[X Newbies] OS stability

[Alex]

On Wednesday, Mar 31, 2004, at 09:17 Canada/Eastern, marina wrote:

> On 31/3/04 [dmy], Alex wrote:
>> The technical term for MS's dominance of the personal
>> computer market is oligopoly.
>
> No. This is plain wrong. Oligopoly implies a plurality of dominant 
> subjects
> (market players in this case). Few they must be (oligos), but still 
> more
> than one.

Very well, let's refer to the dictionary. According to my Concise 
Oxford v1.1:

Monopoly: the exclusive possession or control of the trade in a 
commodity or service [...]
Oligopoly: a state of limited competition between a small number of 
producers or sellers.

Would you like to continue by debating the meaning of "plurality" and 
"exclusive"? Or perhaps carry on the linguistic discussion somewhere 
else?

> [...] Maybe then, we're not all Mac users, and someone has joined this 
> list "on a
> mission"??[...]

An interesting example of the Stalinist/McCarthyist method. 
(Interesting because one would have hoped such methods belonged to the 
dustheap of history.) Forget about the issues, apply the argumentum ad 
hominem, and imply that your adversary is a spy (or, at the very least, 
"objectively a tool of the class enemy"). Next, I suppose, comes the 
Two Minutes Hate and the LUAC (List Un-Mac Activities Committee). 
Fortunately, there will be one thing missing -- the argumentum ad 
baculum.

> [...] we are here because we are Mac users, and
> instead of  offering each other support and reassurance that the (not
> necessarily easy) choice we've made is the right one for us [...]

"Support and reassurance"?! As in, soft and pink and fuzzy and warm and 
loving and embracing and non-judgmental?

> [...] there are so many among us who spend their time disseminating 
> fear,
> uncertainty and doubt.

Wreckers, saboteurs, and counter-revolutionaries, lick-spittles of the 
dark forces of reaction. Ach, where's the Gulag when you need it?!

f