Re: [tlug] Re: Post my article on tlug.jp?

["Lyle H Saxon" <llletters@example.com>]

On 7/28/07, Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com> wrote:
> Given the choice of paying the same price for the same machine with or
> without a Windows licence, I would of course have taken the one with.
> Why not take it if it's free?

Terminology.  I can go along with the "essentially" free part, but -
factually - it's not free.  Microsoft is not exactly a poor struggling
company about to file for bankruptcy.  They do charge for their
products.

> They only way you could argue that Windows was not free to me is if you
> could find a plausable way that I could have saved money by not getting
> Windows. That way doesn't exist, ergo, for the purposes of my economic
> decision, it was free.

That's a good piece of sophistry there, but it still wasn't actually
free.  It could very be "virtually" free or "essentially" free, or
some other term, but if some of your money went to Microsoft then it
most definitely was not free.

Lyle