Which group was it that was taken to court because they posted a list of doctors who perform abortions online, and then proceeded to draw lines through the names of the doctors who had been murdered?
As for our gay friend he is in fashion today. It's good to be gay and marry.
Except when you're getting beaten, raped, shot or stabbed to death for being gay. Not to mention that same-sex marriages are still illegal in many places.
Either way you look at it people like to go to extremes.
I don't think going to extremes is the real problem. The problem is the removal or perversion of the facts in order to make for a better story.
The only euthanasia for children I can support is one where machines are unplugged and the child is left to fend for itself. I missed the Singer discussion so if much of this was already covered there, I apologize.
That's not far from what Singer was advocating. He was saying that rather than leaving a child with no chance (i.e. missing most of its brain or other such serious and fatal flaw) to suffer and die without machines to keep it breathing or keep its heart beating or whatever, it would be kinder to simply give it a lethal injection. Not a lot of difference. What you're saying is that the child should be left to fend for itself, and if it dies, it dies. That assumes that the child has at least some chance of survival, in which case Singer's argument doesn't apply.
I never have said that singer is a monster. Go read what I actually said.
I believe he was referring to this statement from your first post:
So Jon you argue that my using of my free speech to call Singer a monster is hysterical and reduces your liberties while your opinion that he is not a monster is worthy and makes us more free?
In that statement, you seem to imply that you should have the right to call Singer a monster. I understand that you were saying this because Jon asserted that he was NOT a monster. The problem is that Jon was trying to state that the labeling of Singer as a monster by his critics was wrong, and that they should read and understand his argument and then make their own. Instead they simply shout "Murderer!" and attempt to silence him.
Accusing me of brute force intellectual terrorism is amusing.
Again, it seems to me that there was a misunderstanding that caused this. He accused you of intellectual terrorism because he thought you were supporting what many of Singer's critics were doing to silence him. In actuality, he should have been accusing Singer's critics of intellectual terrorism, not you. Chalk it up to misunderstanding.
Your argument seems to be that I have the right to free speech as long as I say certain things and do not say others or to put it a different way as long as I construct my arguments according to your preferences.
I don't think it has anything to do with how you construct your arguments, but rather whether you even attempt to make an argument, or instead simply denounce someone as a monster, murderer, etc.
A person that advocates immoral behavior is not acting morally.
Perhaps you could be considered immoral by many people from different cultures or religions. Should you be publicly labeled as immoral? Morality is highly subjective. It is never a good argument.
No responsible, intelligent American believes that they're free to do as they please: the very idea is silly. Freedom will be absolute the day that a Utopian society is created, which is to say freedom will never be absolute.
I don't believe Mr. Katz said anything about absolute freedom. He simply stated that it is a commonly held belief (albeit a deluded one, in his opinion) that America is a free, and thus morally superior country. From the context of the article, I take it that he believes that America is neither as free as many believe, nor morally superior.
Moral Superiority? No. It would be more accurate to use the term "Political Superiority".
I don't agree with this. There are way too many people in this country who seem to believe that America holds the moral high ground in the world. They are usually politicians or religious leaders.
What is most fascinating about this article is that Mr. Katz has absolutely missed the point: the very fact that Mr. Singer can publicly express his controversial, and in some quarters, unpopular opinions is proof that America is relatively free country.
Katz's argument was not about our legal rights, but the forms of censorship that are used against us by society. In the case of Mr. Singer, the censorship took the form of death threats and straw man arguments made against him in an effort to deceive people into misunderstanding his real argument.
Mr. Katz's piece could have done without the inflammatory rhetoric (ie, "Dying Babies and The Myth of American Freedom"
I don't have a problem with his title. It did fit the piece fairly well. It gets attention and draws people to read it. That's what journalists do. They write, and they want people to read and discuss what they write.
I sometimes think that Mr. Katz is more interested in controversy than content, and this article does nothing but confirm my suspicions.
