CD>  I can see that you're an unbiased observer!!  The flaw with the above
 CD>  logic is that Microsoft still operates in an open market.  Nobody
 CD>  is forced to buy Microsoft software.
No one forces me to breathe. I could decide to stop breathing and doing
so. The fact is, there are several levels of freedom. Lots of people
always take the superficially-easiest way because they are greedily
attracted by laziness. Lots of people don't know shit about the whole
thing so they let other people do it for them or they simply imitate
others. When it becomes difficult to find prebuilt computers that
doesn't contain w95, your level of freedom is a bit lowered. (Though
the real big crap is when _no-one_ sell computers without w95.)
 CD>  And I realize this sounds
 CD>  amazing, but there are millions of consumers who feel that they
 CD>  get the most bang for their buck from MS sw.
 CD>  Of course you can just chalk it up to "marketing" or something else.
easiness of use combined with lots of publicity, an already big
support, and stealing IBM's own market. No-one thinks MS is bad because
they haven't seen any better. See:
* OS/2: easy to use, consistent, unix-friendly, runs on PC (& maybe
others).
* QNX: easy to use, consistent, efficient, modular, real-time,
unix-friendly, runs on PC (& maybe others)
* Linux: rather efficient, crash-proof, unix-clone, dos-friendly,
fastly increasing popularity, runs on PC, Alpha, Amiga, PowerPC, Mac,
SGI, SPARCstation. for experienced users. Several free flavours, others
are low-cost. Some are easier to use than others.
* BeOS: easy to use, consistent, modular, real-time, unix-friendly,
mac-friendly, runs on PowerMac.
* FreeBSD: one of the most stable and efficient operating systems ever,
for experienced users. unix-bsd-clone. runs on PC, and maybe some more
(?). Free.
matju
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