various versions.
I currently use no Microsoft products on a daily basis.)

Anyway, the recent government actions against Microsoft are reprehensible
to any person who values liberty. Microsoft is being punished for its
success.

The appearance of Ralph Nader, Jamie Love, and executives of Netscape (who
are miffed that _their_ attempted monopoly is being threatened by MS!), in
the (ironic) "Microsoft Bash," along with opportunistic actions by various
states' attorney generals, and with judges imposing million dollar a day
fines.....

Well, it's all a familiar pattern. I hate to say it, but read parts of
"Atlas Shrugged" to see this piling on, this "taking down the successful a
few notches" behavior.

Attila T. Hun is, for some reason, bashing MS a lot. I'll use one of his
posts to make some specific points:


At 10:15 AM -0700 12/21/97, Attila T. Hun wrote:

>> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge Friday told Microsoft
>> Corp.  he easily uninstalled the company's Web browser
>> without breaking Windows 95 and ordered company officials to
>> explain why they could not do the same.  "Windows 95
>> functioned flawlessly" with Internet Explorer uninstalled,
>> U.S.  District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson told Microsoft.
>>
>    mistake #1: dont piss off a federal judge --let alone
>    try to show that he is ignorant.

PC makers like Compaq, Dell, Gateway, etc., are in fact perfectly free to
bundle Netscape Navigator (or whatever the Do Everything version is called)
with their systems. Microsoft is then perfectly free, in a free society, to
say "Fine, then don't put Windows on your machines."

Right?

Customers can then make their choices. Or can buy Windows in the nearest
software store. The way it used to be done.

Yielding to pressure from the court, MS is now allowing PC makers to also
include Netscape Navigator. Well, none have yet elected to do so...quite
probably because Netscape is _charging_ for this, and MS is not.

(To Ralph Nader, and perhaps even to Attila, that MS is _giving_ away its
browser, free for the download and free to the PC vendors, is itself a
crime.)

...
>    this is my one big fear: the DOJ will accept a plea
>    bargain like they did last time and it will be back
>    to business as usual for M$ --and they will be back in
>    court within a year having gained even more horizontal
>    and vertical control of the entire communications
>    and information industries --and claiming again that
>    they are misunderstood --and complying with the order,
>    etc.

Customers are voting with their pocketbooks. They like the MS offerings
more than they like the competing offerings...of which there are still many.

(Macintosh, Unix in several flavors (incl Linux), and loyal followings for
older OSes. Sun and Oracle and others are pushing for Java-based systems to
obsolete the MS products. This is a major struggle which analyses about
Microsoft's "domination" seem to ignore.)

>
>    there is only one solution to organizations like M$
>    which are operated without ethics: treat them to the
>    pleasures of not only the antitrust laws but the
>    exquisite delights of RICO.

I cannot understand how Attila can so enthusiastically support this. His
"exquisite delights" even recalls Torquemada and the Inquistion. A suitable
term for what is being to MS, in my view.

>    M$ is a cancer; it has fully metasticized and is gorging
>    itself at the banquet of the vanquished.

Ralph Nader would probably be interested in hiring ATH as a speech writer.

....
>    anyway, just think where M$ would be with Royce today!
>    Gate$ and Ballmer might be down at the local MCC for a
>    few free 3 hots and a cot, all expenses paid, "enjoying"
>    a well earned vacation from screwing all of us.

I take it that ATH means that because something like 20 or 30 million
Americans chose to buy Windows 95 (and thus gain the benefits we Macintosh
users have had for many years :-}) that this means "we" were screwed?


>    Other than the usual ills of a monopoly, what really
>    irks anyone with a modicum of intelligence is that Gate$
>    intends to migrate the entire package for the benefit of
>    the couch potatoes; Gate$ intends to dictate not only
>    what we use to view his trash, but that only his trash
>    is splashed.

Why not pick on Intel? Intel is, if anything, even more of a "monopoly"
than MS is. While customers have some reasonable choices in OSes
(Windows/NT, Unix, Linux, Macintosh, AmigaOS, Inferno, Java-based
developments, etc.), the fact is that all of the surviving OSes are being
ported to the Intel platform (pace recent announcements by Sun that Solaris
will be on  Merced at its rollout in 1999, and earlier announcements by
H-P, DEC, and IBM along the same lines).

But neither MS nor Intel are "monopolies." They are just the People's
Choice. Which always tends to cluster...the big really do get bigger. For
awhile, at least, until the paradigm shifts and the big can't adapt quickly
enough.

Of the 10 biggest chip makers in 1970, all are distant seconds to Intel,
the world's largest producer of chips, in dollar amount. (And in total
square meters of silicon output.)


....
>> After the hearing Friday, Christine Varney, a former Federal
>> Trade Commissioner now representing Netscape, was jubilant.
>> "I think the judge has understood the seriousness of the
>> issue," she said.
>>
>    she had every reason to be jubilant --so far. even if
>    the judge did not fully understand the technological
>    bullshit M$ was trying to slide on by, the judge fully
>    understands that M$ was trying to blind pitch him --and
>    insulting him to boot.

Of _course_ she's jubilant! Netscape wants its "rightfully-earned monopoly"
back! Has anyone forgotten that in 1995 it was looking like Netscape would
be on 95% of all desktops, Windows, Mac, and Unix, and that it was turning
into the Big Bad Monopoly? Are memories really that short?

Netscape has been using its legal manouvers to attempt to stop Microsoft
from horning in on _its_ monopoly.

(I hate using the term "monopoly," but if critics of MS are going to use
it, hey, when in Rome....)


>> Microsoft stock closed at $128.69, down $2.19 on NASDAQ,
>> where it was among the most active issues.

>    yes, down almost 20 points since their fiasco with the
>    DOJ started. before it's over, I hope to see M$ listed
>    with the junk bonds and issues --in the penny stocks.
>

Yep, sort of the way Netscape stock went from its IPO price of around $25
(in today's shares) to $80 when it looked like Netscape Navigator and
related products were going to be the Next Big Monopoly....and then
plummeted down to the $30-40 range as it appeared this was not the way
things were going to turn out....

