No it's a confusion between a product you buy and a gift you receive. It's OK to complain about a product you buy, it's even OK to complain about a gift you get to your friends or familiy.
What is not OK is to publicly and loudly insult the gift giver in an attempt to humiliate him/her into giving you a better gift next time.
So what? Honestly what's the big deal? Is china going to attack us? Why would they?
What is wrong with america that it thinks the entire world is going to attack it any minute now. Bush went on and on about how much of a threat a rinky dink little country like iraq was and then he invaded it.
If america was a person they would be locked up for being a paranoid schizophrenic psychotic killer.
Not really. All it leads to is boom and bust economies. It's not like the IT people losing their jobs in india will keep the same wages. Once a call center or two gets shut down the entire town could enter a depression.
Eventually though some country someplace will enslave an unpopular minority and sell their labor for 25 cents a day and all oursourcing will end up in that country. It's not like the corporations care that slave or prison labor is doing to the work, all they care about is that it's cheap.
" IETF will see the further erosion of its influence over the real world of deployed Internet software."
I am not trying to be a troll but honestly what good is the IETF. You can't make MS do anything it does not want to and MS can choose to ignore any standard they want.
The ugly reality is that the computing world is at the mercy of Bill Gates. If he chooses to play with you then it's his ball, his playground, his game, his rules, his referees. It's his world and he just lets you live in it.
Until you have some way to make MS conform to your standards you indeed have no influence.
Honestly. What good are you? What good is a standard if there is no punishment for breaking it?
"What will you do about the Arabs who really believe that all Jews must die, and Israel must be wiped from the Earth?"
This is a very small minority of the arabs. They will quickly be shouted down, especially since the vast majority of the people will be happier, more free and more prosperous. This would be no different then the militia movement in our own country. A small minority of radicals working to overthrow the govt. They can be dealt with easy enough especially if the population at large is not interested in sheltering them.
" For that matter, Sharon might find himself in trouble if the extremists in Israel are unhappy."
Not if he took just the very minimum amount of land to make their god happy. In other words they simply take whatever land their god promised them and nothing else. Remember under my plan if they only take the west bank and gaza the population of israel would be pretty much 50/50 jewish and muslim. Anymore then that and the jews become a minority!
I can say with absolute confidence that Israel would never ever grab that much land knowing that all of a sudden the jews would be a tiny little minority in their own country. That's what makes this plan so absolutely perfect. The more land israel takes the more of a minority the jews become in israel. Since israel is the fulfillment of zion this would never be allowed to happen. Israel would take the absolute minimum amount of land so as to make sure the arabs will always be a minority.
Lets say they took lebanon for example. All the lebanese would be able to vote in israeli elections, everybody in lebanon would be being paid israeli minimum wages, and everybody in lebanon would have full access to all israeli social services. Of course Israel could not afford this, not politically and not financially so they would not take lebanon. It's exactly like the cake analogy. If I cut the cake so that one piece is much larger then the other then you get the bigger slice.
"Israel grabbing land from Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc. The whole area would erupt in war."
The whole world would not erupt in a war. For all practical purposes Israel is the most powerful country on the planet. If anybody attacks israel they will have the full might and fury of the US military upon them before they know what happened. The US will absolutely use and all measures neccesary to defend israel including unleashing nuclear holocaust if need be. Of course Israel also has around 300 nuclear weapons themselves so they would only ask the US to use them if they wanted somebody else to look like the bad guy.
"Both of Israel's choices suck, here. I'm glad I don't have to make any decisions like that."
I belive that I have the perfect and achievable solution to the palestine/israel problem. It's exactly like two people deciding how to divide a cake. The best solution is for one person to cut the cake and the other person gets to choose which piece he wants. This way both people have an incentive to be fair.
So in that spirit here is the solution.
1) israel gets to define it's own borders. They can take as much land as they want. They can take lebanon, iraq, iran, syria, saudi arabia, anything they want.
2) Everybody inside those borders immediately becomes a full fledged citizen of israel with all the rights and privledges afforded to all the jewish citizens of israel.
3) isreal immediately eliminates all laws that discriminate on the basis of race and religion. No more morally indefensible jaewish only neighborhoods, no more laws that target muslims and arabs for exile and harrashment.
Simple right? Israel gets what it wants, it joins the rest of the civilized world in not codifying racims into laws, it brings democracy and prostperity to the middle east.
