Gates rules out returning to Microsoft

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Paragraph 2 is pretty much it

My contention is that by moving aggressively to eliminate competition in the proprietary sector, MS left open source, which has a much weaker profit motive, as the primary alternative. If, for example, there were still significant numbers of PC users (10% or more) using OS/2, BeOS, and whatever other proprietary alternatives to Windows that might have arisen in a free market, most of those dissatisfied with MS Windows would have gone there instead of to Linux, and free software would be much less popular today.

While MS clearly didn't create the free software movement, it did unintentionally encourage it.

MacOS, as Judge Jackson pointed out in his findings of fact, is a more difficult alternative in that PC users have to replace their equipment in order to run it. It's thus not really comparable to the various direct competitors to DOS/Windows that have surfaced over the years.

Posted by: John L. Ries   Posted on: 06/05/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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