Katz chooses controversial subjects specifically because they are the ones that need to be discussed. He could simply write fluff that everyone already agrees on and is serving no purpose, but why? If he wanted to just cause trouble, he wouldn't be publishing his writings on Slashdot where they can be easily picked apart and checked for accuracy and logic, and the result left for all to see right below his article.
I could probably come up with an equally scary prediction for just about any new technology or discovery. The fact is that we don't know. We have to keep testing ideas and theories. It could be the most incredible boon for the human race, or it could be utterly devastating. Most likely it will not reach either extreme. We are constantly expanding our knowledge of the universe and everything in it. We're constantly trying to use what we learn to improve our situation. That's what we, as humans, seem to be most inclined to do with our lives.
The point is that there are huge numbers of people in this country with no health insurance at all. Taxpayers foot the bill for their medical expenses. Keeping a baby on life support when it's obvious that it won't survive once the life support is taken away is pointless. Why spend the money to keep the child alive (and probably in pain) for any longer than necessary? That money could actually do some good for someone with a chance of survival. Unfortunately, our health care system is too screwed up and bloated for it to do as much good as it should. There's too many people making too much profit from it. They have no incentive to fix the system. It works for them. Screw everyone else.
The guy has more money than he could spend in his lifetime. His time is carefully planned and he has plenty of help. Do you think he has time to be bothered with buying food? He's got people to do things like that for him. If he wants a burger, someone will bring him one.
The larger mass of deadness should be the more successful species. It's been around long enough to accumulate such a mass of deadness. That being the case, I bet the rats would win this one hands down.
You can pay a toll with a credit card. Do you think Bill eats at McDonald's? I doubt it. I'm sure wherever he eats, they take plastic. Most likely he either has a lunch meeting or someone brings him his lunch.
I doubt it would happen that way. The politician was trying to avoid telling an outright lie. I have serious doubts that Bill would even hesitate to tell an outright lie. He'll simply say "No." I would say that I wouldn't want to be standing too close to him when he says that, but then we all know that lightning doesn't really strike people who tell a real whopper of a lie. If it did, we wouldn't have any politicians or lawyers (and His Billness would have been toasted a long time ago.)
For instance, someone in a nearby small town who tested HIV+ and had reported over 100 sexual partners (MANY of them underage girls). In a case where something is a legitimate public health hazard, there needs to be a way for the appropriate authorities to get the necessary information.
Maybe I'm just not thinking clearly on this one. I definitely don't have any experience in medicine. How exactly would an internet-based system help in the example you gave? Basically, the guy would have to know who the girls were and give their names at least to be able to contact them. I don't see how the system helps in that case. It would, of course, be noted on his record that he is HIV+, but unless the girls were forthcoming about their involvement with him, the doctors would not have reason to investigate. Even if the girls did tell their doctor they had had sexual contact with the man, would the doctor have the right to check his record? I'm actually rather curious about how this would work.
They did hit on the issue of gene manipulation in children. The main character was not genetically manipulated. His brother was. It was his parents decision (I don't remember why they decided the way they did, I think they had originally wanted an unenhanced child, but when it came time for a second child, they knew that he wouldn't have much chance of succeeding in life without the enhancements. I could be wrong on this though). The caste system came about because everyone was not perfect. It seemed like this was the first or second generation of genetically manipulated people. There were still many people who weren't genetically enhanced. They were relagated to the lower caste(s). It seemed like there could have also been people who had been enhanced earlier and did not receive all the optimum enhancements. They would probably be considered subordinate to the newer crop of people.
Those movies had very little basis in reality. How many giant radioactive lizards have you seen? Genetic engineering, on the other hand, is here already. The human genome project is nearly complete and they've already been engineering plants and bugs and such for years. I don't think there was anything shown in the movie that is more than 10 years or so away from being reality. I don't think any of it was very farfetched. Most of it was pretty logical. The question is will we allow the things that were done in the movie to be done for real?
