Re: Selling Linux to Windows Users

Kjetil Halvorsen wrote:
On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 15:59, Derek Broughton <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Matthew Flaschen wrote:

Derek Broughton wrote:
Monopoly _is_ a low-life business act, which is why
even the heartl of capitalism, the USA, has laws against it
(toothless, true, but laws all the same).
Actually, it's perfectly legal to have a monopoly, as long as you
don't commit ant-competitive acts to acquire or maintain it.
That's splitting hairs of the finest kind, since it's really _difficult_ to
have a monopoly without being anti-competitive.

That is not splitting hairs. I prefer (in calculators) a calculator with
reverse polish notation (RPN). Those are expensive because only
HP makes them. But HP did nothing to monopolize the market,
every maker is free to make RPN calculators. Until they do, I
will have to pay HP's heavy price.

That's not really a monopoly since it's kind of like saying saying Ford
has a monopoly because I like the Ford logo on the steering wheel or
Coke has a monopoly because of their cool bottle shape on cool bottle
shaped soft drinks.

Apple was accused of having a monopoly on OS X systems by Psystar and
that was thrown out of court if I recall correctly, since they have Mac
hardware and license OS X only to be run on it.

Monopolies are not a bad thing, per say, but you can't do things to as a
monopoly using your monopoly position to squash a new guy with an idea.
I.e., not too many companies are doing space exploration...NASA almost
corners that market. Microsoft *did* exploit their monopoly position
with 99% market share telling companies like Dell that, hey, if you want
to put Linux on your system, that's fine but you're going to pay us a
fee anyway or we might not let you install Windows on your systems
anymore which would guarantee their sales would tank. That's illegal.

If you're a defacto monopoly or by virtue of a better product or
service, it's perfectly legal.

Since monopolies are kind of spelled out legally in the US as to what's
okay and what's not, I think there's really not much to argue about on
that particular topic, is there?

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