"I don't have the time, or the inclination, to really go over this issue with you. From what I've read, the average Palestinian would rather get a job working for Israelis than kill Israelis."
Of course they would. That's always been the case with the masses. We don't disagree here.
BTW when a "civilized" nation invades another one and takes over their land they eventually make the conquered people citizens. US, China, South Africa, etc have done this in their history. If israel was a civilized nation they too would make those palestenians they conquered citizens. It would solve the problem of terrorism once and for all if the average palestenians made more then a buck a day and had access to decent health care and education. It will never happen though because Israel is a theo-democracy still stuck in the dark ages. They can't have a country whose majority is muslim. It's a country for and of the jews.
"I notice in your long list of accusations against Israel, you didn't mention any of what terrorists do to Israel."
That's because there is a profound difference between inflicting violence in order to keep a people occupied and inflicting violence to shed the shackles of occupation. I hope you can see that because we ourselves did it once. If you remember your history lessons you might have run across statements such as "give me freedom or give me death" and "don't tread on me". Same thing.
"What should Israel do here?"
I have already told you. Do the civilized thing. Draw the borders of israel any way you like, take as much land as you want to (who is going to stop you anyway?), and make those people your citizens with full rights. Give them the right to vote and I bet terrorism disappears overnight.
"I have serious concerns about Israel's policies, but I am not as certain as you are that the Israeli government is completely villainous, and I stand by my assertion that they would have much more trouble holding the Palestinians if they had treated them even worse."
Well gee I guess they could torture even more people. Yes that would be worse.
"You have trouble figuring out when to take people literally, I guess."
No. It's just that I am sick and tired of listening to this pathetic excuse. "we are not as bad as saddam", "we could be a lot worse", "they have more freedom under our occupation then under saddam's" and on and on. This is the worst kind of moral relativism. Saying that if you give people a little more freedom then saddam then it's enough is bullshit. People deserve full freedom. Full Safety. Full opportutnity. They deserve everything you have, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
"I don't think that applies to the US armed forces, at least not in the near term."
You have an overly optimistic opinion of the US military. I was in the military and seeing it from the inside I disagree. Needless to say you are of course entitled to your opinion.
"Politics is the art of the possible. You will not find either of those suggestions to be possible."
If that's the case then I submit that the second amendement is a useless vestigial organ of the US constitution.
"Israel is far from angelic here, but they haven't done anything so extreme that all the Palestinians feel they have no choice but to rise up in arms."
What??? What an odd thing to say. They kill a couple of thousand palestenians every year, they bomb cities, they destroy hundreds of houses leaving thousands of people homeless, they curfew hundreds of thousands of residents, they bomb media outlets, they routinely round up palestenians and take them to jail without charges, they torture people, they take away land belonging to people, they take away precious water rights, they delay people from getting medical treatment with checkpoints, it goes on and on. Don't you read? Don't you watch TV?
The palestenians HAVE risen up, they ARE fighting back, it's just futile because ISrael is better armed and AK47s are pretty useless when helicopters are launching missiles into your city.
"The US isn't perfect, but the average Iraqi has figured out that our soldiers aren't going to eat their babies or anything."
Oh great. As long as we don't actually eat their babies all other behavior is excused.
'In both cases, a majority of the people are not shooting at the occupying soldiers."
Throughout history the majority has never risen up. The majority has never fought to gain freedom. It's always been a small, active and organized minority that throws off the shackles of bondage. The majority will always be happy to make it through the day with a belly full.
"How long would the men flying the bombers stay loyal to him, and keep bombing their own country?"
It's very common in totalitarian governments that the military stays faithful to the ruler. I don't see how it would be any different in the US. For example right now if you told a US soldier to shoot and american and told him that the american was a liberal a vast majority of the soldiers would shoot. It's pretty easy to divide people against each other. Look at Fox news for an example.
'If the whole country is up in arms, how will the tyrants get food and such?"
They whole country won't be (see above). A minority will but they will be surpressed in short order and the masses will continue to plow the fields. That's the way it's always been. read a history book or two, this has happened many times before.
" Do you in fact propose anything?"
I propose that we either clarify the second amenment or get rid of it. If the purpose of the amendment is to assure freedom from government tyrany then it should say that any all weapons are legal in order to counteract the ability of the govt to surpress the people. In today's world that means I should have the right (at a minimum) to have shoulder fired missiles and access to chemical, biological and conventional bomb making facilities and materials.
