The three main goals of libertarianism

[asterism]

Who said I support Obama? He was a better choice than Romney (an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen) but that doesn't mean I support him.

Who did you vote for in the 2008 and 2012 general elections?

I live in what used to be the reddest of the red states. Since most republicans make my skin crawl and I know that they'll win by an overwhelming majority here, I have the luxury of voting for the Green party candidate as a protest against the corporate ruled democrat/republican duopoly.

Green party?

And you think the Libertarians are kooks?

 

[asterism]

If you know so much about technology, why can't you figure out the quote function?

>> Virtually nobody paid for browsers. Netscape GAVE THEIRS AWAY TOO! Netscape didn't have a product to sell.

Only given away to consumers, corporations had to buy licenses. You are wrong.

I'm aware of Netscape's fantasy world thinking that they could give their product away for free and then ask corporations to buy it but that's not a sound business model and that's why they failed.

>> Norton is alive and well it was purchased by Symantec.
ROFL bought up is not alive and well. Norton went from being the number one PC Utilities company to being broke and having to be bought up by Symantec to save it from filing bankruptcy after Microsoft ran it out of business by extending their monopoly into the PC Utilities market.

Which tool did Microsoft give away for free that drove Norton down the tubes?

>>> Microsoft saved apple...
ROFL that's a joke. Apple saved apple by creating great consumer products. I don't care how many people carried the stupid opinion piece that you you are linking to that says Msft. saved apple. It is a load of poo. Apple was broke and had no choice but to settle the lawsuit. Microsoft paying them 150m to settle their disputes is not Microsoft saving apple. Why do you think the links have the question mark on the end of the statement Microsoft saved apple????? It's a load of BS. It's just some stupid spin someone was given to explain the temporary agreement for supporting office on mac and the check being written to settle the dispute.

You are really out there on the fringe if you think Microsoft didn't save Apple. Even Steve Jobs admitted it:

I called up Bill and said, “I’m going to turn this thing around.” Bill always had a soft spot for Apple. We got him into the application software business. The first Microsoft apps were Excel and Word for the Mac. So I called him and said, “I need help.” Microsoft was walking over Apple’s patents. I said, “If we kept up our lawsuits, a few years from now we could win a billion-dollar patent suit. You know it, and I know it. But Apple’s not going to survive that long if we’re at war. I know that. So let’s figure out how to settle this right away. All I need is a commitment that Microsoft will keep developing for the Mac and an investment by Microsoft in Apple so it has a stake in our success.

Steve Jobs Used Patents to Get Bill Gates to Make 1997 Investment In Apple - Forbes

 

[RKMBrown]

Microsoft's monopoly is the PC Operating system that ships with every personal computer sold. Netscape was only free to consumers, corporations had to buy a license. Then Microsoft bought/wrote their browser and gave it away with their monopoly operating system to drive Netscape out of the market. Further, when they did it they created lock in changes for their browser that would make it so web pages written to IE would only work on Windows and only on IE on Windows. They did this to extend their OS monopoly to the internet clients.

My career started in the late 80s in IT and they are a fun company. A couple fun experiences I had with them.

1) They told Compaq they would not license them MS Windows if they shipped Netscape installed on their computers, so Compaq didn't install Netscape.

2) A company called Desqview was cleaning their clocks with memory management. Microsoft had a product called Smart Drive or something like that. Desqview had QEMM, a far superior product. Microsoft hard coded that if you installed QEMM your computer didn't work right. If you changed the QEMM memory manager to say MICKEY.SYS, it ran fine!

Their applications programmers were also idiots. They were coding Windows 3 applications without understanding event driven environments.

Yeah the mentality at Msft has always been predatory. Folks appear to have forgiven Bill's monopolistic capitalist fervor now that he has donated some of his money to the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation and is acting like a progressive.

 

[RKMBrown]

Netscape died because there isn't a viable business model in giving away browsers. It's a means to provide a platform for other products and services. Microsoft never had a monopoly either.

Microsoft's monopoly is the PC Operating system that ships with every personal computer sold. Netscape was only free to consumers, corporations had to buy a license. Then Microsoft bought/wrote their browser and gave it away with their monopoly operating system to drive Netscape out of the market. Further, when they did it they created lock in changes for their browser that would make it so web pages written to IE would only work on Windows and only on IE on Windows. They did this to extend their OS monopoly to the internet clients.

