[Linux-aus] Hardware resellers of the world, rejoice!

[Jon Hall <maddog@dtype.org>]

>3. To stimulate consumer demand for more
>sophisticated hardware". (Point 3 is *definitely* his precise phrase).

Note he said "more sophisticated hardware", and not "more expensive hardware".

For those of you who remember the days of storing data on audio cassette tapes, I think
we all appreciate the large, fast disk drives of today.  And you gamers would
definitely be disappointed in the action delivered by some of the first video cards.
These might have come into being without the large desktop market of today, but it would have
taken a *lot* longer.

I don't give Mr. Gates credit very often, but his single-sighted belief in the
desktop market has driven much of the commodity prices we see today.  Of course
the music industry (CD-ROMS) and the television industry (HDTV) have also driven
it.  And we will never know what history would have been generated if Mr. Gates
had not been there, but history is as history was, and few would deny that
Microsoft helped to drive that market.

I am hoping that a Free and Open Source Operating system will also help to drive
more sophisticated hardware, both in general purpose systems and in embedded systems.
Hardware excelerators to replace standard software routines come to mind.  Being Free and
Open, our software would allow for even better competition in that marketplace.

md