"trained soldiers are likely to win most stand-up fights against untrained ordinary people. Yet if the people are armed, they at least can fight."
Trained soldiers will not stand-up fight. They will drop thousand pound bombs on the targets. that's what we do in iraq, that's what israel does in palestine.
"Look at Iraq now: our soldiers are taking losses from a relative handful of attackers."
Not from rifles or AK47s. We take losses from car bombs and road side bombs neither of which are protected by the second amendmend.
"Don't you think that literally millions of people, armed with rifles and pistols, might make a difference?"
No I don't.
"Even if we assume that the Army turns evil and protects the tyrants, rather than the Constitution, could the Army stand in the face of millions of armed people?"
Yes it can. I pointed out that Israel is able keep 3.5 million people under occupation despite the fact that they have plenty of firearms and sidearms. A mere 150,000 US troops are able to occupy the entire nation of iraq.
"I do wonder whether the Founding Fathers would interpret the Second Amendment to mean that citizens should be able to own tanks, Stinger missles, etc."
If the second amendment does not guarantee your right create a bomb making factory in your basement then it's useless. If it will not let you have shoulder fired missiles then it's useless. When the govt comes after you it will be coming in with drones that lauch missiles and jet fighters that are carrying daisy cutters. They will destroy your entire neighborhood with one strike. They will bomb the shit out of your city killing hundreds of people.
That's what we do in iraq, that's what israel does in palestine.
Guns are nice but they are useless in trying to hold the power of the govt in check. If you don't believe me ask the palestenians. Ask them how well those AK47s are working against the tanks, helicopters, missle launching drones etc.
"Oh, and Iraq did attack us almost every day between 1991 and 2002."
Yes. I remember all those iraqi airplanes flying overhead dropping bombs on my town. Who can foget the awful sight of iraqi tanks rolling down wall street firing at churches and apartment complexes. What a horror that was. Finally there is the image of iraqi soldiers walking from house to house dragging people away from their houses to go lock them up in distant prisons while the women and children were left sobbing in horror.
I don't know anybody who has flip flopped more and on important issues then mr bush. Remember the apology to china, weapons of mass destruction, compassionate conservatism, amnesty to mexican illegals, non interventionist policies, steel tarrifs etc. It goes on and on.
If we don't want a self serving weasel in the white house why do we have bush?
That's just nonsense. The only things that will become illegal will be products (and services) made by people who can't afford to bribe politicians. The rest of the industry will get exemptions for their products.
The VCR will not be illegal, the TV will not be illegal. What will be illegal are anything made with open source and not made by a large company.
BTW the public won't give a shit. They are frogs being slowly boiled and they don't even know. All you have to is to raise the terror level up a notch and watch them cower.
"Well killer, maybe you need to check again because I've worked for two clients that did have ms-windows site licenses. They also have employee counts in the low 6 digits."
Please provide a link to such a thing.
"The Microsoft licensing terms, which were put in place on Aug. 1 [2002], specify that PC makers must ship PCs with an operating system."
Check the calendar, it's now 2004. Go to the dell web site and order a business PC and check the box that says "no operating system"
That's not true. The license that comes with your PC is charged against your points. If you have a contract with Dell or HP or something they may agree not to charge you for the copy that comes with the PC.
They are not upgrades. YOu buy a select license. This license gives you co many "points" where each point could be spent on a variety of MS products. The cost of the product determines how many points you spend.
When you buy a select license you are buying the right to use that software for a fixed amount of time (measured in years). If MS upgrades their product you get to install the upgrade. Once your time is up you get to pay MS again.
People do most of their browsing at work. Until corporations start adopting a linux desktop that number will stay about where it is.
Having said that I predict it will pass the Mac in the next two years as corporations continue to adopt a linux desktop. I predict a 5% desktop share by the end of 2007 and 20% by the end of 2009. I think those numbers are pretty conservative.
Slashdot Mirror
How odd that they don't list specialty searches on their page. Those are my favorites.
No it's a confusion between a product you buy and a gift you receive. It's OK to complain about a product you buy, it's even OK to complain about a gift you get to your friends or familiy.
What is not OK is to publicly and loudly insult the gift giver in an attempt to humiliate him/her into giving you a better gift next time.
So what? Honestly what's the big deal? Is china going to attack us? Why would they?
What is wrong with america that it thinks the entire world is going to attack it any minute now. Bush went on and on about how much of a threat a rinky dink little country like iraq was and then he invaded it.