Maybe there should be regular option screens, advanced option screens, and geek option screens. To access the geek screens, you must first answer some bit of geek trivia correctly:)
The Slashdot mentions that this means Mozilla is shelved (Slashdot loves creating contraversy).
I don't think/. said that at all. Here's what it said:
"An anonymous reader wrote in to point us to a Time Digital article (By Nathaniel Wice: Hey man!) about AOL Shelving plans for Netscape 5's release yet this year. So is the browser war really over? Does Mozilla have a chance?"
It said that the article was about AOL shelving plans to release Netscape 5 this year. I don't think/. was trying to create controversy. Just telling us what the article was about. I agree with you on the rest though.
They should not be allowed to use any information you give them about your customer. That's just disgusting behavior. It's no wonder people don't want to mess with such a screwed up system. Maybe if it actually worked it would be an alternative.
I agree that basic services should be provided by the OS. I just don't think they should be unremoveable or unreplaceable. This gets to be a nasty area though, since someone has to decide what a "basic service" is. Slippery slope.
Anyone who has done their homework on this trial (hint: you have to read more than the M$ bashing you find on the ZDNET site) will have realized by now that the charges are without any basis in fact.
I've read just about everything I can find about the trial, including Microsoft's own articles.
ALL of the prosecution's witnesses are competitors. Their motives are automatically suspect.
Big deal. All of Microsoft's witnesses are employees (or partners) with equally suspect motives.
In the case if Netscape, there is convincing evidence that they manufactured evidence to order for the DOJ.
Perhaps you'd like to give a reference to this convincing evidence? I've not seen it.
A prior trial SPECIFICALLY allowed that IE and Windows could be integrated if any reasonable consumer benefit could be shown.
That trial was a farce. They took nothing else into account when the law states that intent is an important factor in determining such things. The DOJ has used Microsoft's own internal email to show their intent had very little if anything to do with consumers and everything to do with killing Netscape. It's all there in black and white.
The only other charge with any teeth is the one about M$ offering to divide the market with Netscape, and THAT turns out to have been made up by the Netscape executives.
I've read Microsoft's take on this. I don't buy it. I believe the evidence is definitely in Netscape's favor on this one. Andreeson's notes from the meeting were distributed much too quickly after the meeting for any tampering to have been done.
In the end the only thing the goverment managed to _prove_ is that: M$ has competitors that don't like them.
Sure they don't like them. MS breaks the law in order to kill competitors. They're using the government to get justice. We have anti-trust laws for a reason. Microsoft has to play by the rules or face the consequences.
So since this trial is clearly not about Justice, the only other reasonable explanation is that it's about envy. Or perhaps, just about business...
Just another person willing to stick his head in the sand and give Microsoft the benefit of what extremely little doubt remains. After listening to Microsoft's witnesses try to convince everyone that black is white and everything that was said in the emails really means the opposite, I have no doubt that they are guilty as hell.
You simply don't need the infrastructure that you need with traditional monopoly-prone industries. It's a different ball park, that's all I'm saying.
Sure, and I can assemble lawn mowers in my garage, it doesn't mean I'm competing with John Deere in any meaningful way.
Small software companies tend to survive as well. It's the medium sized companies that get trampled...the small ones seem to come in under the radar. Once they get big enough to notice, they're in trouble.
And this sounds like a working system to you? "You can start a company and sell your product, just don't make TOO much money, or else you're history." Now who's being punished for success?:)
Most small companies can't be considered to have entered the market in a meaningful way. Yet, they survive.
Many people don't want to just survive. They want a shot at the bigtime too. By your own admission and much evidence presented in the trial, they are being denied this opportunity.
Could I start a small cable company in the same way? An oil company?
