Frenchy, you should be quite proud of yourself. You have rather efficiently converted Farinata into an advocate of free-markets. Now, if we can purge this nasty bigotry against large companies (and if the Leftists might be convinced to forgive this blasphemy) ...Once upon a time, Apples ruled the computer world. If you wanted a personal machine that was any good at the time, that's what you got. Then came DOS. I didn't like it; it was a new OS, after all, too structured for my tastes, filled with new commands to learn - in effect, it was to me then what LINUX is to me now, i.e. simply another complexity I did not feel compelled to add to my life. I had games for the Apple, in any case - why make the change?
The capitalist driven world thought otherwise. Soon, I truly needed to learn this arcane OS to play any of the new games that were being offered. So alse, finally, I learned how to work with WIN 95 (which I've always hated). And so on.
This little parable can be applied quite easily to other issues of compelling interest, such as socialism, or the greenhouse effect. To wit, if these are truly good 'economic products', as it is so often repeated with such vehemence, then soon enough they will win out. So far, LINUX has a small (but growing) following, socialism has been seen to have only limited functionality ("few people would tolerate a toaster or a car that was as buggy as socialism..."), and the greenhouse scam seems to have peaked.
Of course, I could be wrong. The free market (of ideas, in this case) will produce the final verdict. I can wait.
D.C.
P.S. WIN 95 is successful, not only because of unfair business practices, but because it is fairly simple to use (and LINUX, based on UNIX, very likely isn't). However, a few of the computer jocks I know are experimenting with it. "Red Hat" seems also to be a buzzword passed around these days. Like I've done in the past, I'll watch and wait. Worry not, Farinata - I will get my money's worth, whichever way it goes.
