On Mon, 2006-07-03 at 14:37 +0200, Marc SCHAEFER wrote:
On Fri, Jun 30, 2006 at 06:07:25PM +0200, Marc SCHAEFER wrote:
http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/refund/node24.html
namely the consumer demand powers the fact that Microsoft has a virtual monopoly.
oh, and BTW I didn't say I agreed with this position; but we have to expect that the `it's because the market wants it' argument be repeated over and over ... until people really start to *demand* free software.
But People really demands free software.. you can't expect that everybody suddenly do it at once!
Just as an example, a well known italian computer shops that let you choose your computer components than assemble, test and ship it has just started offering Ubuntu (the configurator checks explicitly for component compatibility against Ubuntu if you choose to do so).
This means that there is enough demand for the home PC, I can't believe there is not some demand for laptops too. It's only that it can't show up in numbers because you are not allowed to choose anything else but Windows, you can't even ask for the laptop without an OS.
Simo.