Hi Michel,

What is at stake is nothing less than ownership of the Internet. Microsoft realized some years ago that it was not the superior OS everyone thought. There was another OS far superior to Windows. It was global in nature, interoperable across all local OS/network platforms, it ran on TCP/IP, and could be interfaced with many programming languages/tools like Perl, PHP, Java, HTTP, Apache, Pathon, QT, sendmail, etc. It had its origins in UNIX. UNIX was developed in an academic setting by a group of esteemed universities to link together in a TCP/IP network for sharing file, email, and general info.

At that time, IBM had just introduced the IBM personal computer that came with Microsoft's DOS OS. The Internet evolved over time to the point where desktop computers could link into the Internet via a TCP/IP network connection using a web browser. The success of the Internet caused Microsoft serious threat/anxiety, because it realized their was another OS/Network superior to Windows. Microsoft's Dot Net was born out of this fear.

Microsoft has a need to control not only the desktop, but also the network which its window's desktop systems connect. I believe Microsoft is morphing its network from Netbois, that was a simple protocol for small networks and enterprise workgroups, into the Internet itself. I feel Microsoft's goal is to control the Internet, just like it controls the desktop. It will become interoperable and embrace competitors until its Dot Net is extended to a point of Microsoft dominance/monopoly. Once it acquires a dominance of the Internet, it will use its power, as it always has, to reward it friends, punish its unfaithful, and extinguise it competitors.

Dot Net's use of community is only a part of the overall picture. Windows OS must be completely re-written in Dot net, C#, (e.g. Microsoft's improved java), must be extended to provide additional Internet functionality, the public/government must be educated, (e.g. brainwashed), into accepting Microsoft's Dot Net as the inevitable new benevolent owner of the Internet.

This has caused me, as am sure it has you, some difficulties. Microsoft seem to want its desktop user to pay in advance for its development of Dot Net. I find I am asked to pay increasingly in the from of never ending stream of OS patches/updates, expensive new version of programs that are introduced on a much more frequently basis than before Dot net, and reduced support/service pack fixes of existing programs that are not Dot Net centered.