Netscape stock is currently at $27 3/4, just about where it began trading
in '95.

Even so, Navigator remains popular on many platforms. Microsoft Explorer is
by no means a monopoly.

And MS announced a long time ago, in '95 if I recall correctly, that the
Web was such a big deal (let us not forget that some were saying Gates had
missed the boat on the Web and MS would falter) that the URL addressing
scheme would be _built in_ to future versions of its OS so as to make Web
browsing and file browsing identical, and to facillitate intranets. "One
big file system."

Like this or not, it makes a certain amount of sense.

Ah, but now we face the spectacle of a judge or panel of Nader-pandering
bureaucrats telling Microsoft what features it will be allowed to include
in its operating system.

Perhaps the graphics chip companies facing extinction as Intel puts massive
graphics capabilities into new chips can sue on antitrust grounds and get a
"special master" to dictate to Intel what features it may put into chips?

(Certainly the long-departed Weitek might have survived a few more years
had Ralph Nader turned his unsafe at any speed attention to the floating
point processing market and gotten an injunction against Intel putting
onboard floating point instructions into the 486.)

I cannot understand how any Cypherpunk can be advocating interference in
the market the way Attila and a few others are doing.

Making jokes about Bill Gates is one thing, just harmless fun. But
advocating the Men with Guns (TM) seize control of the products he offers
to uncoerced customers is simply wrong.

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

Tim May <tcmay@got.net> writes:

> (Caveat: I used Microsoft Basic on Intel MDS systems (8080-based), circa
> 1977-78, bought a PC in the early 80s, bought "Microsoft Word" Version 1.00
> when most people were buying Samna Word, Wordstar, and other such vanished
> products, and even bought the execrable, terrible, crufty, horrible
> "Windows 1.0" when it first came out, circa 1984. And for my Macintosh, I
> bought Microsoft Word 1.05 and used it for many years in various versions.
> I currently use no Microsoft products on a daily basis.)

I remember MS Word 1.0 for MS DOS.  It was the first crude WYSYWYG on the CGA:
it displayed primitive boldface and italics on screen, unlike most other
word processors of that era that mostly used markup languages.

I used Windows .9beta quite heavily and even wrote some primitive GUI hacks
using the SDK. One of them was a front-end to a DES encoder/decoder. It has 3
areas for entering a key: as text, as hex, and as binary; updating one area
immediately updated the other 2. That was circa 83 or even 82. Of course all
the APIs are different under newer windows. Anybody cares to see it?

Of course, Windows 1.x and 2.x were a miserable failure in the marketplace
because the requisite hardware wasn't there yet. So was VisiOn, but Windows had
bill gates support. 3.0 was moderately successful; 3.1 was actually profitable.
Microsoft lost a lot of bets before this product line finally took off.
Microsoft spent a lots of money on the "Bob" project which was a complete
failure.

I also got OS/2 1.0 from Microsoft in 1988, together with the Microsoft/Ahton
Tate SQL server (based on Sybases's). SYBS stupidly sold their pricey
product to microsoft, figuring the micro market would never be of use to SYBS.

Microsoft then decided to pull the rug from under its OS/2 users, so I
switched to IBM OS/2.

> The appearance of Ralph Nader, Jamie Love, and executives of Netscape (who
> are miffed that _their_ attempted monopoly is being threatened by MS!), in
> the (ironic) "Microsoft Bash," along with opportunistic actions by various
> states' attorney generals, and with judges imposing million dollar a day
> fines.....
>
> Well, it's all a familiar pattern. I hate to say it, but read parts of
> "Atlas Shrugged" to see this piling on, this "taking down the successful a
> few notches" behavior.

I hate to admit it, but I agree with Timmy on this one.

> Attila T. Hun is, for some reason, bashing MS a lot. I'll use one of his
> posts to make some specific points:

If Hitler gasses Goebbels, would you object?

> At 10:15 AM -0700 12/21/97, Attila T. Hun wrote:
>
> >> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge Friday told Microsoft
> >> Corp.  he easily uninstalled the company's Web browser
> >> without breaking Windows 95 and ordered company officials to
> >> explain why they could not do the same.  "Windows 95
> >> functioned flawlessly" with Internet Explorer uninstalled,
> >> U.S.  District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson told Microsoft.
> >>
> >    mistake #1: dont piss off a federal judge --let alone
> >    try to show that he is ignorant.

If IE does include some important bug fixes for the OS (like MS Office does),
then Microsoft ought to make these patches available as OS patches and not
bundle them with other products. "Ought to" doesn't mean it's illegal for them
to only bundle...

> PC makers like Compaq, Dell, Gateway, etc., are in fact perfectly free to
> bundle Netscape Navigator (or whatever the Do Everything version is called)
> with their systems. Microsoft is then perfectly free, in a free society, to
> say "Fine, then don't put Windows on your machines."

Ah, but they'd rather sell their hardware with a bunch of pre-installed
software, and charge the poor consumer for it. If you buy an IBM Thinkpad, they
refuse to sell it without Windows 95 preinstalled, and America Online software
(probably charged for it), and a bunch of Lotus software (123, some
wordprocess, etc); even if the first thing you intend to do is to reformat the
hard disk and instal Linux.

In an ideal world, MSFT would be free to refuse to sell its OS to hardware
makers because they're owned by gooks; to demand that the hardware makers pay
MSFT a licence fee for every piece of hardware they sell, whether or not they
included Win95 with it; and to insist that the hardware makers include a big
disclaimer saying they don't support Netscape products as a condition for
getting an MSFT licence. But we're not living in a free country.

> Customers can then make their choices. Or can buy Windows in the nearest
> software store. The way it used to be done.

They refuse to sell "bare hardware" because they get part of the profit on
selling it with the software pre-installed: typically not just the OS, but a
bunch of useless apps that most users never use.

Likewise try to buy a scanner without a bundled useless Windows software that's
"supposed" to go with a scanner; or a color printer without bundled
finger-painting software for Windows; or a modem without bundled
"communications software" (which almost always includes a Netscape browser).
You can't avoid paying for the media and the license to this useless shit.

> Yielding to pressure from the court, MS is now allowing PC makers to also
> include Netscape Navigator. Well, none have yet elected to do so...quite
> probably because Netscape is _charging_ for this, and MS is not.

They would if the consumers demanded it. Of course the consumers can get
netscape for free if they want it. Lots of folks use their computers for more
productive work than interenet browsing and don't want any browser at all.

> (To Ralph Nader, and perhaps even to Attila, that MS is _giving_ away its
> browser, free for the download and free to the PC vendors, is itself a
> crime.)

Sure - unfair competition. :-) They'll go after GNU and linux too, given
time. Remember how Ziff-Davis publications refused to acknowledge the
exietence of free software or sharewre (and mostly still do)? Remember the talk
about licencing software developers?

> >    this is my one big fear: the DOJ will accept a plea
> >    bargain like they did last time and it will be back
> >    to business as usual for M$ --and they will be back in
> >    court within a year having gained even more horizontal
> >    and vertical control of the entire communications
> >    and information industries --and claiming again that
> >    they are misunderstood --and complying with the order,
> >    etc.
>
> Customers are voting with their pocketbooks. They like the MS offerings
> more than they like the competing offerings...of which there are still many.

Microsoft has gone through many failures before they finally came up with
products that consumers preferred. Microsoft benefited from very stupid
mistakes made by IBM and Sybase and Digital Research at various times, but
they've made pelnty of stupid mistakes of their own. Right now they're being
rewarded for trying many product only some of which sold well.

> (Macintosh, Unix in several flavors (incl Linux), and loyal followings for
> older OSes. Sun and Oracle and others are pushing for Java-based systems to
> obsolete the MS products. This is a major struggle which analyses about
> Microsoft's "domination" seem to ignore.)

Java's dead. However no one is preventing Atilla from writing e.g. a word
processor superior to MS Word and letting it compete in the marketplace.

> >    there is only one solution to organizations like M$
> >    which are operated without ethics: treat them to the
> >    pleasures of not only the antitrust laws but the
> >    exquisite delights of RICO.
>
> I cannot understand how Attila can so enthusiastically support this. His
> "exquisite delights" even recalls Torquemada and the Inquistion. A suitable
> term for what is being to MS, in my view.

I have mixed feelings about this... MS is a turd of the same shitpile
as DOJ, Ralph Nader, and Nescape. If one of them fucks another one of
them in the ass, as opposed to fucking an innocent bystander, we can gloat.

> >    M$ is a cancer; it has fully metasticized and is gorging
> >    itself at the banquet of the vanquished.
>
> Ralph Nader would probably be interested in hiring ATH as a speech writer.

Given free competition, MSFT would go wither away and die under its own weight.
Look at the stupidity they've unleashed in Windows 98:

* yet another user interface (while people are still retraining from 3.1 to
W95/NT4)

* No support for NTFS, but yet another wasteful file system (FAT32) [This is
really something. It's hard to fine a disk drive under 2GB these days and the
FAT filesystem is extremely inefficient on it. Instead of supporting NT's NTFS
(fairly fast and efficient; similar to OS/2 HPFS in many respects :-), MSFT
introduces yet another filesystem, that's actually slower than the 16-bot FAT
and wastes more disk storage in unsused clusters than any I've ever seen)

> >    anyway, just think where M$ would be with Royce today!
> >    Gate$ and Ballmer might be down at the local MCC for a
> >    few free 3 hots and a cot, all expenses paid, "enjoying"
> >    a well earned vacation from screwing all of us.
>
> I take it that ATH means that because something like 20 or 30 million
> Americans chose to buy Windows 95 (and thus gain the benefits we Macintosh
> users have had for many years :-}) that this means "we" were screwed?

In a sense, yes - if everyone freely chooses to use Windows 95 and not, say,
OS/2, and as the result the companies that developed software for OS/2 go
bankrupt (as most of them indeed did :-), and then there's no application
software for OS/2, then OS/2 users like myself are indeed screwed.

And it is Microsoft's fault for offering a more popular product; or perhaps
IBM's fault for fucking up OS/2.

> >    Other than the usual ills of a monopoly, what really
> >    irks anyone with a modicum of intelligence is that Gate$
> >    intends to migrate the entire package for the benefit of
> >    the couch potatoes; Gate$ intends to dictate not only
> >    what we use to view his trash, but that only his trash
> >    is splashed.
>
> Why not pick on Intel? Intel is, if anything, even more of a "monopoly"
> than MS is. While customers have some reasonable choices in OSes
> (Windows/NT, Unix, Linux, Macintosh, AmigaOS, Inferno, Java-based
> developments, etc.), the fact is that all of the surviving OSes are being
> ported to the Intel platform (pace recent announcements by Sun that Solaris
> will be on  Merced at its rollout in 1999, and earlier announcements by
> H-P, DEC, and IBM along the same lines).

Although I always buy Intel CPUs (afraid of compatability problems), there are
now plenty of clones from AMD, Cyrix, and IBM. Back in 8088 days I avoided
using Intel and insisted on the NEC clone. Intel's architecture is very
popular, but it's not necessary running on intel-made chips, or (more
relevantly) chips whose sales give Intel revenues.

> But neither MS nor Intel are "monopolies." They are just the People's
> Choice. Which always tends to cluster...the big really do get bigger. For
> awhile, at least, until the paradigm shifts and the big can't adapt quickly
> enough.