I'll agree that this is a different situation. You're competing with the distribution networks, marketing, economies of scale, etc., of the big companies (the Internet won't be as much help with physical goods like oil, and it will probably be worse dealing with cable). You're not likely to be able match those things without making a lot of arrangements ahead of time. You'll probably need a large amount of venture capital as well. It would simply depend on what the market looked like and whether the current administration was enforcing anti-trust laws at the time. This would tell the venture capitalists whether you could come in at a competitive price, as well as how dirty the other guys could play and get away with it. You do have certain advantages in other industries though. You won't find network effects occurring naturally in many of them. If I'm selling a new food product, it doesn't have to be compatible with anything. It just has to taste good and I have to be able to produce it in sufficient quantity and get it to market.
... but the growth of the computer hardware industry in the 1960's might have been significantly stifled if the Feds had given IBM the "freedom to innovate".
True. And despite the consent decree, IBM has done plenty of innovation. Microsoft's claims that its freedom to innovate is being crushed by the lawsuit is BS. They simply won't be allowed to prevent others from innovating and competing. They can still do plenty on their own, just as IBM has. They'll just have to begin competing rather than dictating for a change.
Finally you might get "M~999999" at which point the filesystem, if it hasn't already broken down probably would then.
Hmm.. maybe I should write a little prog to test this theory:) Might be interesting. It would probably crash long before I got that many files created though. I have a spare 4 gig drive to try this on though... hmm...
To stop them comming up with, say, an enterprise e-commerce server with ActiveDooDads(TM) and then having ActiveDooDads(TM) only work properly with their own client software.
As long as they aren't getting any more access to the OS than any other company, they should be free to create all the ActiveDooDads(TM) they want. If they aren't integrated into the OS, then there's no problem. Any app company could make their own version of ActiveDooDads(TM).
The only issue I see is that the app-company-formerly-known-as-Microsoft would have a pretty decent head start on the other app companies out there. Not sure if this is a real problem or something that would sort itself out pretty quick.
Slashdot Mirror
Which group was it that was taken to court because they posted a list of doctors who perform abortions online, and then proceeded to draw lines through the names of the doctors who had been murdered?
I think you just revealed your own prejudices.
As for our gay friend he is in fashion today. It's good to be gay and marry.
Except when you're getting beaten, raped, shot or stabbed to death for being gay. Not to mention that same-sex marriages are still illegal in many places.
Either way you look at it people like to go to extremes.
I don't think going to extremes is the real problem. The problem is the removal or perversion of the facts in order to make for a better story.
The only euthanasia for children I can support is one where machines are unplugged and the child is left to fend for itself. I missed the Singer discussion so if much of this was already covered there, I apologize.
That's not far from what Singer was advocating. He was saying that rather than leaving a child with no chance (i.e. missing most of its brain or other such serious and fatal flaw) to suffer and die without machines to keep it breathing or keep its heart beating or whatever, it would be kinder to simply give it a lethal injection. Not a lot of difference. What you're saying is that the child should be left to fend for itself, and if it dies, it dies. That assumes that the child has at least some chance of survival, in which case Singer's argument doesn't apply.
I never have said that singer is a monster. Go read what I actually said.
I believe he was referring to this statement from your first post:
So Jon you argue that my using of my free speech to call Singer a monster is hysterical and reduces your liberties while your opinion that he is not a monster is worthy and makes us more free?
In that statement, you seem to imply that you should have the right to call Singer a monster. I understand that you were saying this because Jon asserted that he was NOT a monster. The problem is that Jon was trying to state that the labeling of Singer as a monster by his critics was wrong, and that they should read and understand his argument and then make their own. Instead they simply shout "Murderer!" and attempt to silence him.
Accusing me of brute force intellectual terrorism is amusing.
Again, it seems to me that there was a misunderstanding that caused this. He accused you of intellectual terrorism because he thought you were supporting what many of Singer's critics were doing to silence him. In actuality, he should have been accusing Singer's critics of intellectual terrorism, not you. Chalk it up to misunderstanding.
