[Sussex] Linux market to exceed $35bn by 2008

[Geoffrey Teale]

On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 10:18 +0000, Stephen Williams wrote:
> -----%<-----

^^^^^^^^
Love this snip syntax!


> I shall studiously ignore this particular bit of ground bait Mr.
> Teale......

How disappointing.

> What the hell, no I won't.....

Better...

> I'm not one of those who believes the EU is the antithesis of
> incorruptible civilisation. There are some good things that the EU does
> or promotes, for example in harmonisation of european civil aviation and
> air traffic standards. Often it's down to the individual nations'
> handling of EU directives that causes inconsistencies, but even the
> Greeks are getting their act together in this field.

Absolutely.  The gutter press has a habit of going on about "barmy EU
regulations", almost always they pick up on something like the rules for
the "straightness of cucumbers".  What they choose to ignore is that
rules like that are in place for practical reasons - the cucumber rule
resolves legal arguments between producers and resellers about their
payment model and in doing so smoothed the road to a fairer market for
cucumber producers in the EU.  The reason the gutter press do this is
almost definitely because:

   1. They like to reinforce middle England's xenophobic ideas because
people respond better to being agreed with than preached to and thus
feel more inclined to read the blatant propaganda they print elsewhere
in their sordid little pages.

   2. They tend to be owned by rich businessmen who are anti any
regulation on business because it makes it harder for them to screw a
few more pounds out of smaller businesses and the general populous.


> However, there is no denying that the European Commission is a long way
> short of the standards of accountability and incorruptibility that we
> would all wish to see. The European Commission is not yet subordinate to
> the European Parliament in the way our own civil service is subordinate
> to the government, and it has a propensity to legislate prolifically
> without thought for the cost and effort of implementation.

Absolutely.  I would like to see the commission, and many other bodies
fall into a more rational, accountable system.

> Until the EC is fully accountable and subordinate to an elected body,
> and far less prone to corruption, it will not gain my support. However,
> specific campaigns on issue of interest may well attract my support. If
> EU action against software patents contributes to seeing off the
> predatory moves of monopolies against technologies that really should be
> kept "open", then I'm happy to support it.

A worthwhile and pragmatic view.

> By the way I had a look at the Macromedia Flash Player licence when
> Firefox told me I needed a Flash plug in. It's very intrusive - it gives
> Macromedia the right to "audit my machines" to ensure licence
> compliance. And this for a free download.... Sounds like Macromedia's
> lawyers are too far up their own nethers to see the practical realities
> of this.

There are GNU Flash libraries available under the GPL - Ubuntu has them.


-- 
Geoffrey Teale <gteale at cmedltd.com>
Cmed Technology