"Martin P. Hellwig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Not Bill Gates wrote:
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote...
>>> On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:35:47 +0000, Not Bill Gates wrote:
>>>
>>>> Heck, I dunno. Like you, I don't even really care all that much.
>>> You don't care that innovation in desktop software has been crippled by
>>> the actions of the monopoly player Microsoft?
>> You need to first prove innovation in desktop software has been crippled,
>> don't you?
> How about their "java" implementation between 1998 and 2004?
> Sure killed the _easier_ write once run everywhere mantra, of course they
> where not alone in the killing, SUN helped a great deal.
It's easy to point to things you think are mistakes and claim that if
you had been in charge of the world, those mistakes would not have been
made. If you are trying to balance completely different possible paths the
universe might have taken, you need to make sure to include everything on
both sides, and that's really really hard to do.
Perhaps the desktop software is good enough that how much better it
would have been wouldn't make much difference. And perhaps the lack of
competition steered the innovators into other fields where their innovations
made huge differences. Perhaps not -- perhaps the desktop software we would
have had in a more competitive market would have made other people's lives
majorly better. Who knows?
I don't think it's possible or sensible to try to have a reckoning of
this type. There are so many variables and unpredictable possibilities.
DS
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