>Jerry,
>
>>Slashdot is already unimportant, since there are more serfties there than Pinquins lurking /., or so it seems in the last couple of months since Ballmer and Mundie started bashing and FUDing Linux and GPL.
>
>Yeah, that stuff did bother me...I still think Mundie and Jim Allchin are fricking brainless turds.
>
>>Bashing MS? Well, no... not any more than you do when you post opinions favoring MS.
>>
>>As far as lost rights are concerned there are many (just read a recent EULA to see what you cannot do) but, how about this one: If your company tests MS product A against 3rd Party product A', and the tests are not favorable to Microsoft's A, then try to post them on a company Internet website without Microsoft's permission. But, since Microsoft started this practice other third party software companies have followed suit, hence the claim that "everyone is doing it".
>
>I haven't read about this...I am sure that all gets pretty nasty and hairy, and for as much money as MS makes (plus 30 bil in cash), they do seem to whine an awful lot.
>
>>BTW, did you see that little story about MS and a select group (major) PC manufacturers completing a meeting in Las Vega to standardize a PC product on Windows XP? I predicted that in this forum a month or so ago. It will be the complete deal: A WinPC (what I called it) booting directly into a pay-per-use PassPort server, running HailStorm pay-per-use software. No Passport account/connection? No operation. Each machine will have an unremovable GUID and it will be attached to every outgoing piece of Internet traffic.
>
>OK...MS has every right to try to develop a commercial product based on such things...

True. Never said they didn't, as long as they don't break laws... :)
>
>>Based on WinPC I made another prediction: Microsoft will start giving away free WinPC's if a 3 year subscription to PassPort (and it's pay-per-use additional fees) is purchased. For those folks, in all countries, that can afford PassPort subscription fees and pay-per-use-fees, it will spell the end of the General PC (one on which any OS could be installed) and the deligation of Linux to a hobbist status, until genera PCs wear out. Excpect to see free WinPCs by Xmas!
>
>You are probably right. But demise of the PC? I think not... Now, if MS uses their monopoly power to _force_ all major PC makers to market and sell _only_ these WinPCs, or if they set the price so low as to run conventional PCs out of business, then I will be worried, and I will watch as the DOJ nails MS for predatory pricing and monopoly leveraging. The Appeals court may have ruled to not split MS, but they did rule that MS _did_ break the law. I assume that no matter what penalty is eventually leveled at MS, one stipulation will be a close watch on their future moves (since now they have been officially deemed a monopoly, even by the appeals court).

A law that is not enforced is not a law. We have speedl limit signs here in Nebraska that read "Fines Doubled" in work zones. While traveling in Omaha in such a zone at 55MPH, a police cruiser pulled up along side and motioned me to speed up. I reached 65MPH and the cruiser was still speeding away from me. To match the flow of traffic I had to go about 70MPH. The effect of the Apellate Court's ruling was to tell MS to 'speed it up'.
>
>>I also predicted that MS will push/promote/buy legislation to outlaw General PCs because they represent a threat to "Intellectual Property", copyrights and patents.
>
>Um, well, that is one prediction that will _never_ come true (are you saying it has?)

MS is already lobbying for such a law, along with the recording industry and some others.

>I am as paranoid as the next guy, but there are just as many huge companies as MS out there (IBM, HP, etc.) that have just as much clout to prevent this. Remember, the market drives profits...you really think MS can unilaterally say "we will now only sell WinPCs, and all OEMS will go along with it"...? Long before they will get away with that they will face:
>
>- scorching by the DOJ

We've already seen that in action... Result... more delays and the former prosecution has been replaced by some less than motivated rookies.

>- scorching in the marketplace by consumers and corporations alike that will refuse to hand over all control to a single, proprietary company

Mmm..... what is the market place like right now, if not in the control of a single company, which is doing everytthing it can to extend that control over the Internet, i.e., to make it the propriatary property of MS. For example, when you HAVE to use IE to browse most website because propriatary XML, Kerberos and other technology make non MS browsers non-functional. I saw that Britian has made a government website, that it will require it citizens to access for certain government business, IE dependent. Other browsers are rejected. You can't run IE on other platforms, so what are Brition to do. Continue purchasing MS even if they run LInux. But, with the new WinXP type control over the HD installing another OS dual boot will be difficult if not impossible.

