“The U.S. Government’s assertion that Microsoft has a monopoly in the OS market might be the most patently absurd claim ever advanced by the legal mind. Linux, a technically superior operating system, is being given away for free, and BeOS is available at a nominal price. This is simply a fact, which has to be accepted whether or not you like Microsoft…. this is not the sort of power that fits any normal definition of the word “monopoly,” and it’s not amenable to a legal fix. The courts may order Microsoft to do things differently. They might even split the company up. But they can’t really do anything about a mindshare monopoly, short of taking every man, woman, and child in the developed world and subjecting them to a lengthy brainwashing procedure.”
Mr. Stephenson, a devotee of Debian Linux, is not a fan of Microsoft. I am in the midst of what can only be described as a purge, methodically eliminating Microsoft applications and operating systems from every machine in the house. But, as I have said before, Microsoft is not a monopoly.
I realize the federal government has pronounced otherwise. They have also taken the position that ketchup is a vegetable and that the United States is still facing a national emergency due to “the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security” posed by the Burmese government.