The way Microsoft seems to be unable to adapt to large hard disks :-)

> >> After the hearing Friday, Christine Varney, a former Federal
> >> Trade Commissioner now representing Netscape, was jubilant.
> >> "I think the judge has understood the seriousness of the
> >> issue," she said.
> >>
> >    she had every reason to be jubilant --so far. even if
> >    the judge did not fully understand the technological
> >    bullshit M$ was trying to slide on by, the judge fully
> >    understands that M$ was trying to blind pitch him --and
> >    insulting him to boot.
>
> Of _course_ she's jubilant! Netscape wants its "rightfully-earned monopoly"
> back! Has anyone forgotten that in 1995 it was looking like Netscape would
> be on 95% of all desktops, Windows, Mac, and Unix, and that it was turning
> into the Big Bad Monopoly? Are memories really that short?
>
> Netscape has been using its legal manouvers to attempt to stop Microsoft
> from horning in on _its_ monopoly.
>
> (I hate using the term "monopoly," but if critics of MS are going to use
> it, hey, when in Rome....)

I should also mention that Netscape was engaging in pretty nasty (although
legal) behavior by "enhancing" its browser to support non-standard HTML
extensions; some assholes uses these extensions on their web sites and then
theycould only be browser properly with a Netscape browser.

> >> Microsoft stock closed at $128.69, down $2.19 on NASDAQ,
> >> where it was among the most active issues.
>
> >    yes, down almost 20 points since their fiasco with the
> >    DOJ started. before it's over, I hope to see M$ listed
> >    with the junk bonds and issues --in the penny stocks.
> >
>
> Yep, sort of the way Netscape stock went from its IPO price of around $25
> (in today's shares) to $80 when it looked like Netscape Navigator and
> related products were going to be the Next Big Monopoly....and then
> plummeted down to the $30-40 range as it appeared this was not the way
> things were going to turn out....
>
> Netscape stock is currently at $27 3/4, just about where it began trading
> in '95.

I haven't look at NSCP's reports at all, but I presume most of their revenues
comes from their server sales, not the browser licenses?

> Perhaps the graphics chip companies facing extinction as Intel puts massive
> graphics capabilities into new chips can sue on antitrust grounds and get a
> "special master" to dictate to Intel what features it may put into chips?

it's funny that you mention this: I was just talking to someone who mentioned
that Lockheed-Martin is threatening INTC with anti-trust if Intel puts graphics
features in its chipsets that would hurt the sales some Lockheed-Martin
subsidiary. I suppose S3, Dimond multimedia, et al will b happy to join.

> (Certainly the long-departed Weitek might have survived a few more years
> had Ralph Nader turned his unsafe at any speed attention to the floating
> point processing market and gotten an injunction against Intel putting
> onboard floating point instructions into the 486.)

Hmm - having used Weitek chips a lot (alongside Intel 386's) I doubt very much
that Intel's integrating the floating point unit into the 486 contributed much
to its demise. I personally quit using Weiteks when I discovered that their
double precision operations were about 10 times slower than single precision,
and in fact slower than ab Intel 80387 co-processor!

> I cannot understand how any Cypherpunk can be advocating interference in
> the market the way Attila and a few others are doing.
>
> Making jokes about Bill Gates is one thing, just harmless fun. But
> advocating the Men with Guns (TM) seize control of the products he offers
> to uncoerced customers is simply wrong.

best scenario: men with guns die from AIDS
second best: men with guns shoot each other
worst: men with guns shoot innocent bystanders
MSFT is no innocent bystander.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

> Anyway, the recent government actions against Microsoft are reprehensible
> to any person who values liberty. Microsoft is being punished for its
> success.

No, Microsoft is being punished for consistently attempting to eliminate
all competition for PC computer software.  MS achieved a monopoly on the
operating system.  Fine.  They've pretty much earned one in the Desktop
application suite market.  (Partly because they give themselves access to
documentation and versions of the OS before anyone else, and partly
because they don't document large portions of the API, but....)  With the
Web browsers Netscape had a clear market-share lead.  Microsoft responded
with a free browser.  

Remember, under current Anti-trust laws, Microsoft clearly qualifies as a
monopoly.  And giving away products in a potentially competitive market is
clearly predatory pricing.  (And frankly, it has the nice side-effect of
eliminating any chance of choice for the consumer in the long run.)  Check
the surveys done (or published by, I'm not sure right now) Infoworld about
where companies are planning on being in 6 months with regards to web
browsers.   The supposed Netscape dominance in the browser market is going
to completely disappear.

Isn't this enough to tell Microsoft that it has to limit its licensing
deals some?  

Capitalism depends on competition to work, and we've seen several times in
this country that it tends to break down when extremely large companies
begin to dominate a market.  Hence our antitrust laws.  That's entirely
what Microsoft is being sued under.  (In principal, if not actuality..)

Ryan Anderson - Alpha Geek
PGP fp: 7E 8E C6 54 96 AC D9 57  E4 F8 AE 9C 10 7E 78 C9
print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<>
)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`

my understanding of the current MS debate is not 
flawless-- it's got a lot of minutia that's hard to 
follow. however:

what TCM fails to mention is a basic point: MS signed an
agreement a few years ago or whatever that they would not
bundle their browser with their OS, win95. 

now MS is having second thoughts, and trying to weasel out
of the contract by setting up a system in which the consumer
is supposedly requesting the browser integration via the 
licensing agreement.

the Justice department is doing nothing but enforcing a contract
that MS itself signed. it seems pretty clear that MS is
breaching its own contract.

whether that contract was signed under duress, or the
Justice dept is unfairly targeting MS, are valid questions
but not wholly relevant to the current debate. if MS felt
it was being persecuted it should have mounted that defense
before it signed the contract on its own volition.

personally, I have said before: I think Gates is finding
that in todays business world, cooperation is as important
as competition. the new climate has been described as
"co-operatition" and other words. Gates has made many
enemies in his megalomaniacal rise to power.  

make no mistake-- if you read books that discuss the 
behind-the-scenes, under-the-rock, behind-the-superficial-pr
atmosphere of the company, the unmistakable conclusion is 
that Gates is something of a tyrant bent on world software
domination. he has very few friends, and those that he
might think are his friends are really just sycophants
who are afraid of him.

capitalism involves many freedoms. one of those freedoms
involves doing business with companies that one prefers,
not necessarily for rational reasons. i.e. if people
begin to hate MS and abandon their products even if they
are superior and priced better, that's within the system
to do so. I personally think this is increasingly happening.

there are also a lot of stories that Gates has stabbed
companies in the back in deals in which he is supposedly
"cooperating" or having "strategic alliances" with. this is
way beyond the initial IBM thing. these rumors, which 
probably have some grounding in reality,
will make his business more difficult and have already done so.

in particular, Bill's inability to cooperate is evidenced
in the company's clear-cut strategy of trying to undermine
Java. what's interesting is that his company could just as
easily make lots of money by embracing the standard, even
without owning it themselves. there's a lot of bitterness
being generated by their veiled opposition to it. programmers
are far from stupid.

Bill doesn't realize how few real friends he really has.
he has made the mistake of thinking that business and 
cooperation are mutually exclusive. he'll pay the price.

At 1:53 PM -0700 12/27/97, Patrick May wrote:


>The President should issue an executive order mandating that all
>government agencies immediately remove all Microsoft operating systems
>from their machines, to be replaced with Linux.  All Microsoft
>products should be eliminated as well.  The standard text format
>should be LaTeX.  All businesses receiving money from government
>contracts should be required to use the same tools.
>
>     This would cut down dramatically on the money spent on software
>by the government, eliminate compatibility problems between users of
>different versions of Microsoft products, encourage enormous growth in
>the Linux software market, and guarantee that Microsoft would never
>again be considered a monopoly.  All this without ever entering a
>courtroom.

Much to be said for this "free market solution." Certainly the Justice
Department has no business screaming "monopoly!" if it's still
"standardizing" on MS products.

Though I don't know just how pervasive Microsoft products are within the
government and military offices, I'd venture that MS products are indeed
pervasive.

I don't believe there are any requirements that documents sent in to
agencies be in some proprietary MS format, and certainly none that
citizen-units only communicate with the gubment in approved Excel or Word
language. Though this could be coming, as the lines between government and
industry are further blurred.

(E.g., Microsoft agrees to unbundle Explorer in exchange for the USG
requiring all paperwork be done with Microsoft Office. Not likely, but a
scary thought.)

On the other hand, requiring _any_ language, program, or OS is probably a
mistake. If the Arctic Cartography Office wants to keep using its Macs, why
should some bureaucrat force them to scrap their Macs and use Linux?

(Yeah, yeah, a form of Linux, MK-Linux, runs on Macs. But Adobe Photoshop
doesn't run under Linux. And Mathematica doesn't run under Linux for the
Mac (last I checked). And so on. The point is, why standardize at the end
of a gun?)

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

At 03:47 AM 12/29/97 -0800, you wrote:
>
>  [lots of linux-vs-microsoft stuff deleted, then:]
>
>     - The third party market for Linux software would grow rapidly
>       and enormously.
>     - The government's software budget would be reduced dramatically.
>
>I consider both of these to be Good Things (tm).  The government
>wouldn't be forcing anything at the point of a gun, they'd simply be
>making a financially responsible vendor selection (hey, there's a
>first time for everything).  Our tax dollars shouldn't be wasted on
>substandard software when superior, cheaper alternatives exist.


  i haven't touched unix or linux in a long time, but i submit that
your ordinary GS-4 secretary can deal with microsoft word a lot more
efficiently than s/he can deal with vi/emacs/latex.  i assume there are
better tools available on *ix platforms these days, which actually
destroys my argument:

  do you really want the government to be more efficient?  :-)


peace,

-landon

landon dyer <landon@best.com> writes:

> At 03:47 AM 12/29/97 -0800, you wrote:
> >
> >  [lots of linux-vs-microsoft stuff deleted, then:]
> >
> >     - The third party market for Linux software would grow rapidly
> >       and enormously.
> >     - The government's software budget would be reduced dramatically.
> >
> >I consider both of these to be Good Things (tm).  The government
> >wouldn't be forcing anything at the point of a gun, they'd simply be
> >making a financially responsible vendor selection (hey, there's a
> >first time for everything).  Our tax dollars shouldn't be wasted on
> >substandard software when superior, cheaper alternatives exist.
>
>
>   i haven't touched unix or linux in a long time, but i submit that
> your ordinary GS-4 secretary can deal with microsoft word a lot more
> efficiently than s/he can deal with vi/emacs/latex.  i assume there are
> better tools available on *ix platforms these days, which actually
> destroys my argument:
>
>   do you really want the government to be more efficient?  :-)

This has no bloody crypto relevance, but the Applix word processor is
just as easy to use as Microsoft Word. (And somebody should write a
better free clone of MS Word as a student project.)

Moreover I've some extremely stupid people successfully trained to
use (character-mode) Wordperfect.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

In <TFaiie54w165w@bwalk.dm.com>, on 12/29/97 
   at 10:34 PM, dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM) said:

>landon dyer <landon@best.com> writes:

>> At 03:47 AM 12/29/97 -0800, you wrote:
>> >
>> >  [lots of linux-vs-microsoft stuff deleted, then:]
>> >
>> >     - The third party market for Linux software would grow rapidly
>> >       and enormously.
>> >     - The government's software budget would be reduced dramatically.
>> >
>> >I consider both of these to be Good Things (tm).  The government
>> >wouldn't be forcing anything at the point of a gun, they'd simply be
>> >making a financially responsible vendor selection (hey, there's a
>> >first time for everything).  Our tax dollars shouldn't be wasted on
>> >substandard software when superior, cheaper alternatives exist.
>>
>>
>>   i haven't touched unix or linux in a long time, but i submit that
>> your ordinary GS-4 secretary can deal with microsoft word a lot more
>> efficiently than s/he can deal with vi/emacs/latex.  i assume there are
>> better tools available on *ix platforms these days, which actually
>> destroys my argument:
>>
>>   do you really want the government to be more efficient?  :-)

>This has no bloody crypto relevance, but the Applix word processor is
>just as easy to use as Microsoft Word. (And somebody should write a
>better free clone of MS Word as a student project.)

