Re: Hey Terekhov: Wallace lost. Who'd guess.... ;)

[David Kastrup]

richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) writes:

> In article <85iro3liug.fsf@lola.goethe.zz>, David Kastrup
> <dak@gnu.org> wrote:
>
>>> The anticompetitive nature of the GNU GPL is no-brainer.
>
>>That must explain why there is _lots_ of competition in the Linux
>>market.
>
> Surely the claim must be that it is damaging to competition in the
> market for operating systems as a whole, rather than within the
> Linux market itself?

But the Linux market is not separate from the operating systems
market.  Linux is damaging to _competitors_ in the market for
operating systems, because it opens wide the possibilities for
_competition_.  But if those competitors find that the presence of
Linux makes their own products less attractive, they are free to
revert to selling Linux themselves and continue competing.  And
indeed, it appears that Sun is going that route right now.  HP did
this earlier on.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum