my2cents: One can't really regulate a poll that isn't sanctioned by any official regulatory body. If the offending parties went out and bought a crapload of stock and made a ton of money because somehow ZDnet boosted the stock price of microsoft because of the sudden dominance of .NET as a result of this ZDnet poll, then you could fine them and they'd maybe visit a cushy minimum security setup for a few months. Or probably not. I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. Anyway, it was only a ZDnet UK poll. I had a conversation with a microsft net admin who pointed out that the language seemed to convey more about ZDnet's feelings after having it's poll screwed with than being any kind of accurate portrayal of market share. I agree with him. And would the poll have been considered anything more than a vauge commentary (certainly not solid market data) even if microsoft hadn't gone ahead and embarassed themselves so totally? While i respect people's reactions to microsoft's deplorable behavior...after some reflection, i encourage you to ask yourself this: did any of us (open source minded) individuals expect anything other than this kind of childish, uncreative, script kiddy crap from microsoft? I certainly didn't. Does anyone doubt the future dominance of open source? A good friend of mine who shall remain nameless but worked for microsoft back in the day....he took a .NET class and wound up with a fairly thrashed 2k notebook that hasn't been the same since. Interestingly enough, he simultaneously developed a definite taste for Linux. I, for one, have to work on 2k right now because i'm not confident enough of my *nix abilities to use it professionally, but I'm working on getting more proficient. To me, the good news is, that no matter what your operating system, you can always choose to work with and try to help further the development of open source technologies. Cheers, jd -----Original Message----- From: tclug-list-admin at mn-linux.org [mailto:tclug-list-admin at mn-linux.org]On Behalf Of Kevin Bullock Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 11:14 AM To: tclug-list at mn-linux.org Subject: Re: [TCLUG] Microsoft attacks embedded Linux Two responses follow. HOEFFNER at dcmir.med.umn.edu wrote: > OK, if you're in one of those moods, I found this somewhat > distasteful, if not all that surprising. > > http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2102244,00.html Distasteful, unethical, should be illegal if it isn't already, ... there just aren't enough words for it. I want to take a baseball bat to their vote-rigging script servers. And all their other machines, for that matter. Paul Overby wrote: > SORRY!. The first link sets the context for the second story which is > clearly hype not really based on any apparent facts or research. > My Text was indedd poorly worded. I apologize for the tone of my response, it probably sounded much less friendly than it was intended. Thanks for posting the links. Though for some reason I still can't reach linuxppc.org... -- Pacem in terris / Mir / Shanti / Salaam / Heiwa Kevin R. Bullock _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Linux Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list