>Moreover I've some extremely stupid people successfully trained to use
>(character-mode) Wordperfect.

Lets see how many years before winblows were there computers??

It may be hard to believe for some of the "youngsters" on the list but
people got quite a bit of work done before the fancy GUI's and the ever
insistent push to "upgrade" every six months by Micky$loth.

A well train and experienced secretary will be much more productive with a
text-mode WP with a good set of macro's and keyboard accelerators. A mouse
and a GUI is not only unnecessary but counter-productive.

I would take a good multi-threaded, multi-tasking, text mode system over
the drivile that keeps comming out of Redmond, WA. anyday.

- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html                        
- ---------------------------------------------------------------

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This is largely a matter of personal preference (i.e., religious), but I'll
say why I think Wm. Geiger's claims are unconvincing.

At 9:58 PM -0700 12/29/97, William H. Geiger III wrote:

>Lets see how many years before winblows were there computers??
>
>It may be hard to believe for some of the "youngsters" on the list but
>people got quite a bit of work done before the fancy GUI's and the ever
>insistent push to "upgrade" every six months by Micky$loth.

The real boom in productivity has to do with users not having to memorize
various command sequences for various programs.

What the Macintosh made popular (though I won't get into the dangerous
ground of saying it pioneered these ideas--see Note below) was the approach
of having a relatively consistent set of commands across many applications.
And with the commands visible in a menu bar.

(Note: The Symbolics and Xerox Lisp/Smalltalk machines I used in the early
80s had similar features, with pop-up menus of commonly used commands. And,
of course, with even heavier use of object-oriented methodologies than the
Mac could afford to include. The idea of a unified, integrated environment
is an old one, going back at least to Doug Engelbart in the 60s, and
perhaps even further back. And the Bobrow book, "Design of Interactive
Programming Environments," laid out most of the features we now call "GUI."
Or some people call "GUI.")

The effect of this all is profound. It means that a manager or secretary or
whatever doesn't need to write down a bunch of funny commands for Wordstar,
or Emacs, or Autocad...he or she can "muddle through" just by going to the
"File" menu item to open files, save them, make copies, etc. Or to the
"Edit" menu item to make changes, cut and paste, alter fonts, whatever.

Specialists in some particular program of course become proficient even
without a GUI or Menu-based system. But of course most GUI programs (Mac,
of course, and Windows, and most Unices) offer various keyboard shortcuts.

Maybe Wm. Geiger and others dismiss GUI or Menu interfaces as "training
wheels." Perhaps. But it's very useful to have such aids when dealing with
5 or 10 or 30 different programs!

(I started out on a Data General Nova, got a Proc Tech Sol as my first PC,
then a VAX, then an IBM PC, then a Symbolics 3600 Lisp Machine, then a Mac,
and so on. With my PC, moving from one program to another was always
painful, and I had various keyboard overlays (remember those?) to help me
transition from the "Cmd-Shift-Backspace" to select a word in BlueWord
1.00A to "Shift-Doubleclick" to do the same thing in SpreadSheet 1.5. Once
I got my Macintosh, this all ended. No more keyboard overlays...they
weren't needed.)

>A well train and experienced secretary will be much more productive with a
>text-mode WP with a good set of macro's and keyboard accelerators. A mouse
>and a GUI is not only unnecessary but counter-productive.

Which of course explains why corporations are not using Windows or Macs!

I disagree strongly that any corporation is more productive, overall, with
such tools. Granted, a fast typist equipped with some special purpose text
entry system (we used to have Laniers and Wangs as our "secretary
engines"), but that typist will not be constrained by typing in a GUI
window!

But of course most companies, especially larger high tech companies, don't
even have secretaries to type and retype letters, memos, and reports.
Engineers, and even managers, and even very senior managers, type most of
their own stuff these days. (Or so all my friends in Silicon Valley assure
me.)

I started typing all my own technical papers into my own IBM PC back in
'83, using the first version of Microsoft Word. While it is true that I was
being paid to be a scientist, and not a typist, it was far faster for me to
write the papers on my PC, edit them, and so on, than to submit a longhand
(arghh!) copy to a secretary, finagle to get her to work on it, get it back
several days later, find numerous errors I had not put there, and even
missing sentences and paragraphs. And so on.

This experience of mine has been repeated millions of times in corporate
America. Even my old boss, Andy Grove, now types all of his correspondence,
which is now mostly e-mail. Or so he claims.

In this environment, where people at all levels are using multiple
programs--e-mail, word processing, drawing, spreadsheets, math programs,
graphing programs, Web browsers, and so on--it is much more efficient to
have an integrated environment, a common set of basic commands, a GUI.


>I would take a good multi-threaded, multi-tasking, text mode system over
>the drivile that keeps comming out of Redmond, WA. anyday.

I think the quality of lack of quality of word processors is grossly
overrated.

Most features are not used in ordinary writing. I write a *lot* of stuff,
and 99% of what I write is completely nondependent on bells and whistles in
most word processing programs.

(I could digress into discussing writing features I like to use for some
projects, such as MORE's outlining features, or page layout features I use
in FrameMaker. But 99% of my writing is now done for e-mail like this,
using the straightforward text tools of Eudora Pro.)

Most writing is done "typewriter style," with the ability to move words
around just lagniappe.  (And often dangerous lagniappe at that...most
errors creep in when people move words and sentences around, often leaving
them mismatching their surroundings in tense and awkwardly linking to often
leaving them mismatching often leaving them mismatching...see what I mean?)

Good writing comes from good writers, not from word processing programs.
Those who can't put a decent argument together will not find solace in some
"good multi-threaded, multi-tasking, text mode system."

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

In <v03102806b0ce2de79528@[207.167.93.63]>, on 12/30/97 
   at 12:26 AM, Tim May <tcmay@got.net> said:

>In this environment, where people at all levels are using multiple
>programs--e-mail, word processing, drawing, spreadsheets, math programs,
>graphing programs, Web browsers, and so on--it is much more efficient to
>have an integrated environment, a common set of basic commands, a GUI.

