OT: Two ways Microsoft sabotages Linux desktop adoption

[Tim]

Jeff Vian
>> It is a Microsoft problem as we see stated in the article, "Linux
>> evangelist John H. Terpstra told me: "Microsoft has used its market
>> dominance to coerce OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and
>> resellers not to sell competing products and services."  

Mike McCarty:
> co.erce - v co.erced, co.erc.ing v.t. 1 To constrain by force,
> law, authority, or fear; compel 2 To bring into subjection or
> under control by superior force; repress 3 To bring about by
> coercion: to /coerce/ obedience - v.i. 4 To use coercive
> measures, as in government. See synonyms under COMPEL.
> 
> Please state what, exactly, is this "coerce" that MicroSoft has
> done.

Isn't that the cases where Microsoft has done things like:

If you want the information you need to make your device Windows
compliant/compatible, you have to agree to our terms.  The same tricks
they'd did with ISPs about if you want "help" in some way, you have to
agree not to support non-Microsoft products.

If you want the right to say Windows compatible (or the rights to use
similar logo stamps of aproval on the box, etc.), the same sort of
thing.


>> While all hardware vendors have the right to chose what/what not to
>> release in the areas of drivers and hardware, it is very difficult to
>> get an even playing field when the big boy uses coercion to tell the
>> vendor that if he does not play by the big boy's rules he will lose out.
>> This stinks of the old mob tactics of the protection racket.

> Oh, so MicroSoft has done such a good job of porting its software
> to many different hardware platforms, that it is difficult for
> others to do as well? MicroSoft has risked so much capital
> in purchasing the documentation on how to use some proprietary
> hardware that others who are unwilling to do so have a problem
> competing?

Have they really?  What other than bog-standard PCs do you see Microsoft
Windows running on?  And with the huge profits they have, and the almost
complete monopoly they have of the market, how much of a "risk" are they
really taking to expand their market even further?

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