On Mon, Aug 16, 2004 at 04:05:40AM -0200, jonathan_hughes@goodyear.co.za wrote: : : As someone else stated in the past - IBM, to a degree, used to be the : Microsoft of today. Lets not forget that Microsoft's earlier products like : MS-DOS and Windows for Workgroups were, in their day, easily copied, : installed and distributed. I remember at the time reading that Bill Gates : was well aware his OS was being copied like mad, he knew thousands were : pirating his OS and he knew because of this he was gaining in popularity. : He was getting the market through piracy so to speak (I trust thoise of you : reading will understand where that statement comes from). Also Microsoft : was an outsider - a rebel for the people so to speak - opposing the BIG : BLUE. : : It is humorous then to see Microsoft, in essence, now that it wants to : start forcing payment and prevent pirating of its OS, that it is suffering : from the very same thing that made it a widely used household name. It is : losing to something that is relatively free and easy to share/copy, : something that is there for the people, a rebel so to speak, an outsider - : Linux. Well, it's true that neither M$ nor Linux really cares about the law. The difference is that M$ cares about using market share to money, while Linux cares about serving the technical needs of Linux users. To that extent, M$ can change its legal position any day of the week to increase its market share or decrease competitors' market share. For M$, like every business in the world, it's all about the money.