While you have made some intriguing points they for the most part address
the benefits of standardization not of a GUI (note: Standardization !=
GUI).

While some standardization is good it is not the be all to end all. While
standardization of cut, paste, open, close, print makes perfect sense most
commands do not fall into this catagory. The inherent benefit of this
standardization decrease the more specialized an application becomes. With
a program like Autocad or MathCad or even Lotus 1-2-3 where one has a
steep learning curve of specialized commands the benefits of standardized
basic commands boarders on insignificant.

Once we get past the standardization issue to the one of textmode vs GUI
(which was the topic of my original post) I doubt that one can make the
case that a draftsman running a graphics program under a textmode OS is
less efficient as his counterpart who is saddled with a bloated GUI OS. In
fact if both are operating on the same hardware I would venture a guess
that the textmode user will be more efficient by the simple fact that his
resources are not being consumed by the GUI.

The same case can be made for the accounting staff using spreadsheets or
the secretaries typing letters. I'll take an accounting department using
Lotus 1-2-3 3.x up against a similar group running MS Office and Win95/NT
any day of the week. I'll get the same work done faster and *cheaper*. Now
the MS group will have prettier reports but why should the accounting dept
be in the business of typesetting??

This brings up another issue of decreased performance with the GUI's. It
is the notion that every document must be type-set. I can't even start to
imagine the millions of man hours wasted in the office because every
insignificant memo, report, and letter has to be formatted "just right"
before it is acceptable. Now with the growing popularity of e-mail this
trend has reversed somewhat but you have companies like Netscape and
Microsoft who are eagerly trying to herd the masses back into this typeset
mentality.

But I digress. :)

Another contention I have with the GUI's is the use of icons. One of the
most misused and time wasting "features" of the GUI's. It makes absolutely
no sense for someone who is working on the keyboard to stop what they are
doing, go over to the mouse, and then point and click to execute a
command. Now if you are in some type of graphics/drawing program where
most of your work is being done with a mouse already then it makes sense
but in a word processor or a spreadsheet or even a database it is highly
inefficient.

Well I guess I will rap this up with a final note. With the GUI OS's (and
the applications that run on them) as size and complexity increases
performance and reliability decreases. Without a doubt I can get more work
done on cheaper hardware running *nix or os/2 using only text mode
applications than I can running a GUI with it's associated bloated
applications.


- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html                        
- ---------------------------------------------------------------

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Tim May wrote (my comments below):
> 
> This is largely a matter of personal preference (i.e., religious), but I'll
> say why I think Wm. Geiger's claims are unconvincing.
> 
> At 9:58 PM -0700 12/29/97, William H. Geiger III wrote:
> 
> >Lets see how many years before winblows were there computers??
> >
> >It may be hard to believe for some of the "youngsters" on the list but
> >people got quite a bit of work done before the fancy GUI's and the ever
> >insistent push to "upgrade" every six months by Micky$loth.
> 
> The real boom in productivity has to do with users not having to memorize
> various command sequences for various programs.
> 
> What the Macintosh made popular (though I won't get into the dangerous
> ground of saying it pioneered these ideas--see Note below) was the approach
> of having a relatively consistent set of commands across many applications.
> And with the commands visible in a menu bar.
> 
> (Note: The Symbolics and Xerox Lisp/Smalltalk machines I used in the early
> 80s had similar features, with pop-up menus of commonly used commands. And,
> of course, with even heavier use of object-oriented methodologies than the
> Mac could afford to include. The idea of a unified, integrated environment
> is an old one, going back at least to Doug Engelbart in the 60s, and
> perhaps even further back. And the Bobrow book, "Design of Interactive
> Programming Environments," laid out most of the features we now call "GUI."
> Or some people call "GUI.")
> 
> The effect of this all is profound. It means that a manager or secretary or
> whatever doesn't need to write down a bunch of funny commands for Wordstar,
> or Emacs, or Autocad...he or she can "muddle through" just by going to the
> "File" menu item to open files, save them, make copies, etc. Or to the
> "Edit" menu item to make changes, cut and paste, alter fonts, whatever.
> 
> Specialists in some particular program of course become proficient even
> without a GUI or Menu-based system. But of course most GUI programs (Mac,
> of course, and Windows, and most Unices) offer various keyboard shortcuts.
> 
> Maybe Wm. Geiger and others dismiss GUI or Menu interfaces as "training
> wheels." Perhaps. But it's very useful to have such aids when dealing with
> 5 or 10 or 30 different programs!
> 
> (I started out on a Data General Nova, got a Proc Tech Sol as my first PC,
> then a VAX, then an IBM PC, then a Symbolics 3600 Lisp Machine, then a Mac,
> and so on. With my PC, moving from one program to another was always
> painful, and I had various keyboard overlays (remember those?) to help me
> transition from the "Cmd-Shift-Backspace" to select a word in BlueWord
> 1.00A to "Shift-Doubleclick" to do the same thing in SpreadSheet 1.5. Once
> I got my Macintosh, this all ended. No more keyboard overlays...they
> weren't needed.)
> 
> >A well train and experienced secretary will be much more productive with a
> >text-mode WP with a good set of macro's and keyboard accelerators. A mouse
> >and a GUI is not only unnecessary but counter-productive.
> 
> Which of course explains why corporations are not using Windows or Macs!
> 
> I disagree strongly that any corporation is more productive, overall, with
> such tools. Granted, a fast typist equipped with some special purpose text
> entry system (we used to have Laniers and Wangs as our "secretary
> engines"), but that typist will not be constrained by typing in a GUI
> window!
> 
> But of course most companies, especially larger high tech companies, don't
> even have secretaries to type and retype letters, memos, and reports.
> Engineers, and even managers, and even very senior managers, type most of
> their own stuff these days. (Or so all my friends in Silicon Valley assure
> me.)
> 
> I started typing all my own technical papers into my own IBM PC back in
> '83, using the first version of Microsoft Word. While it is true that I was
> being paid to be a scientist, and not a typist, it was far faster for me to
> write the papers on my PC, edit them, and so on, than to submit a longhand
> (arghh!) copy to a secretary, finagle to get her to work on it, get it back
> several days later, find numerous errors I had not put there, and even
> missing sentences and paragraphs. And so on.
> 
> This experience of mine has been repeated millions of times in corporate
> America. Even my old boss, Andy Grove, now types all of his correspondence,
> which is now mostly e-mail. Or so he claims.
> 
> In this environment, where people at all levels are using multiple
> programs--e-mail, word processing, drawing, spreadsheets, math programs,
> graphing programs, Web browsers, and so on--it is much more efficient to
> have an integrated environment, a common set of basic commands, a GUI.
> 
> >I would take a good multi-threaded, multi-tasking, text mode system over
> >the drivile that keeps comming out of Redmond, WA. anyday.
> 
> I think the quality of lack of quality of word processors is grossly
> overrated.
> 
> Most features are not used in ordinary writing. I write a *lot* of stuff,
> and 99% of what I write is completely nondependent on bells and whistles in
> most word processing programs.
> 
> (I could digress into discussing writing features I like to use for some
> projects, such as MORE's outlining features, or page layout features I use
> in FrameMaker. But 99% of my writing is now done for e-mail like this,
> using the straightforward text tools of Eudora Pro.)
> 
> Most writing is done "typewriter style," with the ability to move words
> around just lagniappe.  (And often dangerous lagniappe at that...most
> errors creep in when people move words and sentences around, often leaving
> them mismatching their surroundings in tense and awkwardly linking to often
> leaving them mismatching often leaving them mismatching...see what I mean?)
> 
> Good writing comes from good writers, not from word processing programs.
> Those who can't put a decent argument together will not find solace in some
> "good multi-threaded, multi-tasking, text mode system."
> 
> --Tim May
> 
> The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
> ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
> Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
> ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
> W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
> Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
> "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway.

