____/ Rex Ballard on Friday 13 July 2007 04:34 : \____
> On Jul 10, 10:46 am, "ness...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
> <ness...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > > systems with their computer hardware, effectively depriving consumers
>> > > of any competitive choices.
>>
>> > That's bs. Everyone has always been free to build their own systems.
>> > Nobody has to buy what OEMs sell.
>>
>> You're criticizing the plaintiff's petition. Obviously it must be
>> weak---that's why Microsoft settled, for what? $500 million this
>> time? Business as usual.
>
> Microsoft committed the crime, admitted to the crime, and paid the
> fine.
> Microsoft spend $2 billion/year in legal fees and settements, but they
> make $60 billion in revenue, largely as a result of the crimes they
> have additted to committing - and settled in return for immunity from
> further prosecution. And they make a gross profit margin of about $36
> billion/year.
>
> If the EU fined them $3 million/day, that would still be less 3% of
> their gross daily PROFIT (about $100 million/day).
>
> Sure it proves that crime DOES pay.
> But Microsoft isn't alone.
> Look at Wal-Mart, Halliburton, Blackwater, Tom DeLey, Enron, and
> WorldCom.
>
> In each case, some people made huge amounts of money from criminal
> activities, which they even admitted. Pensions and 401K plans were
> wiped out, but the banks holding the bonds made out like bandits.
>
> Even in the face of all that, Linux and OSS continues to grow in
> popularity. 1/2 billion copies of FireFox downloaded. Over 1/4
> billion copies of Open Office downloaded. Nearly 100 million copies
> of VMWare player downloaded, along with numerous "Appliances" based on
> Linux.
Crime stop paying when people can **see** the crime and make informed choice. I
don't think that Italy has just dropped Microsoft like a rock just because the
O/S is insecure, bloated, and unstable.
...not to mention spying, which is an issue raised by the French recently, the
context being BlackBerries in the parliament. They too moved to Linux. Italy
chose SUSE (boo!) while the French embraced the Debian camp, just like the
Germans.
Okay, I've drifted off topic, but the point to make here is that ethical issues
have begun having impact on procurement.
--
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | BadVista? I guess it makes Vista a dog.
http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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