From: "Geo." 

"Joe Barr"  wrote in message
news:3e6432b1$1{at}w3.nls.net...

> You are never going to get it, George.  IBM is a company hoping to make a
> profit.  Linux is not a company, it is a revolution. It is not vulnerable
> to the business tactics MS has employed against the entire world all of
> its life.

Linux is vulnerable, but the question is not one of vulnerability of linux
but more of vulnerability of MS. They could easily compete on Linux's terms
by playing the same game they did with IE, but can they stand the loss of
the funds their OS money pump generates (a loss that they are going to have
to deal with one way or the other).

> If Linux's life depended on getting preloaded, like OS/2's did, it would
> have been vulnerable in exactly the same way.  The Linux phenomenum
> wasn't planned, it just happened.

Linux's life doesn't depend on getting preloaded, it's free, you can
download it and burn CD's for your friends, the distribution channels are
wide open. Where Linux is vulnerable though is in it's reputation as being
bulletproof and secure. An outfit like Eeye could easily wipe out the
secure reputation and the bulletproof stuff will suffer as the features
required for the masses are added to it. Before you say it can't happen,
picture all those nice hackers who love linux, getting annoyed as the
masses start to demand dumb features, sooner or later a couple of them are
going to turn on the community because they'll feel ignored.

Geo.

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