RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd)

["James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>]

> > No monopoly has ever happened except by regulation

At 08:34 AM 10/4/98 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
> Microsoft got to where it is because of a lack of
> regulation, 

Microsoft is not a monopoly.  In servers, where much of their
income comes from, Linux is eating their lunch, and the
desktop is under continual threat.  For a monopoly to be a
monopoly, you not only have to have most of the market, you
have to have some means of excluding others, which Microsoft
manifestly does not.

> the abuses of the aircraft industry  in the 1940-50's that
> led to regulation at the end of the 50's and 60's. The
> steel industry in the north east in the early 1900's. The
> food packing and garment industries of the north east and
> pacific coast in the 20's through the 50's. The railroad
> industry in the mid-1800's.

You are totally deluded.  None of these are examples of
monopoly, except for the railroad industry where government
intervention was for the purpose of creating monopoly, not
preventing it.

The garment and food packing industries were and are a huge
network of innumerable tiny shops, and the aircraft industry
had several big companies in fierce competition. 

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         James A. Donald
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