Do you know how hard it is to get NON WinParts for a computer? And how much more they cost?
It can't be both ways. Linux can't be a viable threat and 'proof' that a monoply exists in one argument, and then rended inconsequential by saying it doesn't exist on the desktop in the next argument.

>- scorched by their own common sense when they realize they can't keep gouging folks this way
>
What do you think Ballmer and Mundie have been FUDing about? "GPL is Un-American. GPL is anti-Intellectual Property, GPL is-..." Better re-read the Halloween Documents and find out what MS itself said was the threat, and what they said was a method to meet the threat.

>>I will further predict that PassPort rates for users in Socialists and impoverished 3rd World countries will be minimal or free, because rates on users in 1st World countries will be higher in order to pay for access by 3rd World countries. This is how Gates will defeat Linux in those countries. Pure Socialism. That's why rulers in Socialist and poor countries will approve. (And they accused Linux of being Communistic! :)
>
>How will that defeat Linux? Linux already _IS_ free.

You can't get a free PC with Linux! ;-) If the free PC you do get contains WinXP and won't load Linux you won't use Linux. Your trapped even if you want to move to Linux.

>And these PCs you talk of...are they going to be locked down so that I can't put _anything_ else on them? That's absurd.

Hardly. It's already happened. The hack has already happened, and the changed EULA to prevent the hack has already happened. It wasn't MS doing it but the model has been developed.

>Even completely proprietary boxen like a Dreamcast have been hacked so that they can run Linux (including XWindows) famously. How do you propose that MS will lock down these WinPCs so hard as to make sure they are used for nothing else?

Piece of cake, Matt! These WinPCs will have soldered in boot chips that require PassPort connections to continue running and WinXP loaded into bios. Since all data will be stored on PassPort, for a fee of course, what is the use of an HD? There won't even be an HD connector or peripheral slot on the mobo, and the boxen will be sealed. Breaking into it will be both illegal and render it inoperable. The ports will be USB 2.x and will require MS peripheral validation before Win OS will service them. The really economical models, if not all of them, will have 15 or 17" organic LCD displays and be the size of laptops, i.e. battery powered. Solar power cells on the back of the display will charge the batteries for operation. They may even be strong enough to power the unit in daylight (no power draining CRT or HD) and charge the batteries for several hours of night-time use. Citizens in 3rd world countries will be connected by the equivilent of cell phone towers. No need to string ethernet cables. With everything being sent by secured protocols the radio signal interception problem is mute. Bill is going to start WinXP with a 1 Billion dollar campaign. He could set up this WinPC stuff with 5-10 billion of his own money in this country and use subscriptions to forward finance installations in other countries, while paying himself back.


>They can't do this because they don't make hardware...only software... Now, if Apple were taking over the world in this way I might be scared, but I hardly think that's going to happen... *grin*

Better check again. MS is making hardware. Some of it very HailStorm like....

>
>>So, from a Window User's point of view the world is coming up Roses, as long as Bill keepts the rates down. How he will do that and maintain his standing as the world's richest man remains to be seen.
>
>Right, it comes down to what it has always come down to...rates and functionality. If MS does offer a subscription service where users can have everything they want in a platform (speed, apps, flexibility, future functionality, and cheap), then it will sell. If they don't deliver, it won't. As for the worries about WinPCs taking over the world and all other companies and OEMs blindly tagging along, well, I don't buy it. Heck, two years ago Micheal Dell stated flatly in interviews that Linux was nowhere on their radar screens and it would never be something the customer would ask for.
Now I can get a Dell PC loaded with Linux right off their factory floor.
But with what peripheral options? And, on the desktop, Linux is still below 10% by most calculations. In the server room it is at 25% and growing at 28% per year. But not the desktop, yet. A WinPC could kill it in its tracks.

>What makes you think things are going to start going more in MS's proprietary direction?

The Appeals Court said today that while MS broke the anti-Trust laws, the remedy didn't match the crime, and besides, the Judge was biased. Translation: For all practical purposes MS can go about "business as usual." It will take at least two or three years (a LIFETIME in computers) before these issues will reach decision phase again. So, if you want to use MSDN then start paying your PassPort dues. What's your choice?
JLK