Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/09/28

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Kodak Focus now management hubris
From: Afterswift@aol.com
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 02:08:30 EDT

In a message dated 9/28/03 6:38:42 PM, mlquinn.mail@earthlink.net writes:

<< They (and others) have worked diligently to prevent standards from being
adopted. IF standards are adopted, Microsoft prefers to ignore them and come
up with it's own (non-standard and undocumented) way to implement the
"standard". This guarantees that it will be difficult to read or modify
documents using other than Microsoft software. >>
- -------------------------------------------------------------

The only way a standard outside the marketplace could be established would be 
for the government to do it.
During this infant industry's development we're fortunate Washington didn't 
get permanently involved.  In war government developed the computer. During the 
cold war government paid for the Internet as a research tool. When the wars 
were over, the government stepped out. 

The marketplace and entrepreneurs took over. And we got progress in terms of 
geometric leaps in power because no authority existed to contain that 
intellectual explosion in technology and software language versatility. At a certain 
point standardization had to come about in a shakeout among competitors. IBM 
dropped the potential of standardization into Gates's lap by not realizing the 
value of the microprocessor and consumer computing. Gates made the most of that 
IBM misstep. He held onto the ownership of his OS. He staked everything on 
software. IBM became not only just another customer but a worldwide disseminator 
of Gates's OS. It was a brilliant idea. Everything since has flowed from that 
exploitation of someone elses mistake. Gates protected his advantage with 
massive mobilization of an army of skilled programmers and advanced his supremacy 
legally or extralegally. When he dropped the ball (GUI), (Net), he recovered 
it swiftly.

The end justified the means. To us the Gates legacy is standardization, 
whether we like his brand of it or not. One this is sure: We needed it.

br      
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