Your argument seems to be that I have the right to free speech as long as I say certain things and do not say others or to put it a different way as long as I construct my arguments according to your preferences.
I don't think it has anything to do with how you construct your arguments, but rather whether you even attempt to make an argument, or instead simply denounce someone as a monster, murderer, etc.
A person that advocates immoral behavior is not acting morally.
Perhaps you could be considered immoral by many people from different cultures or religions. Should you be publicly labeled as immoral? Morality is highly subjective. It is never a good argument.
No responsible, intelligent American believes that they're free to do as they please: the very idea is silly. Freedom will be absolute the day that a Utopian society is created, which is to say freedom will never be absolute.
I don't believe Mr. Katz said anything about absolute freedom. He simply stated that it is a commonly held belief (albeit a deluded one, in his opinion) that America is a free, and thus morally superior country. From the context of the article, I take it that he believes that America is neither as free as many believe, nor morally superior.
Moral Superiority? No. It would be more accurate to use the term "Political Superiority".
I don't agree with this. There are way too many people in this country who seem to believe that America holds the moral high ground in the world. They are usually politicians or religious leaders.
What is most fascinating about this article is that Mr. Katz has absolutely missed the point: the very fact that Mr. Singer can publicly express his controversial, and in some quarters, unpopular opinions is proof that America is relatively free country.
Katz's argument was not about our legal rights, but the forms of censorship that are used against us by society. In the case of Mr. Singer, the censorship took the form of death threats and straw man arguments made against him in an effort to deceive people into misunderstanding his real argument.
Mr. Katz's piece could have done without the inflammatory rhetoric (ie, "Dying Babies and The Myth of American Freedom"
I don't have a problem with his title. It did fit the piece fairly well. It gets attention and draws people to read it. That's what journalists do. They write, and they want people to read and discuss what they write.
I sometimes think that Mr. Katz is more interested in controversy than content, and this article does nothing but confirm my suspicions.
Katz chooses controversial subjects specifically because they are the ones that need to be discussed. He could simply write fluff that everyone already agrees on and is serving no purpose, but why? If he wanted to just cause trouble, he wouldn't be publishing his writings on Slashdot where they can be easily picked apart and checked for accuracy and logic, and the result left for all to see right below his article.
I could probably come up with an equally scary prediction for just about any new technology or discovery. The fact is that we don't know. We have to keep testing ideas and theories. It could be the most incredible boon for the human race, or it could be utterly devastating. Most likely it will not reach either extreme. We are constantly expanding our knowledge of the universe and everything in it. We're constantly trying to use what we learn to improve our situation. That's what we, as humans, seem to be most inclined to do with our lives.
The point is that there are huge numbers of people in this country with no health insurance at all. Taxpayers foot the bill for their medical expenses. Keeping a baby on life support when it's obvious that it won't survive once the life support is taken away is pointless. Why spend the money to keep the child alive (and probably in pain) for any longer than necessary? That money could actually do some good for someone with a chance of survival. Unfortunately, our health care system is too screwed up and bloated for it to do as much good as it should. There's too many people making too much profit from it. They have no incentive to fix the system. It works for them. Screw everyone else.
The guy has more money than he could spend in his lifetime. His time is carefully planned and he has plenty of help. Do you think he has time to be bothered with buying food? He's got people to do things like that for him. If he wants a burger, someone will bring him one.
It also costs little or nothing extra to produce than SDRAM and there are no licensing fees or royalties that need to be paid.
Then how come the new vid cards that use it sell for $100 more than the ones that don't? Just greed? Product differentiation?
The larger mass of deadness should be the more successful species. It's been around long enough to accumulate such a mass of deadness. That being the case, I bet the rats would win this one hands down.
You can pay a toll with a credit card. Do you think Bill eats at McDonald's? I doubt it. I'm sure wherever he eats, they take plastic. Most likely he either has a lunch meeting or someone brings him his lunch.
