OT: Two ways Microsoft sabotages Linux desktop adoption

[Mike McCarty]

Tim wrote:
> Mike McCarty:
> 
>>>>Please state what, exactly, is this "coerce" that MicroSoft has
>>>>done.
> 
>  
> Tim: 

[snip]

> Mike McCarty:
> 
>>Please point out where the coercion is. I still don't see any.
>>More specifically, where are the "force, law, authority, or
>>fear"?
> 
> 
> What part of the big bully boy saying, "that if you want to do business
> with us you have to do it our way," don't you see as intimidation?

No, I don't. I see adults making adult decisions and making
voluntary contracts. A contract is always a quid pro quo.
"You do this for me, I do that for you." Coercion is "You
do this, or I shoot you in the head." That's use of force.
"You do this, or I'll put you into jail." That's use of law.
"You do this, or I'll fire you". That's authority.
"You do this, or I'll do horrible things to you, things you've
never even thought of, things that will hurt." That's fear.

I see no force, law, authority, or fear in what you describe.

> If they don't buckle, they only get to sell products that don't have the
> various Windows badges of honour that makes it easy to sell your
> product.  i.e. You go from potential mass market to tiny market.  Stores
> aren't going to stock allegedly "unsupported/unsupportable" products.

That is not force, not law, not authority, and not fear. That
is a voluntary contract entered into by adults.

[snip]

>>I thought I regularly see lists of hardware which "Linux supporters"
>>should avoid, because the h/w i/f is proprietary, and so the
>>driver writers for Linux can't/wont get the info necessary to support
>>the new video chips etc. because they can't/wont afford the price
>>it takes to buy the docs. Yet Win.. runs on everything I've seen.
>>To put it another way, what PCs do you NOT see Win.. running on?
>>I don't see mail echoes where a FAQ is "Does Win.. support this
>>or that laptop or whatever" whereas I *do* see this for Linux.
> 
> 
> That's not Microsoft porting to things, that's things being designed to
> work with Windows.  The opposite direction.  That's done by

Then why did the drivers come on my Windows disc? Lots of them.
I'll grant you that when you buy a new piece of hardware it
often comes with a driver on it's own disc, which is indeed what
you describe. But it's not all that way.

> manufacturers paying through the nose for the details from Microsoft
> about how to be compatible with it.

Well, that's their choice, isn't it?

> Nvidia, ESS, S3, et al, don't have to buy documents to find out how to
> make their hardware work on Linux, but they don't.  They'd like, if they
> cared, for other OS system developers to pay for details for their
> products, but no free system's going to be in a position to do that.

Eh? As I've been reminded over and over here and elsewhere, "You get
out of it what you put into it."

> Windows-compatible product development:  Hardware manufacturer pays for
> Windows information from Microsoft.
> 
> Linux-compatible product development:  Expects someone else to buy
> information from them, or sort it out by themselves, but doesn't want
> outsiders knowing how their devices work.

Whine, whine, whine. Grow up.

I withdraw from this portion of the discussion.

[snip]

Mike
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