Selling Linux to Windows Users

[Bart Silverstrim]

Dotan Cohen wrote:
> 2008/12/11 Bart Silverstrim <bsilver at chrononomicon.com>:

>> That's not really a monopoly since it's kind of like saying saying Ford
>> has a monopoly because I like the Ford logo on the steering wheel or
>> Coke has a monopoly because of their cool bottle shape on cool bottle
>> shaped soft drinks.
>>
> 
> Ford does not have any particular feature that no other car
> manufacturer cannot implement (I know, I own a Focus!). Bart doesn't
> like HP, he likes RPN calculators. (That probably means that he likes
> torturing himself with technology, I bet he's a Linux user!)

Bart doesn't use RPN the previous poster did :-)

But what's stopping any other manufacturer from using RPN calculators 
other than thinking it's not worth the market share?

Anyway, it's a feature that they offer that isn't specific to them, 
others can do it. Just because they don't doesn't mean it's a monopoly 
that one does, just as Ford making the Focus doesn't mean they have a 
monopoly on cars, they are just the only ones with a particular kind 
called the Focus.

>> Monopolies are not a bad thing, per say, but you can't do things to as a
>> monopoly using your monopoly position to squash a new guy with an idea.
>> I.e., not too many companies are doing space exploration...NASA almost
>> corners that market.
> 
> NASA may be the leader in interplanetary exploration, but for getting
> objects to LEO and other Earth orbits there is a whole industry
> brewing and thriving. Space exploration is not a market, satellite
> insertion is.

Okay. I was trying to pull an example off the top of my head. To be 
fair, you did say it's a brewing market...if NASA were a "bad" (illegal) 
monopoly, they'd use their position as a monopoly to threaten those 
companies into dropping their satellite insertion businesses or 
influencing the FAA into making laws just for them that hinder other 
businesses, y'know, like the music industry does. :-)

> Maybe we should just take this to /.?

Oh hell the Internet equivalent of "see you by the swingset after 
school?"...