[beavus]

_1984_ was about a tyranical institution stomping on people who question the status quo...

You slay me! The "institution" of Big Brother. Or how about, the "institution" of Josef Stalin. Or the "institution" of Mao, confessed murderer of 20 million Chinese. Big Brother, like Microsoft, would strap rat cages to people's faces.

Hillarious. Should be a movie... "You were stunned at Hilter. Stalin gave you nightmares. Mao left you petrified. Now there emerges a monster, a bloodthirsty totalitarian who will rip your soul to shreds. Meet.....B i l l G a t e s.........ahhhhhhhhhh."

I like your satire. You know how to illustrate the idiocy of those lefties who don't know the difference between the power of persuasion and the power of driving over someone with a tank.

[chilepepper]

i'm sure DELL and Gateway would have a lot to say about Microsoft's power of persuasion as you so artfully put it (guffaw guffaw). DELL stopped supporting Linux once already on desktops under pressure from the evil software empire

M$ is starting to play rough with their competition now, which is both Open Source and... government agencies (at the levels of nations, states, and munincipalities)

so at what point does a government cut a deal with Microsoft to 1) either allow official snooping 2) allow official filtering 3) allow official control over the machine?

item two is already happening in Red China, thank you Microsoft, Cisco and SUN.