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Story: Microsoft Breakup Imminent? GNU/Linux WinsTotal Replies: 10
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jimf

Mar 26, 2006
2:08 PM EDT
I really like the tone of this piece Tom. Certainly you describe one entirely possible scenario. One that is both enlightening and frighting at the same time. Whether it is the 'likely' one is perhaps another matter. I would certainly be looking to soon divest myself of any MS stocks, but....

You said:
Quoting:Ask yourself how long a monopoly can continue to disrupt the market, export jobs and fail to deliver? The exporting of jobs bothers me the most. Conservators and Liberals have to take this on as a bi-partisan effort.


Whoever started the 'outsourcing' concept, should, quite literally, be strung up for high treason. I feel the frustration, but, we've seen how long people will put up with even more frustrating situations, and, that is obviously a 'very' long time. 'Logic' has always said that this can't go on much longer, but history says it can. As you've said yourself visions of the future are very tenuous indeed, and, justice is rare.

I do think that if MS can't produce something viable in another 8 months, what you envision is indeed likely. Where Linux goes from there is anyone's guess. I'm not sure it is all for the good, but, it can't get any worse... can it? ;-)
tadelste

Mar 26, 2006
3:12 PM EDT
It can get worse if we let it. We get outraged and all that. But other people don't understand it. They call us a vocal minority, etc.

Contrary to people who think otherwise, we have to take our outrage into the market and rub it off on others. I wanted to yell in CompUSA " you people are getting hosed".

I called SBC because I had trouble with my email. I wound up in India with a girl named Rachel who passed me on to Jerry Johnson in level two support. Rachel? Jerry? How about Ranjana and Kahlil?

Now, I happen to speak Hindi and I got them going a bit.

Here's what I can't understand: we had call centers set up all over the Texas in little towns where we gave people who had no hope, jobs. They earned $2 more than they're paying the Indians in New Delhi. WTF?

jimf

Mar 26, 2006
3:39 PM EDT
We've all bad had experiences like that. Sometime I'll tell you of my experience with Lexmark ;-). The problem with outsourcing is by no means limited to Linux. or indeed the common man in countries like GB, or Germany. The big corporations are striping all the jobs out of the home country and sending them (usually) to the far east to save a few pennies. citizens are now treated as second class both as employees and as customers... Raped coming and going. Even worse, Government usually promotes and supports it. Sold out... that doesn't even begin to cover it.

People have been aware of what's happening for a long time and have done nothing. Bushites have, in fact, encouraged Corporations to sell us down the tubes. The whole situation needed to be resolved years ago, and, my real fear is that it is far too late to recover from this. We are already, truly, screwed no matter what we do now.
grouch

Mar 26, 2006
4:19 PM EDT
Excerpts from a Stallman interview on Kerneltrap.org:

"You know, it's no coincidence that we're having all this outsourcing. That was carefully planned. International treaties were designed to make this happen so that people's wages would be reduced."

'FTAA. The World Trade Organization. NAFTA. These treaties are designed to reduce wages by making it easy for a company to say to various countries, "which of you will let us pay people the least? That's were we're headed."'

"Businesses very often do it, they move operations out of a country to punish that country."

'Corporations are too powerful now. We have to knock them down. I don't believe in abolishing business or even in abolishing corporations, but we've got to make sure that no corporation is powerful enough that it can say to all the countries in the world, "I'll punish any country that doesn't obey."'

BTW, I think of that interview as "Understanding RMS 101". http://kerneltrap.org/node/4484/18389
tadelste

Mar 26, 2006
4:24 PM EDT
He's mostly right. But, it's not to punish a country. It's for M-O-N-E-Y!!!!!
Skapare

Mar 26, 2006
9:26 PM EDT
grouch:

I don't diagree that international treaties have that effect, and were even intended to, and implemented with the desire to. OTOH, for a lot of those countries, the pay level that turns out to be the least is also better than lots of people there have ever had.

FYI, a couple friends are now complaining about the cost of living skyrocketing in Bangalore. Rent on apartments has doubled in the past 3-4 years. Where will US companies go next? Nigeria?
jimf

Mar 26, 2006
9:55 PM EDT
The point, for whatever reason, is to level the playing field. Eventually, they want everyone to work for cheap.
tadelste

Mar 27, 2006
4:44 AM EDT
Did you mean enslave people?
jimf

Mar 27, 2006
7:35 AM EDT
You mean there are people in this world who would try to do something as vile as that? ...
Herschel_Cohen

Mar 27, 2006
7:46 AM EDT
jimf - Your joking aren't you? I guess you are not aware of Con(man)do Rice's big accomplishment in Nigeria? Well go to the BBC and you will see it leaves an unstable situation when those under the boot see they have little or nothing to lose.

Have you noticed why their is a premium built into the price of crude oil, part of is attributable to the perceived unreliability of the continued, unhindered flow of Nigerian crude. And others ...
jimf

Mar 27, 2006
7:59 AM EDT
Cynical is more like it ;-)

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