On Wed, Feb 20, 2002 at 05:02:23PM -0800, G. L. `Griz' Inabnit wrote:
> On Wednesday 20 February 2002 01:31 pm, Jens Benecke wrote:
> > Plus, Microsoft has started a really big FUD campaign about the GPL,
> > which makes many vendors uneasy. At the same time they put stuff
> > like "we have a right to know what is on your harddisk" in the EULA,
> > and nobody seems to notice ...
>
> BRAVO ZULU!! At least I'm not the ONLY soul alive that noticed this
> and had alarm flags/bells/whistles go off in his head!!
Not at all. :-) I don't know how you grok German, but have a look at
http://slash.jensbenecke.de. Babelfish makes a complete mess of it,
translate.google.com is better but still laughable.
> I'm just a lowly American pion, but
I'm not American and not planning to convert, partly for that reason.
> isn't Illegal sill illegal??? Why
The trouble is that in reality (IMHO), America is no democracy any more,
it's a commercial oligarchy. With enough money you can have any law, any
regulation, get out of court, shut down, strangle or just kill your
competition, and thus make more money.
This is painfully OT but I'd like your view on this: IMHO one of the two
major illnesses of the USA system are
- the patent office must finance itself, and isn't sponsored. I.e. they
patent everything, because that means revenue. They want software
patents, because that will mean more patents, and more lawsuits, ie
more money for patent lawyers, ie. more reputation for their
profession, etc.
- Politicians, senators etc are at times sponsored by one or two major
companies, not hundreds. (See Senator Hollings...) At least in Germany
this effect is much more diluted, parties are, if at all, sponsored by
several hundred organizations.
> is this company still allowd to do business??? What do they (M$) {or
> we the users} have to do to get this elivated to the Omsa Bin Laden
> level?? How much longer are we going to allow this company who's
> illegal (AND immoral) actions threaten the world???!!!??? [/rant]
As long as they have money, they will continue to do so. Because - and I
actually can understand this - from a BUSINESS point of view it makes a
lot of sense to slowly strangle your customers, IF you have them
sufficiently hooked on you.
So: Don't buy their products, don't let others spend money or support
their products. Don't pay money for services that force you on their
products. ("This pay porn site requires Internet Explorer 5.0" ;)
Don't buy computers from resellers that force you to buy a Windows
licence - and if you have no choice, sell the license. IN Europe, there
is no legal difference between OEM licenses and 'full' licenses, at
least not for the end user. You can sell a windows recovery CD license,
accompanied with a full working version on CD-R, and be completely
legal.
Introduce users who you estimate will survive it to Linux, SLOWLY. Don't
tell them about source code (they don't care, usually). Tell them you
are allowed to copy it and there are 5000 applications included, and
it is very crash proof, doesn't contain restrictions on copying things,
doesn't contain spy-ware etc.
> Jens, next time yer in the U.S., beer/dinner/whatever is on me! Thanks
Where do you live? ;-)
Well, it's still quite a distance from here, I don't know if I'll have
time for the trip. Unless you can arrange an internship for an
electrical engineering student (specializing on communications networks)
starting September ;-)
(You don't have to tell them that I study at the TUHH ... ;)
> for saying what I've felt for too long. (and yes, i fight them
> {personally} in every way I can [including no longer supporting any of
> their 'server systems'].
Yes. But one must do this slowly. Replacing Word with latex + vi isn't
going to help anybody and will just succeed in making people angry. ;)
--
mfg, Jens Benecke /// www.hitchhikers.de, www.linuxfaq.de, www.linux.ms
This mail is an attachment? Read http://www.jensbenecke.de/misc/outlook.html
V: Epson Stylus Color 600, 1440dpi, inkl. 4F+4SW-Patronen
V: MP3-Discman, spielt MP3-CDs und CDA
V: 8/40x TEAC SCSI CD-Writer, kann Überlänge
Attachment:
pgpTduCTRjTIx.pgp
Description: PGP signature