Tout a fais, mervielleux!! Le site---c'est a vous, je pense.....

hehe, communism
without getting too political, the problem with communism isn't the philosophy behind communism, it's when you try and implement communism on a macro scale, like an entire nation that it becomes a problem because of the diversity of man nature, we have achievers, and the achievers understandably are upset when they are forced by the dominant types to carry the extra burden for the lazy types without any extra benefit, thus they eventually give up and progress comes to a halt, but then again in a purely capitalistic society, you have the greedy types who prevent the other achiever types from being successful, and thus progress also eventually grinds to a halt.
i suppose open source software can be looked at as a mini communism, but one that is by and large wilfully entered into by all involved.

back on topic, I think that yes, microsoft will eventually die, but then again, eventually even Linux will more than likely be supplanted by something else eventually.

I guess it depends on what time scale you have in mind. Unix came long before Microsoft, and has survived a variety of other abominations (Anyone remember VMS?) To the extent that Linux carries forward the Unix legacy, I would not expect it to go away anytime soon.

Keep in mind that MS-DOS was patterned after Unix (even if they did get the slashes backwards.... )

And of course, the alpha programming language (C) is inseparable from the Unix heritage.

Google embraced Linux and figured out how to profit from it. Can you imagine any other large company that might try to do likewise?

granted, but dos was supplanted by windows, and proprietary UNIXes are to an extent being supplanted by Linux (with the exceptions of open source UNIXes such as BSD), and yes I'm talking about a time scale that far exceeds a single human lifespan.

and yes, we do still have DOS users running around, and we still have an actively developed DOS (freedos), so even after it ceases to be mainstream it will still exist.

the threat however is that the pendulum seems to be swinging in the direction of open platforms as opposed to closed, proprietary

Linux is far from being related to communism. It's actually a pure capitalist venture by nature. While you can give it away, you can also charge people for various distribution types. It depends on what they want to buy. Free contributions to a developing structure do not equal communism.

No one is forcing anyone to contribute to Linux, and nobody is forcing Linux upon you. Linux free to contribute to as you wish, and distributed out as the packager sees fit. If you want the free version you can have the free version. If you want to retail version, you can get the retail version at a preset fee.

My whole family comes from a country in eastern Europe where communism has been the ideal to strive for, but which ultimately failed in its quest, so I guess I'm acquainted with what it's supposed to mean. And I'd go so far as to say that Linux can be - but must not be - the only actually working form of communism. Instead of embarking on a tedious philosophical rant, let me give you an example for this.

Around 2001, when I discovered Linux, I went to join the now defunct basiclinux.net, a network of folks on mailing lists who provided free courses about Linux. You had to RTFM a lot, and then folks on the list took pains to answer your questions. Plus, a friend of mine had already been a serious Linux hacker, since his sister worked at the free software Lab at France Telecom. He also took much time explaining me the innards of Linux (Debian Potato at the time) on a battered 486 PC. Once I found myself reasonably comfortable with the thing, I started answering the odd newbie questions on the mailing list and on various other forums. Plus, I also started installing Linux on some friend's PCs, and this taught me a lot (like "hey I just bought a multifunction HP printer can you please come by and configure the thing?"). For years this has not earnt me one single cent, though it was a lot (!) of work.

Nowadays I'm running a business based solely on Linux and mostly on FOSS, and I'm actually making a - modest - living from it (http://www.microlinux.fr). I install Linux networks for professional users, I'm an officially recognized Linux training organization, and I publish books about Linux, which I also get paid for. But all this doesn't prevent me from a) continuing helping out my friends for free and b) continuing answering questions on forums whenever I can... because in the end, this also teaches me a lot.

So, capitalism or communism? I'd say simply the best of both worlds. Which is kind of wonderful.

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