On Tue, 2003-12-30 at 09:44, Richard Rothwell wrote:
Beg to differ... <SNIP> A monopolist knows that they are inefficient and overpriced. The barriers to entry are the major defence they have. For this reason I'm very happy to have the refered to as Micro$oft, but I'd hope it encourages people to study economics
Take a look at
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/ghosh/index.html
for some global economics related to FLOSS. Particularly the table at
the end showing the real costs of commercial software in developing
countries. If the Gov want to spend a little with real impact in
bridging the technology divide it would put a few million into say
OpenOffice.org and FLOSS education applications so that not only our
schools benefit but all those around the world, too. Train the locals
how to set up and maintain GNU/Linux thin clients and use recycled
machines as terminals. Take all those old machines out of landfill,
increase the global knowledge pool of tech support and provide
educational tools for everyone and still save money on license fees. Who
would this hurt? Only Microsoft.
UK providing World leadership in ICT? Ooo-er, let's not upset the USA
;-)
--
ian