scott wrote:
>> From what I heard, Internet Explorer was stolen from a company called 
>> Spyglass.
>>
>> Spyglass were selling a web browser, M$ licenced the code from them, 
>> developed IE, and then gave it away for free (in violation of the 
>> terms of the licence with Spyglass). Spyglass promptly went bankrupt 
>> before they could sue M$.
> 
> Oh joy, another one of your completely made-up stories bashing MS :-)
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc.

...this page does not exist?

>> The way I heard it, it was more like "you will agree to these terms or 
>> you can't have our product".
> 
> That's impossible, because as pointed out you can just go to a normal 
> shop and buy it if you can't get it directly from MS.  The worst MS 
> could do was "you will agree to these terms or you will have to buy it 
> at the normal price the public pays for it".

I was under the impression that they could put terms into their licence 
to prevent companies doing this. But IANAL...

>> Yeah, well, when car manufacturers lobby the government saying "people 
>> aren't buying as many cars as they used to; I think we should get 
>> government subsidies", people just laugh and say "no".
> 
> Or offer 2000 GBP for your old cars if you buy a new one :-)

I have no idea who came up with that one, but it seems like a pretty 
dumb idea to me...

>> Like, if Tesco decided to start giving away a free bestselling book 
>> with every purchase, they'd have a problem because they'd be using 
>> grocery sales to put book sellers out of business.
> 
> That's not illegal.  In fact it's common practise for supermarkets to 
> use "loss leaders" like petrol and milk/sugar that actually lose them 
> money, to encourage people to come in and spend on the more profitable 
> items.  What *is* illegal is if the manufacturer tries to tell Tesco 
> what price they should sell at.

Tesco might sell petrol at a loss, but they don't give it away *for 
free* to get you through the door, do they?

> Charities are for being fair, businesses are for making money and 
> crushing the competition.

Well, fortunately not everybody thinks like that. Otherwise nobody would 
bother making any actual *products* at all, they'd all just find ways to 
screw customers out of their money without providing anything in return.

>> Oracle didn't get to be where they are now 
>> by stealing other people's stuff,
> 
> Oh really:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle

Buying something isn't the same as stealing it.

> As I said, pretty much any large company is going to have done some 
> "unfair" things, otherwise they wouldn't have grown to be a large company.

So your basic premise is that the only way to be successful in business 
is to lie, cheat, steal and try to fob customers off with cheap 
defective goods at extortionate prices?

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