Very Worried at MS .net

[MJ Ray]

"John Peter Tapsell <John Tapsell" <tapselj0 at cs.man.ac.uk> writes:

> Reading the comments thrown up on /. about MS helping out on the
> linux .net, I have suddenly realised quite how damn powerful MS is
> going to become.  If they gain full control of a globally and
> totally accepted passport scheme, they will control all.

I'm more concerned about these developments in another way: why does
GNU feel the need to play catch-up to a Microsoft attempt to play
catch-up to the free tools we already have?  We should continue by
better integrating the free tools and polishing them, not by this
silly action.

Any welcome by MS of this move should surely indicate its
misdirection?

I have similar reservations about the original motives behind the two
large desktop environments, although some of the technologies that
they have created during their course have been very nice.  What has
been more valuable is a general awareness among X programmers of the
issues of user interfaces and the need for some basic consistency.
I'm glad we're not tied to some decreed suboptimal CUA policy, though.

> I am suddenly very afraid - if you don't see why, cruise at  3+ points on /.
> under that article, and read everything.

I would, but life's too short to pay much attention to splashsnort.
Skimming it, I don't see what you're getting at.

> I'm starting to think that if we stick to FS, we are going to lose big time.

Really?  I'm thinking the converse.  Although I detest this
.net-gazing, I see that other Free Software projects are likely to
achieve my aims even though there is immense waste in these other
projects.

> We don't have the time, MS are comming up to big and too fast.

They're an irrelevance, as ever.  Ignore them.

> I'm starting to see the OS in a different light.
> I'm going to stop this email here I think.

But you've not even made your point yet, let alone explained it.