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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (37836)	8/9/1999 12:27:00 PM
From: qdog	Respond to of 152472

I'm going to stick to the subject at hand, I'll comment about your tangential rant at the end. Linux VS Windows2000 is fascinating. Will the mob in a tribal uprising of collectivist voluntary mutual self-interest defeat the pyramid of power? Will the government be happy to see the tax base eroded = there are no taxes from the free labours of the co-operative enterprise where no money changes hands! What tax base? What was MSFT revenues again? $20 billion? Compared to F, GM and the collective Bells, LEC's, wireless operators and CLEC's? Drop in the bucket as far as tax revenues. Linux model is to make money from the service side. There isn't enough Linux or Unix programmers for that matter. Windows is unstable and thus a poor choice for mission critical applications. Phrases that digitheads are starting to embarass as their own, fault tolerant, QoS, redundant, 99.99% reliability (although the telcom standard is still 6-9's) are becoming more the norm. Cisco, Compaq, IBM and hardware and network side are all scrambling to embrace what has always been the standard of excellance which the telco side is. Where does that leave Mighty Mr. Softie? On the outside looking in. They aren't any of this. Reboot is the answer you get, or reload when that fails. Linux being a UNIX derivative is a very stable operating platform. Just like Ma Bell giving it away to Universities, this is the same thing. Worse yet for your argument dear Maurice, what the difference from this being free than Mr. Softies IE Explorer being free? Did not Mr. Softie show the way to gaining market share? What, now that their tactics come home to roost, they are to be protected by name calling and suggestions that it a commie plot? Will this evolve to the battle of good and evil in cyberspace with Web1 and Web2 fighting for supremacy as each develops its own self awareness and determination to fight for survival? Already, people are being subsumed into service of The Web; creating it, nurturing it, defending it, with no limit to the creation of the new consciousness of The Web. You want to worry about a monopoly, well THAT's a monopoly you could worry about. It evolves into a battle of what works and meets customers demands. You talk about the Web, but the problems of the World Wide Wait is mainly software derived and not bandwidth. Mr. Softies bloatware and bloat mentality is the main culprit. The ususal misguided argument that it's got to be bigger to be better reminds of the 70's argument about horsepower. I had a Ferrari that produced 240 HP and got 20 miles to the gallon at a 100MPH. It was lighter and better handling than a Vette. Not only would I beat a Vette on curvy roads, but over a greater distances due to fuel economy. It was a 2.4 liter engine vs a 5.7 liter engine. Mr. Softie is a 70's GM product. They don't care about reliability or economy of resources. They design it to be replaced every 2 years, even though there isn't any real improvement. Mr. Softie's bundling practices has damaged the after market tax base more than Linux will. A few bucks for $ill is going to look trivial compared with the power of The Web. It will know all, it will be faster than thought, it will monitor everything, it will defend itself, it will reward humans who enhance "ITs" being, power and survival. The Web will be power by others than Mr. Softie. It will be power by the most reliable and the inefficent will be relagated to scrap heap. 24/7 reliability is essential to success as consumers will not tolerate down time. Ask E-Bay about that. I guess the Polish soldiers were arguing as to who should have the gray stallion and whether the horseshoe monopoly was appropriate and whether pikes or swords were superior as the Panzer Blitzkrieg revved their engines. Sounds like Mr. Softie to me, they are the Polish Army. Maybe Linux will be the ALLIES and Windows will be the NAZIS. Or maybe there is no good and bad, just what is and what is not, competition for mates and supplies. Those who found and defended a mate and an ecological niche and those who failed to do so. Qualcomm has chosen to join the WK team with Windows as the system. Creating and defending the WWWeb [Windows Wireless Web]. Me too! It comes down to what works and what doesn't. It comes down to what uses resources effectively. Look I have Linux powering a 486 machine with 24 M Ram and 1 G HD. It works real well. Now let's put in the same base system? Win 98 run on it? No. Linux 6.0 Kernel? Yep. Cost to upgrade? Win 98 is over $100 and Red Hat is $49. Bottomline, I have had blue screen galore and even had to re-load the new machine running Win 98, but the Linux machine never gives me a problem. End of story. Now the real burden for Mr. Softie forward looking is the fact that Linux doesn't neeed the resources such as memory, HD and POWER. Ah power. Rotomola just released Embedded stuff today based on Linux. Cheaper for folks to deploy and doesn't need the resources. Ergo cheaper to the consumer. If it is easy to use and delivers information in an eye appealing manner, with superior battery life, at a cheaper price, reliable, then what advantage does Mr. Softie have? None. As to your other comments, I was ABSOLUTELY, as a Viet Nam vet opposed to US intervention in the Balkans. It's a European problem and it's time that Europe deal with it. I'm tired of the notion of the US being the worlds cop. I'm tired of seeing farmers held hostage to US policy of embargo. I'm tired of seeing us go it alone at the cost to US industry. I'm especially tired of US complacency in the fact that we aren't the technologic leader we think we are. That is a score that can change overnight. The failure to answer the bell to competition will undo "our" lead. Just like the US auto industry of the 70's failure to answer Japan challenge, I see US software industry coming under assualt from afar that addresses the need for reliable, cost effective and resource efficent software.