**** imagine; all of everything that is or was, can be reduced to an equation less than one inch long ! *** Major Asso Press article in the paper ( photo and all "ABOVE the fold" on the first page of the financial section ! Says many countries are movin to Linux for better "security and safety" named China, Germany, France and others who do NOT want all their countries future and present information at the mercy of Microsoft's business practises , and thier notorious wide open security holes that never seem to get fixed permanantly from one relese to another. At least two of the countries are putting linux on desktop boxen as well. The idea that local programers can configure and distribute programs , kernals etc in a "localisation" move seems to be a factor in some of the movement. The only mention of "free" OS has to do w/ being able to get the source codes and either fix somethng they find that needs fixing , or just make uniform desktops and uniform web access ( this seems to apply more to China than the others, as tehy really want to be able to tightly control news coming into that country. ) If China does go "open source" LInux it will be a major setback for the Redmand "genius" HE put a lot of personal "face time" into wooing the Government there. Apparently the French are citing the fact that Linus Tovalds ( linux's "daddy") is a Finn , as a good reason to move thier countriesbeaucratic offices to Linux, and , of course all the usual reasons for not UG to Microsoft again . One has to wonder if the push to get everyone that has a MS lisence to upgrade or die ( not to mention pay more if you do NOT UG on "our" schedule!) Might not have left a hole in the Redman foot , right about where the bullet went thru.. Sometimes it just isn't good to threaten people, even if you are teh only game in town... Once "they" begin to consider teh "unthinkable" ( that perhaps you aren't doing thens in their "Best interests" no matter what you say ) once it gets considered as a posibility, every time you push this customer to do soemthing they dont want to do, theycome closer to actually makeing hte jump. EAch time they are pushed, tehy do more "investigation" to see if a change is posible.. and sooner or later , it's not only posible , it is actually going to happen as "you" ( MS) apply one bit of pressure too much. One dekstop at a time .. it just could work! -- j afterthought : COFFEE.EXE missing - insert cup and press any key ...