I'm aware of the allegations, but reality just doesn't agree. Netscape never made any profit because nobody was willing to pay for a browser. As to the rest of your point, how did that work out?

Usage share of web browsers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now you switch your argument to profit? As if the dot com corporations had to make a profit to succeed? News flash, in a growing market you don't need profit you need market share. Profits can come later and usually do.

How did it work out? After hundreds of man years of donated effort the free browsers eventually came back. Note free. Note donated. Again Microsoft killed the web browser market. Microsoft's competitors had to decide to make compatibility through reverse engineering with Msft IE a priority and also to do it for free, just to remain in business.

 

[asterism]

Microsoft's monopoly is the PC Operating system that ships with every personal computer sold. Netscape was only free to consumers, corporations had to buy a license. Then Microsoft bought/wrote their browser and gave it away with their monopoly operating system to drive Netscape out of the market. Further, when they did it they created lock in changes for their browser that would make it so web pages written to IE would only work on Windows and only on IE on Windows. They did this to extend their OS monopoly to the internet clients.

I'm aware of the allegations, but reality just doesn't agree. Netscape never made any profit because nobody was willing to pay for a browser. As to the rest of your point, how did that work out?

Usage share of web browsers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now you switch your argument to profit? As if the dot com corporations had to make a profit to succeed? News flash, in a growing market you don't need profit you need market share. Profits can come later and usually do.

Congratulations, you've just undermined your point about Microsoft killing Netscape. A company that has no profits will run out of money sooner or later. Netscape ran out of money sooner because their business model sucked.

 

[asterism]

>> Norton is alive and well it was purchased by Symantec.

ROFL bought up is not alive and well. Norton went from being the number one PC Utilities company to being broke and having to be bought up by Symantec to save it from filing bankruptcy after Microsoft ran it out of business by extending their monopoly into the PC Utilities market.

Peter Norton Company revenue history:

1984: $1 million
1986: $5 million
1987: $11 million
1988: $15 million
1989: $25 million

In 1990 Norton was acquired by Symantec for $60 million.

Peter Norton - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Norton was not "beat up" at all.

Peter Norton had been planning a public stock offering when it was approached by Symantec with a merger proposal, Mr. Norton said. ''We weren't looking to get acquired,'' he said. ''Symantec beat our door down and convinced us this makes sense.''

One big attraction of the deal was Symantec's large corporate sales force, Mr. Norton said. Peter Norton was creating a direct sales team and will now be able to benefit from Symantec's team.

COMPANY NEWS - Symantec to Acquire Peter Norton - NYTimes.com

 

[RKMBrown]

>>> I'm aware of Netscape's fantasy world thinking that they could give their product away for free and then ask corporations to buy it but that's not a sound business model and that's why they failed.

You mean like Google business model is failing?

I called up Bill and said, “I’m going to turn this thing around.” Bill always had a soft spot for Apple. We got him into the application software business. The first Microsoft apps were Excel and Word for the Mac. So I called him and said, “I need help.” Microsoft was walking over Apple’s patents. I said, “If we kept up our lawsuits, a few years from now we could win a billion-dollar patent suit. You know it, and I know it. But Apple’s not going to survive that long if we’re at war. I know that. So let’s figure out how to settle this right away. All I need is a commitment that Microsoft will keep developing for the Mac and an investment by Microsoft in Apple so it has a stake in our success.

Yeah I'm familiar with that discussion, what's missing from it that Msft also wrote a 500m check to IBM for patents as well. Are you saying Msft saved IBM? Just cause they stopped suing each other, and just cause the deal meant Msft had to cut a check, and provide support for Office, does not mean Msft saved Apple. Nor does Jobs say they were saved by Msft. Jobs is just saying they wanted to cut a deal that was mutually beneficial. Exchanging patent war chests is a pattern that started a few years before that deal.

 

[asterism]

>>> I'm aware of Netscape's fantasy world thinking that they could give their product away for free and then ask corporations to buy it but that's not a sound business model and that's why they failed.

You mean like Google business model is failing?

I called up Bill and said, “I’m going to turn this thing around.” Bill always had a soft spot for Apple. We got him into the application software business. The first Microsoft apps were Excel and Word for the Mac. So I called him and said, “I need help.” Microsoft was walking over Apple’s patents. I said, “If we kept up our lawsuits, a few years from now we could win a billion-dollar patent suit. You know it, and I know it. But Apple’s not going to survive that long if we’re at war. I know that. So let’s figure out how to settle this right away. All I need is a commitment that Microsoft will keep developing for the Mac and an investment by Microsoft in Apple so it has a stake in our success.

