Bowing to M$ (was Re: [ale] comcast static IP?)

[Preston Boyington]

James Baldwin wrote:
> On 26 Jan 2005, at 12:20, Preston Boyington wrote:
> 
>> Umm, that's Windows Media format as in Microsoft, the Evil Empire. As 
>> in licensed. As in negotiating a deal with them. As in bowing to 
>> Microsoft's superior position and reinforcing it.
> 
> 
> Some of us want more usability out of an operating environment than open 
> source can currently provide.
> 
> Interoperability is key, and not interacting with Microsoft formats is a 
> large detriment to usability. Much of this need derives from Microsoft's 
> position in the market place and its ability to, rightly or wrongly, 
> leverage its market share to achieve greater market penetration. 
> Regardless of the one's approval of Microsoft's market position, many 
> users require interoperability between applications be it Microsoft's 
> Windows Media or document formats or something more obscure unrelated to 
> Microsoft.
> 
> You may disagree with the ethical merits of how Microsoft achieved its 
> position but to characterize interoperability between operating 
> environments with "bowing to Microsoft's superior position and 
> reinforcing it." is unfair and counterproductive to what many in the 
> free software movement are working toward. It is naive to think that 
> World Domination (tm) can be achieved without interoperability at some 
> level.
> 
actually, the "bowing to Microsoft's superior position and reinforcing 
it" was part of the quote from the article I referenced.  the link is 
above the quote in my previous e-mail.

I insist on interoperability, which is why I push for companies to use 
open standards.  How company's achieve the open standard is what should 
be a deciding factor in using that company's software.

If Microsoft has a more intuitive way of creating a text document with 
formatting then that's wonderful, but they shouldn't have the right to 
trap a user in using their operating system/office suite because of a 
text document with formatting.

Interoperability is one thing, but it shouldn't be at the cost of 
submitting to an inferior format.

Preston