Invisible wrote:
>  From what I heard, Internet Explorer was stolen from a company called 
> Spyglass.

You need to stop listening to whoever tells you this crap. "We bought your 
code" isn't "we stole your code."  Similarly, "we paid everyone in your 
company huge amounts of money to come work for us" isn't "we drove you out 
of business."

> 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).

Why do you think it was in violation of the terms of the contract?

> A similar story happened at the beginning of the Microsoft story, but 
> since I don't recall the precise facts right now I'll leave that one.

Heh heh.

> Sure, nobody forces web developers to use IE-specific extensions.

No. The real main problem is the number of people unwilling to continue to 
use the standards that were settled and widespread when IE6 was around. IE6 
breaks some stuff, but it works fine if you're not trying to do 
sophisticated layout crap the web was never designed for. If your site works 
in Navigator 4, it'll work in IE6.

>>> 3. Forcing PC manufacturers to not to distribute anyone else's OS.
>>
>> They didn't force anybody.  They signed agreements with manufacturers, 
>> and the manufacturers agreed to those contracts.
> 
> The way I heard it, it was more like "you will agree to these terms or 
> you can't have our product".

Who do you listen to?

> 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". 

I'm sorry??  What era of history are you living in? Have you heard of AIG? 
Perhaps GM?

> Microsoft made their money from Windows. They can afford to give 
> products away with it for free. People who's entire business is selling 
> those other products can't do this. It's using sales from one product to 
> pay for another product; last time I checked, that's not legal.

Only if you properly distinguish "products". Some companies sell car 
stereos. When cars started coming with nice stereos, those companies went 
out of business.

Who is to say a web browser isn't part of the OS but a graphical file 
browser is? Who would have guessed that a program to play MP3s would be 
illegal to include with an operating system?

> 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.

Sure. And when Microsoft starts giving away groceries and paying for it with 
the OS, then you can make that argument. But first you have to tell me the 
objective criteria by which a media player or a web browser aren't part of 
the OS, but a text editor or file browser is.

> Well, that's fair enough. But when a business announces something they 
> have no intention of making just for the financial effect it will have 
> on a potential competetor... that's not really fair.

Cite? Or is this another "story you heard"?

> I'm sure this one has been argued to death. While *technically* this is 
> true, the reality is that M$ has carefully engineered a situation where 
> little viable alternative actually exists. 

Operating systems are a natural monopoly.

>> Why don't you use Linux instead?
> 
> Sure. Except that the vast majority of the software I want to use won't 
> work with Linux.

That's because operating systems are a natural monopoly.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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