On Wed, 05 Apr 2000, dkphoto wrote:

...

The old Robber Barrons have nothing over Bill Gates and his kind. And even though my gut feelings tell me the fix is in and Gates has fed enough swine at his hog trough to escape justice, I still believe justice will triumph in the end.

Taking any bets?

Here's my bet. Microsoft will be punished by the government for bad things it didn't do, and go unpunished for the bad things it did. The government measures designed to prevent further abuse will take effect right after market pressures cut Microsoft down to a size where it is not capable of a significant level of abuse. The government will, for the next hundred years, point to the steady growth of non-Microsoft systems as proof of the benefit of its actions, ignoring the fact that the growth of these same systems was faster before the government action took effect. Why do I think this? Well, it's exactly what happened to Standard Oil and Boeing... (But not AT&T. AT&T was a purely government-created monopoly: it was a violation of federal law to attempt to compete against it. Up until the day it was ruled an illegal monopoly.) -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/