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So you think using questionable tactics to take total control of a market is not a crime? I suppose you would say Standard Oil's tactics of the early 1900s were okay. Perhaps you would say it would be okay for someone's "one true" church to encourage its members to refuse housing to "evil" non-members. If their members own most of the housing, and many people end up homeless (including you), you will just say "that is okay." After all, they are just trying to get more market share!

When talking about platforms if you want to refer to just the OS (or supporting libraries, specifications etc.) then you would say "software platform" and if you want to talk only about the processor (or other supporting hardware) then you would say "hardware platform". Otherwise, in computing, the word platform is understood to mean a particular combination of hardware and software.

Also be aware that cross platform is not the same thing as platform independent.

If you are still confused you may find the following helpful:

http://www.bellevuelinux.org/cross-platform.html
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/platform
http://www.atis.org/tg2k/_platform.html
http://mtechit.com/concepts/platform.html
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/ DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861738674

Linus knows how to pronounce "Linux", so ask him how to pronounce "etc". Better yet, ask Ken Thompson; he should know http://www.bellevuelinux.org/thompson.html.

I've always called it "et cee" and understood that it was a place for system-wide configuration files.

According to the linfo.org pages, linfo is a project of the Bellevue Linux Users Group.

Checking out whois isn't always the most reliable way to figure out who is behind a site.

Would you expect this on a Microsoft-owned website?

(And yes, I do work for Novell. And I don't have much of a reason to defend the site, since most of the reasons listed don't expect Novell to survive, only to serve as a bad example.)

Yes, this article is clearly pure FUD. It is apparently a creation of Bellevue Linux Users Group. And it is an open secret here in the Seattle area that Bellevue Linux Users Group was started by Microsoft and that several of its members are Microsoft employees. Taking over SuSE, starting their own LUGs -- what will those clever folks in Redmond think of next? By the way, does anybody know if Microsoft is also doing this in other cities?

Excuse my skepticism. I've never heard of you guys; I live in Seattle and go to the Seattle Java Users Group, PHP Meetup and a few others and have NEVER heard of the Bellevue Linux Users group.

You live there? What are you doing December 12th?

Barnes & Noble Downtown Bellevue 106th Ave. NE, Bellevue, WA (425) 451-8463

Go check 'em out. Report back to us what you find. (One darkly clothed guy with a win XP laptop surreptitiously uploading photos of anyone searching for the Bellevue LUG?)

See: http://www.bellevuelinux.org/meeting.html

Umm, complete bullshit. The site you mentioned was formed by the Bellevue Linux Users group (or at least hosted there.) See their site here:

http://www.bellevuelinux.org/index.html

ConnectExpress.com is one of their sponsors.

"Some of the IE code is actaully running in kernel mode"

Can you define "Kernel Mode". Googling, I see this, which if is what you are talking about, tells me that you are wrong, because exploits in IE have no ability to gain priviledge higher than the user's.

These are the things I know from experience:

* Exploits that hit IE gain the priviledges of the user. Since most Windows users run as administrator, the priviledges are generally unlimited, but if the user is running as a restricted user, the exploit can not doing anything that the user can't do. This is standard for any userland program.

* IE can be completely neutered by denying access to a few key dlls. This will break certain other components of the OS, but contrary to many claims, will not cause Windows to be unusable, or unstable. Things that break when you neuter IE in this way are the help and support center (which is a glorified IE shell), and certain functionality in explorer.

Typical government waste. I can find a single web site that will give you 25 reasons that does not require 72 pages of padding.

But hey, since MS has filled almost everyone's pockets at every level of government, we won't begin to see any mass adoption of OSS, now will we?

I believe many of your arguments are of the "straw man" variety. Do not presume to say that I have not learned from history...this attack is of the ad hominem variety (attack the person, not the idea).

That was not an unfettered free market. There were many laws that stifled competition. Monopolies, in fact, cannot exist without laws to protect their power.

To a large extent I agree with you here. The problem is, I believe, that in the absence of any regulation for the public good, private power will gravitate into an increasingly small set of hands. Those who are in power will seek to increase it, often using whatever means possible. History has shown this to be true. Witness the early twentieth century, and the age of the robber barons, where Rockefeller would buy up railways to deprive his competitors of means of transportation for their oil. Link The origin of the barrel as a transportation unit for oil came because Rockefeller's competitors needed a flexible means of transporting oil to get around his monopolistic actions.