Yeah I'm familiar with that discussion, what's missing from it that Msft also wrote a 500m check to IBM for patents as well. Are you saying Msft saved IBM? Just cause they stopped suing each other, and just cause the deal meant Msft had to cut a check, and provide support for Office, does not mean Msft saved Apple. Nor does Jobs say they were saved by Msft. Jobs is just saying they wanted to cut a deal that was mutually beneficial. Exchanging patent war chests is a pattern that started a few years before that deal.

Google is not giving their product away for free. The "product" they sell is advertising and marketing.

IBM never asked Microsoft for help and IBM never stated that they would not survive without a cash infusion. Steve Jobs did. See the difference?

 

[RKMBrown]

>>> Norton was not "beat up" at all.

I knew Peter and his lead developers back then, personally. They were broke, because Msft had provided a bunch of free stuff that made it harder to differentiate, and also because of the price competition from a competitor or two. This was before the dot.com era of money aplenty. They were going to make a public offering, when they got bought up by Symantec. You need to understand that this is was one of the first big PC software companies with a product you could buy at the store. It was crushing to watch them get beat up in the market they helped create.

 

[asterism]

>>> Norton was not "beat up" at all.

I knew Peter and his lead developers back then, personally. They were broke, because Msft had provided a bunch of free stuff that made it harder to differentiate, and also because of the price competition from a competitor or two. This was before the dot.com era of money aplenty. They were going to make a public offering, when they got bought up by Symantec. You need to understand that this is was one of the first big PC software companies with a product you could buy at the store. It was crushing to watch them get beat up in the market they helped create.

Sorry, but you're going to need more than "I knew Peter" to prove that Norton was beat up. He started a little company, it grew fast, and 8 years after it was founded he got bought for $70 million by a company with an existing sales force. Microsoft didn't kill Norton - his growth tracks right along with the growth of Microsoft because after his initial product Microsoft customers were overwhelmingly his market too.

I find it odd that you think Norton, who became a millionaire due to building tools used on Microsoft operating systems, was "beat up" by Microsoft.

 

[RKMBrown]

>>> I'm aware of Netscape's fantasy world thinking that they could give their product away for free and then ask corporations to buy it but that's not a sound business model and that's why they failed.

You mean like Google business model is failing?

I called up Bill and said, “I’m going to turn this thing around.” Bill always had a soft spot for Apple. We got him into the application software business. The first Microsoft apps were Excel and Word for the Mac. So I called him and said, “I need help.” Microsoft was walking over Apple’s patents. I said, “If we kept up our lawsuits, a few years from now we could win a billion-dollar patent suit. You know it, and I know it. But Apple’s not going to survive that long if we’re at war. I know that. So let’s figure out how to settle this right away. All I need is a commitment that Microsoft will keep developing for the Mac and an investment by Microsoft in Apple so it has a stake in our success.

Yeah I'm familiar with that discussion, what's missing from it that Msft also wrote a 500m check to IBM for patents as well. Are you saying Msft saved IBM? Just cause they stopped suing each other, and just cause the deal meant Msft had to cut a check, and provide support for Office, does not mean Msft saved Apple. Nor does Jobs say they were saved by Msft. Jobs is just saying they wanted to cut a deal that was mutually beneficial. Exchanging patent war chests is a pattern that started a few years before that deal.

Google is not giving their product away for free. The "product" they sell is advertising and marketing.

IBM never asked Microsoft for help and IBM never stated that they would not survive without a cash infusion. Steve Jobs did. See the difference?

Google sells google apps (bundled with gmail) as a competitor to Lotus Notes and Msft Office. There are free versions for consumers. Google also sells search engine tech to corporations. Just because you are not familiar with a thing does not mean the thing does not exist.

>>> IBM never asked Microsoft for help.
Not true. I've been to many meetings where IBM asked Bill and his motley crew for help.

Steve's good at the drama, he would have received his cash infusion from customers or some other partner.

 

[asterism]

>>> I'm aware of Netscape's fantasy world thinking that they could give their product away for free and then ask corporations to buy it but that's not a sound business model and that's why they failed.

You mean like Google business model is failing?



Yeah I'm familiar with that discussion, what's missing from it that Msft also wrote a 500m check to IBM for patents as well. Are you saying Msft saved IBM? Just cause they stopped suing each other, and just cause the deal meant Msft had to cut a check, and provide support for Office, does not mean Msft saved Apple. Nor does Jobs say they were saved by Msft. Jobs is just saying they wanted to cut a deal that was mutually beneficial. Exchanging patent war chests is a pattern that started a few years before that deal.

