How do you break laws for years and get rewarded with being able to force your product on 14,000 schools? Maybe we should ask Bill Gates. Since 1999 his company has been in court fighting to prove it was not breaking the anti-trust laws that it was breaking. Based on all evidence Microsoft has broken many laws with it's crooked business practices.

    Let's say you buy a custom built computer and you want the manufacturer to put, say, Windows and OS/2 or Linux/Unix on it and set it up to dual-boot. Seems altogether do-able right? Wrong. Based on the agreement that Microsoft forces on computer manufacturers you cannot buy a computer from any MS authorized reseller that has Windows in any other way except as the "stand-alone" operating system on it.

    If Microsoft was a canned vegetable company I guess grocery stores could only sell their brand of canned vegetables or not be able to sell their goods at all. So, why sell the Microsoft canned goods at all? Because the store can buy Microsft canned goods for half of what the other guys charge. Why would the consumer buy them? The price is low and it's what everybody else is eating.

    So, imagine going to the grocery store and there only being one brand of canned green beans on the self. If they forced all of the other canned vegetable brands off of the store shelves then they would be the only one. If they were the only one, couldn't they charge whatever they wanted too? Absolutely.

    So, now what happens when someone elses fruit cocktail is better than Microsoft's and they find a way to sell it? How would Microsoft get the fruit cocktail business back? They'd make their fruit cocktail almost as good and then give it away free in the same grocery stores that sell their canned goods. Now if Microsoft's fruit cocktail is free, why would you buy any other kind? You wouldn't, ask Netscape.

    Now imagine if Microsoft not only sells the canned goods but also owns the knowledge of how to can vegetables. Imagine if they own the knowledge of how to grow vegetables all together. After a while how would we even know if our vegetables tasted good? What would we have to compare them to?

    Would we, the people, allow Del Monte, Libby's, Hunt's or any other canned goods company to do this? I know that we would not. But if we did we would find that the only way to get better vegetables is to make them ourselves. Or get hem from people who grow their own.

    Now that we understand what Microsoft was trying to do our courts want to punish them by allowing them to put computers and Microsoft software in 14,000 schools nationwide? The estimated cost to MS is in the millions. A drop in the bucket. Does that punish Microsoft or does it teach our children to use their products? Like the drug dealers say "Young customer's are return customers". When some of the opposition would not accept the settlement, the Judge in this case did not throw out the settlement. What Judge J. Frederick Motz did was tell them all to go back and negotiate some more. Oh yeah, that would work, they haven't tried that yet for the last 3 years!

    How about their product, isn't it the best you can get? For the answer to that question, ask anyone that uses anything else. Mac users will tell you, Linux users will tell you, Netscape users will tell you and even OS/2 users will tell you that the quality and stability of Microsoft products is very poor. Like children who have never tasted anything but Microsoft green beans, people have no idea that the green beans suck, or even that there are better green beans. So now ask yourself, how many new and innovative ideas has MS kept from surfacing?

    So, now let's answer the question: "Is Microsoft Invincible?" No. Why? Because the knowledge of how to grow beans and how to can them is not absolute. People can and have found other ways to do it. Why buy the new green beans? Because not only do you get the green beans, but you also get written instructions for how to grow your own. Want another reason? These green beans are free, and they are guaranteed to remain free.....forever.

    The green beans here represent software and computer operating systems in general. And if you didn't know by now, the Linux OS is free and so is most of the software that you can run on it. There are many different distributions of Linux built on a centralized core called the "kernel". The creator of the Linux kernel has guaranteed that the kernel will always be free. Remember when you download Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Outlook Express or anything else that Microsoft says is "free", is it guaranteed free forever? Do they also give you the source code to these products so that you can make your own? When there are no more web browsers, email clients or media players, will they be able to charge want ever they want to for them? Yes. Will we let them do that? Never. We the people will never accept second best.