This list was "supposed" to be about issues other than os bitches
and gun talk.

Think of your history.  [See efga.org before your history becomes your
past.]

I called vi the best to shut this shit up.  Let's talk about some (new)
real
cypherpunk shit.  Not TEOTWAWKI like misc.survivalism.  Ok, but give me
a break.

These are the projects with current priority:

1)  I am starting a credit-card swiping program for interested citizens
in
    Atlanta.  The vast majority don't know what is on their credit
cards.
    Although they do not technically "own" the cards, I feel they have a
right
    to know what the ABA format has to say about them.

    (No, I'm not advocating fraud, so don't even start with me.)

2)  I want to know anyone who knows anything about full-duplex soundcard
    programming under Linux.  Internet Telephony is fast opon us, do you
want
    to subscribe or design?  This is duplex Nautilus II.  Get in gear.

I have 1) completed.  How about 2)?  Any closet Nautilus users out
there?

We could code, or we could just type jerk off until the clock strikes 5
pm.

--David Miller

middle  rival
devil rim lad

Windows '95 -- a dirty, two-bit operating system.

Encrypted IP Voice Duplex '98 for North America

(Apologies to Tim.  You know I agree with all that shit...)

At 1:39 AM -0700 12/30/97, David Miller wrote:

>This list was "supposed" to be about issues other than os bitches
>and gun talk.

Hey, try learning to _edit_. You foolishly included my entire article, .sig
lines and all, before adding your little gem of wisdom. Learn to include
only what is needed to reestablish context, or for specific discussion.


>I called vi the best to shut this shit up.  Let's talk about some (new)
>real
>cypherpunk shit.  Not TEOTWAWKI like misc.survivalism.  Ok, but give me
>a break.

Another illiterate discovers the Cypherpunks list, and then presumes to
tell _us_ what the "purpose" of it is.

A great many things are talked about. Learn to use a kill file, or to
delete what you don't want to read.

If you think the "purpose" of the list is, as some do, to talk about what a
neat book "Applied Cryptography" is, or where to get a copy of PGP, then,
fine, talk about that. Like so many yokels do.

Even better, go back to where you came from.

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

Tim May writes:
 > At 1:53 PM -0700 12/27/97, Patrick May wrote:
 > >The President should issue an executive order mandating that all
 > >government agencies immediately remove all Microsoft operating systems
 > >from their machines, to be replaced with Linux.  All Microsoft
 > >products should be eliminated as well.  The standard text format
 > >should be LaTeX.  All businesses receiving money from government
 > >contracts should be required to use the same tools.
[ . . . ]
 > 
 > Much to be said for this "free market solution." Certainly the Justice
 > Department has no business screaming "monopoly!" if it's still
 > "standardizing" on MS products.
[ . . . ]
 > On the other hand, requiring _any_ language, program, or OS is probably a
 > mistake. If the Arctic Cartography Office wants to keep using its Macs, why
 > should some bureaucrat force them to scrap their Macs and use Linux?
 > 
 > (Yeah, yeah, a form of Linux, MK-Linux, runs on Macs. But Adobe Photoshop
 > doesn't run under Linux. And Mathematica doesn't run under Linux for the
 > Mac (last I checked). And so on. The point is, why standardize at the end
 > of a gun?)

     Okay, so I'm a UNIX-head; I forgot about the Macs (a dangerous
thing to do, given the ferocity of their supporters).  If the
government were to adopt my suggestion, two major results would be:

     - The third party market for Linux software would grow rapidly
       and enormously.
     - The government's software budget would be reduced dramatically.

I consider both of these to be Good Things (tm).  The government
wouldn't be forcing anything at the point of a gun, they'd simply be
making a financially responsible vendor selection (hey, there's a
first time for everything).  Our tax dollars shouldn't be wasted on
substandard software when superior, cheaper alternatives exist.

Regards,

Patrick May
S P Engineering, Inc.