Where I agree with you is that corporations are creations of law, and and are thus protected by laws. So in that sense, monopolies have been supported by law. However in the 1930's, governments began to realize that intervention was needed to increase the wealth of society. The oligarchies were failing to effectively use the labor force. Huge numbers of people were wallowing in unemployment, unable to fulfill their potential because no one would hire them or train them. The government intervened to harness that potential to build roads, bridges, and other important public structures. This (and WWII) laid the foundations for the economic boom of the 1950's and 60's.

So? The rich earned that money. It is their business what to do withit.

Again, I partially agree with you. If the government took too much of the money earned by the rich, then it would be a disincentive to wealth creation, and thus would not serve the public interest. However, your statement sounds somewhat Manichaean to me (ie. black and white).

I ask you, does it matter how a rich person came by that money? Perhaps a rich person obtained their money through theft, or by the sale of narcotics or other illegal items, or by blackmail. If so, perhaps that wealth should be taken away from the wealthy person. But who decides what theft is? Who decides what is illegal? The government does. And in a democratic society, these laws should be made in the public interest (though nothing is perfect). The government says that it is not in the public interest to have theft. The government says that it is not in the public interest to have narcotics being sold. So I would ask you? Does a democratically elected government have the right to take away the proceeds of crime from criminals?

If so, then does the government also have the right to take away money from other members of society, if it is serving the public interest? What if a very wealthy person became rich by using monopolistic powers to restrict the free market? This has happened several times. eg. The breakup of Standard Oil, of ATT to name a couple. The government broke these monopolies to promote competition and a free market. Was this justified? Who would act to break up the Standard Oil monopoly, if not the government?

The private sector IS the public interest. The balance is being tipped from the ruling class to the ruled.

To me, this is an example of Orwellian "newspeak" of the "freedom is slavery" variety. My opinion on this is that if a democratically accountable government gives up power, that power will simply flow into the hands of rich, powerful and unaccountable individuals. That power will not substantially flow into the hands of average individuals. Using an analogy, if we equate money with power, then a tax redu

Fight the FUD with benefits to the company for switching to linux. Here is a nice list of 25 reasons to use linux in your organization from the linux information project. They also have a list of success stories with links for companies that successfully switched to linux.

Fight the FUD with benefits to the company for switching to linux. Here is a nice list of 25 reasons to use linux in your organization from the linux information project. They also have a list of success stories with links for companies that successfully switched to linux.

• Drivers must be signed for devices that stream protected content. This includes audio drivers that use Protected User Mode Audio (PUMA) and Protected Audio Path (PAP), and video device drivers that handle protected video path-output protection management (PVP-OPM) commands.
  
• Unsigned kernel-mode software will not load and will not run on x64-based systems.
  
• Note: Even users with administrator privileges cannot load unsigned kernel-mode code on x64-based systems. This applies for any software module that loads in kernel mode, including device drivers, filter drivers, and kernel services.

(Boldface mine.)

I can offer my customers the most restrictive contracts possible and get a massive market share, but then the I'm declared an abusive monopoly, they become illegal.

I see your point. But that's like saying it's not illegal until I get caught which is not true because it's illegal to even attempt to monopolize.

Read the text.

Peace.

I'm not as current on licensing issues as I used to be, and perhaps this post will show that (too much) but the artistic license seems historically important; I can't right now find the post/statement from Larry Wall that I remember reading oh, so many years ago about why he devised it. But the spirit of it -- of making
something that had originally been GPLd work for those who were wary of GPL; of dual-licensing under the AL and the GPL, of furthering the spread of Perl at a time when there wasn't nearly as much OSS code around... It seems like some similar variation should still be able to work today. (Apparently "some variations" are underway -- scroll down to "License of Perl" on this FSF page to read more). See also AL considered ambiguous

In any case, perhaps something like the AL is what those who wish to have a "commercial version of the GPL" actually mean. They should follow their own advice, and choose either Public Domain, a BSD-style license, or the Artistic License as their "commercial GPL" rather than invent yet another new one.