>>Tamar's post is an opinion - and one that is not backed up with any reasoning.
>
>Mental note to self: John is way better than me at burning bridges!
>

Houston,

Pardon my intrusion, but I concluded a long time ago that we must not answer John Petersen. He has his own agenda, though I am not sure what it it. My guess is he just wants to show he is more clever than you.

The only sane conclusion: don't feed the trolls. Ignore him. Go about your life.

Alex


>If anything tens of thousands of developers and businesses have subsidized MS to the tune of billions of dollars, every time an employee is paid to watch yet another reboot after installing yet another patch - and lets not talk about the cost of SLAMMER, NIMDA et al. Without developers (or employers) continually absorbing the cost of relearning and retooling to keep up with Microsoft's moving goal post - there would not be the sea of applications that run on Windows.
>
>>This is all royalty free so long as the apps are distributed on the windows platform. This aspect of the EULA is targeted specifically to the re-distributable components.
>
>Lets face it "re-distributable components" is a Microsoft contrivance - who in there right mind is going to buy a tool that creates a product that is not free of encumbrances created by the tool vendor? In this respect software tools are unique and this absurdity desperately needs to be addressed in a court of law.
>
>>Now - if you want to cite some authority - why not find something in the economics realm to dispute my assertion?
>
>I tell you what John; I will start to cite some authority immediately after you.
>
>>A subsidy is nothing more than some sort of financial assistance. Windows - as a platform - subsidizes our efforts to distribute royalty free - VB, VFP, .NET apps, etc. Either directly or indirectly - this is the case.
>
>"this is the case" - looks like you are stating a fact. If you cannot answer yes to;
>- do you have any access to internal MS accounting books?
>- has someone in authority at MS told you this?
>
>Then you are continuing to spout spurious inane vacuous opinions that appear to have been plucked from the very reaches of fantasy. Your argument is tantamount to "tax payers subsidize Ford cars because we pay for the roads that they run on".