If america was a person they would be locked up for being a paranoid schizophrenic psychotic killer.
Not really. All it leads to is boom and bust economies. It's not like the IT people losing their jobs in india will keep the same wages. Once a call center or two gets shut down the entire town could enter a depression.
Eventually though some country someplace will enslave an unpopular minority and sell their labor for 25 cents a day and all oursourcing will end up in that country. It's not like the corporations care that slave or prison labor is doing to the work, all they care about is that it's cheap.
What's the consumer going to do if he gets the money instead? Throw it into a black hole? He is going to spend it too.
" IETF will see the further erosion of its influence over the real world of deployed Internet software."
I am not trying to be a troll but honestly what good is the IETF. You can't make MS do anything it does not want to and MS can choose to ignore any standard they want.
The ugly reality is that the computing world is at the mercy of Bill Gates. If he chooses to play with you then it's his ball, his playground, his game, his rules, his referees. It's his world and he just lets you live in it.
Until you have some way to make MS conform to your standards you indeed have no influence.
Honestly. What good are you? What good is a standard if there is no punishment for breaking it?
SO it seems like zaurus with a different form factor would do the job.
How long has been since anybody did any work on dynapad?
Just curious.
"What will you do about the Arabs who really believe that all Jews must die, and Israel must be wiped from the Earth?"
This is a very small minority of the arabs. They will quickly be shouted down, especially since the vast majority of the people will be happier, more free and more prosperous. This would be no different then the militia movement in our own country. A small minority of radicals working to overthrow the govt. They can be dealt with easy enough especially if the population at large is not interested in sheltering them.
" For that matter, Sharon might find himself in trouble if the extremists in Israel are unhappy."
Not if he took just the very minimum amount of land to make their god happy. In other words they simply take whatever land their god promised them and nothing else. Remember under my plan if they only take the west bank and gaza the population of israel would be pretty much 50/50 jewish and muslim. Anymore then that and the jews become a minority!
I can say with absolute confidence that Israel would never ever grab that much land knowing that all of a sudden the jews would be a tiny little minority in their own country. That's what makes this plan so absolutely perfect. The more land israel takes the more of a minority the jews become in israel. Since israel is the fulfillment of zion this would never be allowed to happen. Israel would take the absolute minimum amount of land so as to make sure the arabs will always be a minority.
Lets say they took lebanon for example. All the lebanese would be able to vote in israeli elections, everybody in lebanon would be being paid israeli minimum wages, and everybody in lebanon would have full access to all israeli social services. Of course Israel could not afford this, not politically and not financially so they would not take lebanon. It's exactly like the cake analogy. If I cut the cake so that one piece is much larger then the other then you get the bigger slice.
"Israel grabbing land from Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc. The whole area would erupt in war."
The whole world would not erupt in a war. For all practical purposes Israel is the most powerful country on the planet. If anybody attacks israel they will have the full might and fury of the US military upon them before they know what happened. The US will absolutely use and all measures neccesary to defend israel including unleashing nuclear holocaust if need be. Of course Israel also has around 300 nuclear weapons themselves so they would only ask the US to use them if they wanted somebody else to look like the bad guy.
"Both of Israel's choices suck, here. I'm glad I don't have to make any decisions like that."
I belive that I have the perfect and achievable solution to the palestine/israel problem. It's exactly like two people deciding how to divide a cake. The best solution is for one person to cut the cake and the other person gets to choose which piece he wants. This way both people have an incentive to be fair.
So in that spirit here is the solution.
1) israel gets to define it's own borders. They can take as much land as they want. They can take lebanon, iraq, iran, syria, saudi arabia, anything they want.
2) Everybody inside those borders immediately becomes a full fledged citizen of israel with all the rights and privledges afforded to all the jewish citizens of israel.
3) isreal immediately eliminates all laws that discriminate on the basis of race and religion. No more morally indefensible jaewish only neighborhoods, no more laws that target muslims and arabs for exile and harrashment.
Simple right? Israel gets what it wants, it joins the rest of the civilized world in not codifying racims into laws, it brings democracy and prostperity to the middle east.
I don't see what you are so upset about. I for one welcome our porn overlords.
"I don't have the time, or the inclination, to really go over this issue with you. From what I've read, the average Palestinian would rather get a job working for Israelis than kill Israelis."
Of course they would. That's always been the case with the masses. We don't disagree here.
