M$ is a monopoly
Microw$oft from its starting with founder Bill gates wants proprietary crap to be enforce.they always liked to kill their competitors buy "
embrace ,extend and extinguish" method.
They always copied from others(remembe M$ dos is bought by miss bill gates,windows copied shamelessly TCp/IP and network stacks from *nix ,UI from Mac OS).when Netscape was the browser during mid 1990's ,they launched a bundled browser which is integrated to the shell called Internet exploder.
Poor netscape cannot compete with the monopoly.then ,microsoft expanded its monopoly by giving users a dead horse called IE for so many years ,until Firefox came from the ashes of phoenix browser.
now M$ is famous for anti-competent practices.they are found guilty by US courts many a times.
nited States v. Microsoft, 87 F. Supp. 2d 30 (D.D.C. 2000) was a set of consolidated civil actions filed against Microsoft Corporation on May 18, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and twenty U.S. states. Joel I. Klein was the lead prosecutor. The plaintiffs alleged that Microsoft abused monopoly power in its handling of operating system sales and web browser sales. The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Microsoft Windows operating system. Bundling them together is alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft's victory in the browser wars as every Windows user had a copy of Internet Explorer. It was further alleged that this unfairly restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator or Opera) that were slow to download over a modem or had to be purchased at a store. Underlying these disputes were questions over whether Microsoft altered or manipulated its application programming interfaces (APIs) to favor Internet Explorer over third party web browsers, Microsoft's conduct in forming restrictive licensing agreements with OEM computer manufacturers, and Microsoft's intent in its course of conduct.
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United States Microsoft antitrust case
then ,Linux became a player visible to the moronic M$ during 2000's. lately they want to prevent Linux from capturing their monopoly winblow$ market.
M$ used Fear,Uncertainity and Doubt"(FUD) method with GNU/Linux and FOSS.
they used a drowning company called SCO unix by funding them indirectly to sue that Linux kernel uses codes from their pool.
when that failed,M$ recently came directy with a FUD called Linux infringes 235+ software patents. software patents are virtual things which practically doesnot exists. EULA and other stringant copyright laws provided more than enough things to keep M$ so called "innovation"
then lately M$ wants to join the lucrative music/video(hollywood esp) industry by enforcing Digital Restrictive Management (DRM) on their softwares especially Vista which turned out to be a flop on window$ series.
Now,Microsoft got another strategy.they want to make young kids start their computer education first from windows ,hence to make them lock to this single windows platform.they are distributing funds of millions of dollars for this matter.
Microsoft is a monopoly with their internet exploder incorporated with their windows operating system which too is a monopoly and due to which every new kid or pro user sticks with this OS.
Governments can save big revenues by NOT using windows which is essentially a blot and spyware galore.recently windows VI$ta got 60+ spyprobes secured by NSA of USA gov/mil found by softpedia.
anybody with some self respect ,should try their best to leave this windows OS's and should stick with Free/Alternative OS to prevent the monopoly.
FOSS is Free/Libre Open Source Software - It is a boon in current world where those who got money and power and monopoly rules everyone suppressing others(and options).
What is free software and why is it so important for society?
Free software is software that gives you the user the freedom to share, study and modify it. We call this free software because the user is free.
To use free software is to make a political and ethical choice asserting the right to learn, and share what we learn with others. Free software has become the foundation of a learning society where we share our knowledge in a way that others can build upon and enjoy.
Currently, many people use proprietary software that denies users these freedoms and benefits. If we make a copy and give it to a friend, if we try to figure out how the program works, if we put a copy on more than one of our own computers in our own home, we could be caught and fined or put in jail. That’s what’s in the fine print of the license agreement you accept when using proprietary software.
The corporations behind proprietary software will often spy on your activities and restrict you from sharing with others. And because our computers control much of our personal information and daily activities, proprietary software represents an unacceptable danger to a free society.
*www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software
Richard M Stallman Founded GNU(*gnu.org) which helped Linus and others to build a operating system around Linux kernel called GNU/Linux.
it offers freedom in both ways(as in free beer and free speech).
read more here:
*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft