In comp.os.linux.advocacy, arachnid
<none@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Sat, 21 Oct 2006 15:31:41 -0500
<pan.2006.10.21.20.31.40.880886@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> On Sat, 21 Oct 2006 12:54:30 -0700, The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Jerry McBride
>> <mcbrides9@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
>
> <snip>
>
>>>
>>> When I shop for a laptop with the features I desire, the vendor
>>> is FORCED to sell it pre-installed with windows.
>>
>> I'm not sure if it's forced or not; more like the vendor,
>> looking at his cost structure, has determined it's more
>> efficient to sell all laptops with Windows preinstalled
>> as opposed to slapping on the requisite software at the
>> last minute.
>
> Imagine having a 6 foot, 250 pound neighbor who has a habit of badly
> maiming people he doesn't like. On at least three occasions a crowd
> watched him murder somebody but somehow he got away scot-free on legal
> technicalities. He's beat up several of your friends. Once the government
> launched an investigation and just as he as about to be convicted, a buddy
> of his got elected President and let him off the hook. And that buddy is
> still President.
>
> Now he shows up at your door and very politely asks if you could loan him
> $500.
>
> Whatcha gonna do?
>
Depends. Does he have a shotgun? :-) In any event, I'd
have to study as to exactly *why* the vendors are offering
Windows-only solutions for laptops; your analogies smack of
oversimplification, though they may very well be accurate.
I for one cannot say.
I do know that the margins aren't all that thick; this
is one reason why Microsoft's lower-cost offerings per
CPU worked in the first place. (That, and the fact that
Microsoft Windows was installed on a vast majority of
equipment anyway, as per consumer's requests prior to
about 1995 -- possibly after, as well, especially since
most customers until recently didn't know about alternatives
such as Linux, FreeBSD, and the now-late BeOS.)
If there is a market for Linux laptops, I'm certainly
looking forward to it, but it's probably still cheaper
to pay the "Microsoft tax" because of economies of scale.
Until this changes, Microsoft gets its moolah. I don't
know how to fix it, though Microsoft's ability to shoot
itself in the foot is definitely helping Linux. However,
laptops have been growing with the rest of the computers
along the lines laid out by Moore's "Law", so 1-2 GB on
a new laptop will be standard stuff. But we'll see.
And yes, that "buddy" is still President, and is likely
to be President until 2009, and even after, if one's
sufficiently paranoid to hypothesize martial law in
order to clamp down on "internal terrorist actions" or
some such disgustinly disingenuous drivel. Whether the
terrorists *outside* of the US like Bush or not I for one
do not know, though that Osama tape surfacing in 2004 was
rather ... interesting.
I also don't know what Republican replacement he will
favor in the 2008 primaries; nor has anyone successfully
completed actions to allow for a repeal of Amendment 22,
allowing Bush to serve for a third term without martial law
or other such silliness. They've *tried* it, but it got
routed to committee and died there. (Why, I don't know.
Aren't the Republicans supposed to help their leader?)
Also, the Republicans aren't exactly the most popular bunch
in the electorate, and may very well lose control of the
House; there is the possibility of a Democratic senate
but that's less likely and in any event we won't have 60+
Democrats, so the Republicans can still filibuster the
bits they don't like.
In short, after 2007 we'll probably have More Of The
Same(tm), minus some of the corruption (Abramoff, DeLay,
Ken Lay, Bob Ney [*]) if we're lucky. But I don't expect
Nancy Pelosi to accomplish much -- which is a pity since
we could do with a little housecleaning, on both sides.
She might be able to stem the worst of it by just
being there -- but she's not there yet. We'll know
come Nov 8th or so, if Diebold doesn't do something
egregriously stupid.
[*] Foley might count too, if one includes corruption
of minors by rather interesting emails/text messages.
And then there's William Jefferson, on the D side,
getting caught red-handed with $90K of cold cash.
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Windows. Multi-platform(1), multi-tasking(1), multi-user(1).
(1) if one defines "multi" as "exactly one".
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
|
|