Google is not giving their product away for free. The "product" they sell is advertising and marketing.

IBM never asked Microsoft for help and IBM never stated that they would not survive without a cash infusion. Steve Jobs did. See the difference?

Google sells google apps (bundled with gmail) as a competitor to Lotus Notes and Msft Office. There are free versions for consumers. Google also sells search engine tech to corporations. Just because you are not familiar with a thing does not mean the thing does not exist.

>>> IBM never asked Microsoft for help.
Not true. I've been to many meetings where IBM asked Bill and his motley crew for help.

Steve's good at the drama, he would have received his cash infusion from customers or some other partner.

Ok, now you're shifting the goal posts.

You cannot prove that Microsoft killed Norton because it didn't die. There is NO mention ANYWHERE of Peter Norton saying anything about being "beat up." The company he founded experienced rapid growth and 8 years after he started it he became the largest single shareholder of Symantec - not his creditors, not his bankers, he himself personally. Norton was not dying, it was thriving and it continues to thrive today as Symantec's most successful division.

Microsoft saved Apple, Steve Jobs said so himself.

Google's main revenue source is paid search. I didn't mention the other products they sell and license because they are not a significant source of money for them.

 

[RKMBrown]

>>> Norton was not "beat up" at all.

I knew Peter and his lead developers back then, personally. They were broke, because Msft had provided a bunch of free stuff that made it harder to differentiate, and also because of the price competition from a competitor or two. This was before the dot.com era of money aplenty. They were going to make a public offering, when they got bought up by Symantec. You need to understand that this is was one of the first big PC software companies with a product you could buy at the store. It was crushing to watch them get beat up in the market they helped create.

Sorry, but you're going to need more than "I knew Peter" to prove that Norton was beat up. He started a little company, it grew fast, and 8 years after it was founded he got bought for $70 million by a company with an existing sales force. Microsoft didn't kill Norton - his growth tracks right along with the growth of Microsoft because after his initial product Microsoft customers were overwhelmingly his market too.

I find it odd that you think Norton, who became a millionaire due to building tools used on Microsoft operating systems, was "beat up" by Microsoft.

It's not if you've ever dealt with Msft. directly.

Microsoft Monopoly: Natural Monopoly, Predatory Pricing, and Price Discrimination

 

[RKMBrown]

Google is not giving their product away for free. The "product" they sell is advertising and marketing.

IBM never asked Microsoft for help and IBM never stated that they would not survive without a cash infusion. Steve Jobs did. See the difference?

Google sells google apps (bundled with gmail) as a competitor to Lotus Notes and Msft Office. There are free versions for consumers. Google also sells search engine tech to corporations. Just because you are not familiar with a thing does not mean the thing does not exist.

>>> IBM never asked Microsoft for help.
Not true. I've been to many meetings where IBM asked Bill and his motley crew for help.

Steve's good at the drama, he would have received his cash infusion from customers or some other partner.

Ok, now you're shifting the goal posts.

You cannot prove that Microsoft killed Norton because it didn't die. There is NO mention ANYWHERE of Peter Norton saying anything about being "beat up." The company he founded experienced rapid growth and 8 years after he started it he became the largest single shareholder of Symantec - not his creditors, not his bankers, he himself personally. Norton was not dying, it was thriving and it continues to thrive today as Symantec's most successful division.

Microsoft saved Apple, Steve Jobs said so himself.

Google's main revenue source is paid search. I didn't mention the other products they sell and license because they are not a significant source of money for them.

>>> because it didn't die
Yes it did. Norton the brand still exists, Norton the person exists, Norton the company is gone, it was sold and became a somewhat successful division of Symantec. Nothing compared to where it would have been had Microsoft not tried to wedge them out with monopolistic practices.

>>> Microsoft saved Apple, Steve Jobs said so himself.
I see so when Norton needed a cash infusion to make payroll Symantec didn't save them by buying them. But when apple needed a cash infusion to make payroll, Msft saved them by settling a lawsuit.

Ok, why are you such a Microsoft lap dog?

 

[RKMBrown]

Google's main revenue source is paid search. I didn't mention the other products they sell and license because they are not a significant source of money for them.