BTW when a "civilized" nation invades another one and takes over their land they eventually make the conquered people citizens. US, China, South Africa, etc have done this in their history. If israel was a civilized nation they too would make those palestenians they conquered citizens. It would solve the problem of terrorism once and for all if the average palestenians made more then a buck a day and had access to decent health care and education. It will never happen though because Israel is a theo-democracy still stuck in the dark ages. They can't have a country whose majority is muslim. It's a country for and of the jews.
"I notice in your long list of accusations against Israel, you didn't mention any of what terrorists do to Israel."
That's because there is a profound difference between inflicting violence in order to keep a people occupied and inflicting violence to shed the shackles of occupation. I hope you can see that because we ourselves did it once. If you remember your history lessons you might have run across statements such as "give me freedom or give me death" and "don't tread on me". Same thing.
"What should Israel do here?"
I have already told you. Do the civilized thing. Draw the borders of israel any way you like, take as much land as you want to (who is going to stop you anyway?), and make those people your citizens with full rights. Give them the right to vote and I bet terrorism disappears overnight.
"I have serious concerns about Israel's policies, but I am not as certain as you are that the Israeli government is completely villainous, and I stand by my assertion that they would have much more trouble holding the Palestinians if they had treated them even worse."
Well gee I guess they could torture even more people. Yes that would be worse.
"You have trouble figuring out when to take people literally, I guess."
No. It's just that I am sick and tired of listening to this pathetic excuse. "we are not as bad as saddam", "we could be a lot worse", "they have more freedom under our occupation then under saddam's" and on and on. This is the worst kind of moral relativism. Saying that if you give people a little more freedom then saddam then it's enough is bullshit. People deserve full freedom. Full Safety. Full opportutnity. They deserve everything you have, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
"I don't think that applies to the US armed forces, at least not in the near term."
You have an overly optimistic opinion of the US military. I was in the military and seeing it from the inside I disagree. Needless to say you are of course entitled to your opinion.
"Politics is the art of the possible. You will not find either of those suggestions to be possible."
If that's the case then I submit that the second amendement is a useless vestigial organ of the US constitution.
"Israel is far from angelic here, but they haven't done anything so extreme that all the Palestinians feel they have no choice but to rise up in arms."
What??? What an odd thing to say. They kill a couple of thousand palestenians every year, they bomb cities, they destroy hundreds of houses leaving thousands of people homeless, they curfew hundreds of thousands of residents, they bomb media outlets, they routinely round up palestenians and take them to jail without charges, they torture people, they take away land belonging to people, they take away precious water rights, they delay people from getting medical treatment with checkpoints, it goes on and on. Don't you read? Don't you watch TV?
The palestenians HAVE risen up, they ARE fighting back, it's just futile because ISrael is better armed and AK47s are pretty useless when helicopters are launching missiles into your city.
"The US isn't perfect, but the average Iraqi has figured out that our soldiers aren't going to eat their babies or anything."
Oh great. As long as we don't actually eat their babies all other behavior is excused.
'In both cases, a majority of the people are not shooting at the occupying soldiers."
Throughout history the majority has never risen up. The majority has never fought to gain freedom. It's always been a small, active and organized minority that throws off the shackles of bondage. The majority will always be happy to make it through the day with a belly full.
"How long would the men flying the bombers stay loyal to him, and keep bombing their own country?"
It's very common in totalitarian governments that the military stays faithful to the ruler. I don't see how it would be any different in the US. For example right now if you told a US soldier to shoot and american and told him that the american was a liberal a vast majority of the soldiers would shoot. It's pretty easy to divide people against each other. Look at Fox news for an example.
'If the whole country is up in arms, how will the tyrants get food and such?"
They whole country won't be (see above). A minority will but they will be surpressed in short order and the masses will continue to plow the fields. That's the way it's always been. read a history book or two, this has happened many times before.
" Do you in fact propose anything?"
I propose that we either clarify the second amenment or get rid of it. If the purpose of the amendment is to assure freedom from government tyrany then it should say that any all weapons are legal in order to counteract the ability of the govt to surpress the people. In today's world that means I should have the right (at a minimum) to have shoulder fired missiles and access to chemical, biological and conventional bomb making facilities and materials.
"All it will take is a couple of otherwise innocent people being prosecuted for owning a VCR and it will be a bloody revolution."
Bullshit. 14 year old girls were sued by the RIAA and nobody raised a peep.
