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Just like Adobe tries to keep its flash monopoly.
Just like the FSF tries to keep its GNU Tools monopoly.

Those two are not better than MS in that aspect.

Just like Adobe tries to keep its flash monopoly.
Unlike MS, Adobe has no reason to make it work better on one particular operating system. MS can stop releasing new versions of Silverlight for Mac when it has got enough market share. And for Linux Moonlight will be one step behind ("almost compatible").


Just like the FSF tries to keep its GNU Tools monopoly.
What are you talking about?

Edited 2008-05-15 17:56 UTC

Adobe is somewhat less dangerous than MS in that their dominance is somewhat easier to topple.

The FSF is hardly a monopoly. They are a software provider with tools which simply work exceedingly well, and have a sometimes annoying leader, and some overly vocal fans who do more harm than good.

I use market share and "barrier to entry" criteria to gauge monopoly status. But I set the gauge threshold to be the price/functionality ratio needed to cut into the dominant player's market share. That can place the barrier at a relatively high absolute level. FSF has good stuff. But the balance may well shift in the future.

Nobody wants any monopoly, but the fact is that Microsoft controls an OS and the stack all the way up to Silverlight. At this point in time that is infinitely more of a problem than something that runs on at least a variety of platforms today, and where Adobe has an incentive to see that it stays that way. Microsoft simply doesn't, and they will drop Moonlight and the Mac version of Silverlight like a hot potato if Silverlight achieves what they feel is critical mass.

They have no interest or incentive in non-Windows platforms, and you have to be so much of an idiot it isn't even funny if you still don't understand this. Do you really need this explaining to you after all these years?

As for Adobe, one hopes that they will come into line with HTML5 and keep producing tools which people buy anyway and where they will have an incentive to do so. The fact that they don't control an entire OS, development platform and browser means that this is much more likely.


Come again? This is open source software (or as RMS calls it, free software) which means that people can pick up development independently and fork from any FSF or GNU influences should they so wish. Many have already done so.

What the hell is your definition of a monopoly?