I doubt it would happen that way. The politician was trying to avoid telling an outright lie. I have serious doubts that Bill would even hesitate to tell an outright lie. He'll simply say "No." I would say that I wouldn't want to be standing too close to him when he says that, but then we all know that lightning doesn't really strike people who tell a real whopper of a lie. If it did, we wouldn't have any politicians or lawyers (and His Billness would have been toasted a long time ago.)
For instance, someone in a nearby small town who tested HIV+ and had reported over 100 sexual partners (MANY of them underage girls). In a case where something is a legitimate public health hazard, there needs to be a way for the appropriate authorities to get the necessary information.
Maybe I'm just not thinking clearly on this one. I definitely don't have any experience in medicine. How exactly would an internet-based system help in the example you gave? Basically, the guy would have to know who the girls were and give their names at least to be able to contact them. I don't see how the system helps in that case. It would, of course, be noted on his record that he is HIV+, but unless the girls were forthcoming about their involvement with him, the doctors would not have reason to investigate. Even if the girls did tell their doctor they had had sexual contact with the man, would the doctor have the right to check his record? I'm actually rather curious about how this would work.
They did hit on the issue of gene manipulation in children. The main character was not genetically manipulated. His brother was. It was his parents decision (I don't remember why they decided the way they did, I think they had originally wanted an unenhanced child, but when it came time for a second child, they knew that he wouldn't have much chance of succeeding in life without the enhancements. I could be wrong on this though). The caste system came about because everyone was not perfect. It seemed like this was the first or second generation of genetically manipulated people. There were still many people who weren't genetically enhanced. They were relagated to the lower caste(s). It seemed like there could have also been people who had been enhanced earlier and did not receive all the optimum enhancements. They would probably be considered subordinate to the newer crop of people.
Those movies had very little basis in reality. How many giant radioactive lizards have you seen? Genetic engineering, on the other hand, is here already. The human genome project is nearly complete and they've already been engineering plants and bugs and such for years. I don't think there was anything shown in the movie that is more than 10 years or so away from being reality. I don't think any of it was very farfetched. Most of it was pretty logical. The question is will we allow the things that were done in the movie to be done for real?
Maybe there should be regular option screens, advanced option screens, and geek option screens. To access the geek screens, you must first answer some bit of geek trivia correctly :)
The Slashdot mentions that this means Mozilla is shelved (Slashdot loves creating contraversy).
I don't think /. said that at all. Here's what it said:
"An anonymous reader wrote in to point us to a Time Digital article (By Nathaniel Wice: Hey man!) about AOL Shelving plans for Netscape 5's release yet this year. So is the browser war really over? Does Mozilla have a chance?"
It said that the article was about AOL shelving plans to release Netscape 5 this year. I don't think /. was trying to create controversy. Just telling us what the article was about. I agree with you on the rest though.
Didn't they do a rewrite of most of the code sometime after it was released?
They should not be allowed to use any information you give them about your customer. That's just disgusting behavior. It's no wonder people don't want to mess with such a screwed up system. Maybe if it actually worked it would be an alternative.
I agree that basic services should be provided by the OS. I just don't think they should be unremoveable or unreplaceable. This gets to be a nasty area though, since someone has to decide what a "basic service" is. Slippery slope.
Anyone who has done their homework on this trial (hint: you have to read more than the M$ bashing you find on the ZDNET site) will have realized by now that the charges are without any basis in fact.
I've read just about everything I can find about the trial, including Microsoft's own articles.
ALL of the prosecution's witnesses are competitors. Their motives are automatically suspect.
Big deal. All of Microsoft's witnesses are employees (or partners) with equally suspect motives.
In the case if Netscape, there is convincing evidence that they manufactured evidence to order for the DOJ.
Perhaps you'd like to give a reference to this convincing evidence? I've not seen it.
A prior trial SPECIFICALLY allowed that IE and Windows could be integrated if any reasonable consumer benefit could be shown.
