Mike McCarty: >>> Please state what, exactly, is this "coerce" that MicroSoft has >>> done. Tim: >> Isn't that the cases where Microsoft has done things like: >> >> If you want the information you need to make your device Windows >> compliant/compatible, you have to agree to our terms. The same tricks >> they'd did with ISPs about if you want "help" in some way, you have to >> agree not to support non-Microsoft products. >> >> If you want the right to say Windows compatible (or the rights to use >> similar logo stamps of aproval on the box, etc.), the same sort of >> thing. Mike McCarty: > Please point out where the coercion is. I still don't see any. > More specifically, where are the "force, law, authority, or > fear"? What part of the big bully boy saying, "that if you want to do business with us you have to do it our way," don't you see as intimidation? If they don't buckle, they only get to sell products that don't have the various Windows badges of honour that makes it easy to sell your product. i.e. You go from potential mass market to tiny market. Stores aren't going to stock allegedly "unsupported/unsupportable" products. >>> Oh, so MicroSoft has done such a good job of porting its software >>> to many different hardware platforms, that it is difficult for >>> others to do as well? MicroSoft has risked so much capital >>> in purchasing the documentation on how to use some proprietary >>> hardware that others who are unwilling to do so have a problem >>> competing? >> Have they really? What other than bog-standard PCs do you see Microsoft >> Windows running on? And with the huge profits they have, and the almost > I thought I regularly see lists of hardware which "Linux supporters" > should avoid, because the h/w i/f is proprietary, and so the > driver writers for Linux can't/wont get the info necessary to support > the new video chips etc. because they can't/wont afford the price > it takes to buy the docs. Yet Win.. runs on everything I've seen. > To put it another way, what PCs do you NOT see Win.. running on? > I don't see mail echoes where a FAQ is "Does Win.. support this > or that laptop or whatever" whereas I *do* see this for Linux. That's not Microsoft porting to things, that's things being designed to work with Windows. The opposite direction. That's done by manufacturers paying through the nose for the details from Microsoft about how to be compatible with it. Nvidia, ESS, S3, et al, don't have to buy documents to find out how to make their hardware work on Linux, but they don't. They'd like, if they cared, for other OS system developers to pay for details for their products, but no free system's going to be in a position to do that. Windows-compatible product development: Hardware manufacturer pays for Windows information from Microsoft. Linux-compatible product development: Expects someone else to buy information from them, or sort it out by themselves, but doesn't want outsiders knowing how their devices work. >> complete monopoly they have of the market, how much of a "risk" are they >> really taking to expand their market even further? > They *purchase* information. Why doesn't the "Open Software Community" > make the same purchase? Mass market vendors with oodles of cash can do such things. Smaller ones find it hard, particularly when not selling products. And why should the OSS community foot the bill? Microsoft doesn't write the Windows drivers for your video card, sound card, network card, video capture card, flat bed scanner... -- Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
