RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Money + MU = bad

[Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

I wonder if at the time of the last big corporate takeover if there was so
much opposition. This time the general public is at odds with many of
those companies responsible. Also there is a lot of support for
decentralizing and community supported alternatives. Everything from
farmers markets to open hardware/software, open wireless networks,
community power sharing with solar/wind nodes, etc. I'd be curious as to
if before the great depression similar things existed or if they are
something fairly new.

> Also, I think it may be time to reevaluate the package they are using,
> but that's not in line with some people's political agenda. I think
> there are some less expensive solutions that might be more scalable, but
> since they are not Microsoft, they won't look at them. Now, when I say
> this, I am not talking about a CC:mail to Exchange type migration. I am
> talking about these interesting products that are supposed to be drop in
> replacements for Exchange. Those are some interesting products. I always
> find it interesting when a second company bests Microsoft or Intel at
> their own game, and within the law. I enjoyed using Dr Dos, AMD has made
> some fine processors, and there are several other examples that
> Microsoft has squashed. This was the whole point of the anti-trust
> lawsuit. Microsoft, under the banner of a free market, is using it's
> large size to kill companies that have made innovations on products that
> they sit on.  So, here's a topic for discussion. When do you punish
> large companies for being to big? And when do you make sure they receive
> protection from having their IP stolen? The crude fact of the market is
> that a good balance is hard to maintain, and now we have swung to the
> side of large protected corporations. This is what I think they tried to
> fix back in the early 1900's with anti-trust laws. And then, when they
> didn't do enough, we ended up in the great depression. Well, the food
> market is controlled by one or two mega-corporations. The airline
> industry is collapsing into one or two big shops. The aerospace industry
> is one big company and a few small specialty ones. The phone companies
> are reconverting, and then we have Microsoft, who is trying to own the
> computer industry. And all the recording and entertainment companies are
> forming "Unions", through the RIAA and the MPAA. Isn't there laws
> against price fixing and stuff like that? What do you think the main
> purpose of the RIAA and MPAA are? Protecting their property? That's part
> of it, but where do you draw the line between that and price fixing?
> When they have complete control over a product, they can produce market
> pressures that will fix the price. They don't have to come out and make
> any formal agreements or verbally say let's fix at this price... Okay,
> how'd I get to this point! Ah! Thread creep! :-)
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