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Originally Posted by Jerrek
You can still download it for free. They only charge for support services.
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and the work that they've put into it, and any non-free packages that are included in the distribution. A good example here is Mac OSX. It has a BSD based kernel, which is distributed under the free BSD licence. However, the overlaying software like the shell (GUI) is not free and this is what you are paying for.
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Originally Posted by Jerrek
Like what? Good luck. The unwashed masses will have to switch to Macs or Linux, both with limited software. "What do you mean I can't run World of Warcraft on my Mac?"
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Limited software? Have a look on freshmeat etc. True, a lot of the software doesn't have the maturity of the Windows equivalents, particularly in the games area, but those companies that produce software for the Windows systems would in all probability switch to producing software for Macs/Linux/BSD. It would be that or take a huge drop in revenue.
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Originally Posted by Jerrek
Lets get real. It would be a disaster. It would hurt both Microsoft and the people.
True, but how long is that going to take? 3 years? 5 years?
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I'm not suggesting that it will happen, the chances of it are infinitesimally small, I'm just giving my opinion on the 'what if' scenario. I don't necessarily think that it will hurt people, it would just be a pain in the *ss. People would carry on using their current products (Windows) until when in the normal course of things they would upgrade they instead switch to a new system. 3-5 years is a fairly good estimate (it's about the estimates that give for Linux on the desktop now). Having the need to improve things will also help things along a bit I feel. By that time, projects like Wine would have moved along so issues of backwards compatibility with existing products won't be so much of an issue.
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Originally Posted by Jerrek
This has nothing to do with free trade. Trade and the market are completely separate concepts. You're advocating a controlled market, which has proved time and time again that it does not work. If it did, the USSR would still exist. If you want to turn to controlled markets and controlled economies (communism), fine. I don't. I'm a FREE market entrepeneur.
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I apologise for my lack of knowledge of economic terminology. We, in Europe, have a controlled market which has proved that it does work. That is the level of control that I advocate, so I don't see why it always has to come back to total control (communism).