Whatever... there are literally thousands of applications that have a free, and a for fee version where the free is for non-corporate use. It is a very common sales model, made popular, in part, by Netscape. You know the company that invented web browsers for the internet.

 

[asterism]

Google sells google apps (bundled with gmail) as a competitor to Lotus Notes and Msft Office. There are free versions for consumers. Google also sells search engine tech to corporations. Just because you are not familiar with a thing does not mean the thing does not exist.

>>> IBM never asked Microsoft for help.
Not true. I've been to many meetings where IBM asked Bill and his motley crew for help.

Steve's good at the drama, he would have received his cash infusion from customers or some other partner.

Ok, now you're shifting the goal posts.

You cannot prove that Microsoft killed Norton because it didn't die. There is NO mention ANYWHERE of Peter Norton saying anything about being "beat up." The company he founded experienced rapid growth and 8 years after he started it he became the largest single shareholder of Symantec - not his creditors, not his bankers, he himself personally. Norton was not dying, it was thriving and it continues to thrive today as Symantec's most successful division.

Microsoft saved Apple, Steve Jobs said so himself.

Google's main revenue source is paid search. I didn't mention the other products they sell and license because they are not a significant source of money for them.

>>> because it didn't die
Yes it did. Norton the brand still exists, Norton the person exists, Norton the company is gone, it was sold and became a somewhat successful division of Symantec. Nothing compared to where it would have been had Microsoft not tried to wedge them out with monopolistic practices.

>>> Microsoft saved Apple, Steve Jobs said so himself.
I see so when Norton needed a cash infusion to make payroll Symantec didn't save them by buying them. But when apple needed a cash infusion to make payroll, Msft saved them by settling a lawsuit.

Ok, why are you such a Microsoft lap dog?

I'm not. I have many many many complaints about Microsoft. I just don't think lies and errors should stand, especially in the realm of government involvement supposedly being needed to "protect us" from companies like Microsoft.

Norton didn't need a cash infusion from Symantec to make payroll. In fact the merger was an all stock deal. See that text formatting for "all stock deal?" That's called a link. I'm backing up my assertions with links. You haven't provided any for this tangent.

 

[asterism]

Google's main revenue source is paid search. I didn't mention the other products they sell and license because they are not a significant source of money for them.

Whatever... there are literally thousands of applications that have a free, and a for fee version where the free is for non-corporate use. It is a very common sales model, made popular, in part, by Netscape. You know the company that invented web browsers for the internet.

You are clueless about technology history it appears. Netscape didn't invent web browsers for the Internet, it was derived from Mosaic which was an NCSA project at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

While Mosaic is often thought to be the first browser, it wasn't. That distinction belongs to Nexus.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Contumacious -

Fascism is to Libertarianism what Communism is to the Democrats.

We see a lot of people calling Obama a commie and a socialist on this board, hence I imagine describing Libertarianism as Fascism with a PR agency must be acceptable.

Obama is not a communist and is probably not a socialist.

I am pretty sure he is a mix of both. He ascribes to the Marxist doctrine that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. He also seems to think it is actually possible to attain equal results from unequal effort if people would just wake up to the fact that his way is better than the free market capitalism most sane pole advocate.

As for socialism, he clearly believes in the public provision of non public goods and central planning to accomplish that.

He might not fit the more radical definitions of either philosophy, but he clearly is not a free market capitalist.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Obama is neither.

He still gets money from corporations.

And yet...............even in spite of that, he still wants to help out the small people and the environment.

Obama is pretty much right centrist.

Really? Can you explain how making everything small people need to survive more expensive helps them?

Didn't think so.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Contumacious -

Fascism is to Libertarianism what Communism is to the Democrats.

We see a lot of people calling Obama a commie and a socialist on this board, hence I imagine describing Libertarianism as Fascism with a PR agency must be acceptable.

Obama is not a communist and is probably not a socialist.

I couldn't agree more.

But if a great many of our members see a link between moderate left-wing policy and left-wing extremism, they should also be able to see the link between right-wing poliies (Liberatarianism) and right-wing extremism (Fascism).

The fact that Libertarianism favours small government over fascism's large government does nothing to change that.

This from the guy that is so much an expert on the political beliefs of Ayn Rand that he didn't know she thought anarchism is a fantasy belief.

Why should anyone trust your opinion on anyone's beliefs?

For the record, liberalism, aka moderate left wing, is never going to devolve into fascism. It can't because it always puts the individual ahead of the state. Only a complete idiot, or a book expert, would even try to argue that it would.