In fairness though, you cant expect something hundreds people have worked on for several years to be free. There is a lot of money that went into the development, and while they dnt need to charge $219, they do need to charge for it.
Also, the idea of placing everything on Bill Gates shoulders is just a personifcation of human evil. Like blaming or congradulating a president on the economy. Normally the situation is vastly more complex than that and in the predidency issue, was set up to happen years before that president came into office. The wave just takes time to roll one way or the other.
This is similar to the Microsoft issue. The reason WHY Microsoft is so dominant is not just because of their aggressive business tactics, but because of other peoples screw ups. Other people took risks and lost that MS didnt take. MS had the good business sense to let other people do risky ventures, then buy the people who were successful at it, or develop their own products based on the winning formula.
This isnt idea-piracy, its good business. In the business world, its called being a "Fast Follower" (or was a few years ago, maybe there is a new buzzword now). Its a method a lot of corporations take to stay the distance in an ever changing world. Small corporation can and have to take risks, big ones dont often have that luxury.
A lot of the reason people are so annoyed at Microsoft is that they are continuously successful. They want to see them lose in a big way, cause its human nature.
While MS may have a lot of the market wrapped up, they are not invincible. Other corps have been in this situation before, and in the future it WILL be someone else in this same position. Nothing lasts forever. Ask the Romans.
With regard to developers, IMO, MS is the best thing that has happened in the past 20 years.
They have gotten almost all the market onto one set of platforms which all run almost the same code (and with some work, can all run the same code). The have removed the headache (big headache) of having to customize software for hardware, and in todays diverse market, this would be an absolute nightmare.
DirectX has made game development significantly easier by removing the necessity to get to the metal in cards, while still remaining pretty fast and close. Its stability is improving, as well as its functionality. While its not perfect, Id rather pay for DirectX than go back to using DOS personally. (Luckily we dont have to).
On the final solution of having to pay MS to release products on their system. Personally, I dont see this happening. BUT, if it did happen, it wouldnt be unique. Sony, Nintendo, Sega, all the console developers ALREADY require this. They monopolize the publishing and distribution on their systems. You must be a licensed and therefore approved developer to relase things. You may use their tools. You must pay them a LOT for dek kits (think $10,000 to $25,000 PER KIT!). You must give them a percentage of all sales. You must use THEIR CD or CART manufacturing plants at a higher cost than other places could do the same thing.
So MS is not taking the lead in oligarchical development.
Just some things to think about
-Geoff