That trial was a farce. They took nothing else into account when the law states that intent is an important factor in determining such things. The DOJ has used Microsoft's own internal email to show their intent had very little if anything to do with consumers and everything to do with killing Netscape. It's all there in black and white.
The only other charge with any teeth is the one about M$ offering to divide the market with Netscape, and THAT turns out to have been made up by the Netscape executives.
I've read Microsoft's take on this. I don't buy it. I believe the evidence is definitely in Netscape's favor on this one. Andreeson's notes from the meeting were distributed much too quickly after the meeting for any tampering to have been done.
In the end the only thing the goverment managed to _prove_ is that: M$ has competitors that don't like them.
Sure they don't like them. MS breaks the law in order to kill competitors. They're using the government to get justice. We have anti-trust laws for a reason. Microsoft has to play by the rules or face the consequences.
So since this trial is clearly not about Justice, the only other reasonable explanation is that it's about envy. Or perhaps, just about business...
Just another person willing to stick his head in the sand and give Microsoft the benefit of what extremely little doubt remains. After listening to Microsoft's witnesses try to convince everyone that black is white and everything that was said in the emails really means the opposite, I have no doubt that they are guilty as hell.
You simply don't need the infrastructure that you need with traditional monopoly-prone industries. It's a different ball park, that's all I'm saying.
Sure, and I can assemble lawn mowers in my garage, it doesn't mean I'm competing with John Deere in any meaningful way.
Small software companies tend to survive as well. It's the medium sized companies that get trampled...the small ones seem to come in under the radar. Once they get big enough to notice, they're in trouble.
And this sounds like a working system to you? "You can start a company and sell your product, just don't make TOO much money, or else you're history." Now who's being punished for success? :)
Most small companies can't be considered to have entered the market in a meaningful way. Yet, they survive.
Many people don't want to just survive. They want a shot at the bigtime too. By your own admission and much evidence presented in the trial, they are being denied this opportunity.
Could I start a small cable company in the same way? An oil company?
I'll agree that this is a different situation. You're competing with the distribution networks, marketing, economies of scale, etc., of the big companies (the Internet won't be as much help with physical goods like oil, and it will probably be worse dealing with cable). You're not likely to be able match those things without making a lot of arrangements ahead of time. You'll probably need a large amount of venture capital as well. It would simply depend on what the market looked like and whether the current administration was enforcing anti-trust laws at the time. This would tell the venture capitalists whether you could come in at a competitive price, as well as how dirty the other guys could play and get away with it. You do have certain advantages in other industries though. You won't find network effects occurring naturally in many of them. If I'm selling a new food product, it doesn't have to be compatible with anything. It just has to taste good and I have to be able to produce it in sufficient quantity and get it to market.
True. And despite the consent decree, IBM has done plenty of innovation. Microsoft's claims that its freedom to innovate is being crushed by the lawsuit is BS. They simply won't be allowed to prevent others from innovating and competing. They can still do plenty on their own, just as IBM has. They'll just have to begin competing rather than dictating for a change.
Finally you might get "M~999999" at which point the filesystem, if it hasn't already broken down probably would then.
Hmm.. maybe I should write a little prog to test this theory :) Might be interesting. It would probably crash long before I got that many files created though. I have a spare 4 gig drive to try this on though... hmm...
To stop them comming up with, say, an enterprise e-commerce server with ActiveDooDads(TM) and then having ActiveDooDads(TM) only work properly with their own client software.
As long as they aren't getting any more access to the OS than any other company, they should be free to create all the ActiveDooDads(TM) they want. If they aren't integrated into the OS, then there's no problem. Any app company could make their own version of ActiveDooDads(TM).
The only issue I see is that the app-company-formerly-known-as-Microsoft would have a pretty decent head start on the other app companies out there. Not sure if this is a real problem or something that would sort itself out pretty quick.