The public is perfectly happy to be spoonfed important news like laci peterson while completely ignoring the threats to their freedom.
You think everybody at MS does not celebrate whenever a vulnaribility in Linux gets found?
Shit these people fund lawsuits against linux and lobby congress to make open source illegal. At least nobody on slashdot does anything like that.
"trained soldiers are likely to win most stand-up fights against untrained ordinary people. Yet if the people are armed, they at least can fight."
Trained soldiers will not stand-up fight. They will drop thousand pound bombs on the targets. that's what we do in iraq, that's what israel does in palestine.
"Look at Iraq now: our soldiers are taking losses from a relative handful of attackers."
Not from rifles or AK47s. We take losses from car bombs and road side bombs neither of which are protected by the second amendmend.
"Don't you think that literally millions of people, armed with rifles and pistols, might make a difference?"
No I don't.
"Even if we assume that the Army turns evil and protects the tyrants, rather than the Constitution, could the Army stand in the face of millions of armed people?"
Yes it can. I pointed out that Israel is able keep 3.5 million people under occupation despite the fact that they have plenty of firearms and sidearms. A mere 150,000 US troops are able to occupy the entire nation of iraq.
"I do wonder whether the Founding Fathers would interpret the Second Amendment to mean that citizens should be able to own tanks, Stinger missles, etc."
If the second amendment does not guarantee your right create a bomb making factory in your basement then it's useless. If it will not let you have shoulder fired missiles then it's useless. When the govt comes after you it will be coming in with drones that lauch missiles and jet fighters that are carrying daisy cutters. They will destroy your entire neighborhood with one strike. They will bomb the shit out of your city killing hundreds of people.
That's what we do in iraq, that's what israel does in palestine.
Guns are nice but they are useless in trying to hold the power of the govt in check. If you don't believe me ask the palestenians. Ask them how well those AK47s are working against the tanks, helicopters, missle launching drones etc.
VOting for a liberterian is just wasting your vote. What's the point? They will never win anyway.
No candidate who is both for legalization of drugs and abortion will never win the presidency.
"Oh, and Iraq did attack us almost every day between 1991 and 2002."
Yes. I remember all those iraqi airplanes flying overhead dropping bombs on my town. Who can foget the awful sight of iraqi tanks rolling down wall street firing at churches and apartment complexes. What a horror that was. Finally there is the image of iraqi soldiers walking from house to house dragging people away from their houses to go lock them up in distant prisons while the women and children were left sobbing in horror.
Thank god bush fought the iraqi army back.
I don't know anybody who has flip flopped more and on important issues then mr bush. Remember the apology to china, weapons of mass destruction, compassionate conservatism, amnesty to mexican illegals, non interventionist policies, steel tarrifs etc. It goes on and on.
If we don't want a self serving weasel in the white house why do we have bush?
That's just nonsense. The only things that will become illegal will be products (and services) made by people who can't afford to bribe politicians. The rest of the industry will get exemptions for their products.
The VCR will not be illegal, the TV will not be illegal. What will be illegal are anything made with open source and not made by a large company.
BTW the public won't give a shit. They are frogs being slowly boiled and they don't even know. All you have to is to raise the terror level up a notch and watch them cower.
"Well killer, maybe you need to check again because I've worked for two clients that did have ms-windows site licenses. They also have employee counts in the low 6 digits."
Please provide a link to such a thing.
"The Microsoft licensing terms, which were put in place on Aug. 1 [2002], specify that PC makers must ship PCs with an operating system."
Check the calendar, it's now 2004. Go to the dell web site and order a business PC and check the box that says "no operating system"
That's not true. The license that comes with your PC is charged against your points. If you have a contract with Dell or HP or something they may agree not to charge you for the copy that comes with the PC.
They are not upgrades. YOu buy a select license. This license gives you co many "points" where each point could be spent on a variety of MS products. The cost of the product determines how many points you spend.
When you buy a select license you are buying the right to use that software for a fixed amount of time (measured in years). If MS upgrades their product you get to install the upgrade. Once your time is up you get to pay MS again.
People do most of their browsing at work. Until corporations start adopting a linux desktop that number will stay about where it is.
Having said that I predict it will pass the Mac in the next two years as corporations continue to adopt a linux desktop. I predict a 5% desktop share by the end of 2007 and 20% by the end of 2009. I think those numbers are pretty conservative.