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[Norbert Bollow]

Christopher Rose <kf6snj at lycos.com> wrote:

> Even though I am an amillenialist, I have been expecting this for
> about a decade now, so I not too surprised. If anything, I think I am
> more surprised that this has not happened sooner. I just have to
> wonder if perhaps microsoft is looking at this as a way to generate
> computer logins and track who uses which computer and when.

Tracking "who uses which computer and when" was definately part of the
original plans for Microsoft .NET;  I can provide references if
desired.  MS has in the meantime backed away from these ideas a
bit, probably because other big companies (whose support MS would have
needed to pull this off) didn't want to trust MS with their user data.

> Those of us using Linux may have too boot up linux our laptops and
> run, as we can not other wise survive in a society that uses such
> technology.

As a matter of fact the .NET stuff isn't all bad news.  Those
who are into software development may want to have a good read of
the recent book "Cross-Platform .NET Development" by Easton+King
(ISBN 1-59059-330-0, published by Apress) - this is a good way to
break out of the MS monopoly without breaking compatibility with
the MS platform.

Blessings,
Norbert.

(Full disclosure: I didn't buy the above-mentioned book, but rather
the publisher sent me a "review copy" for reasons related to my
role in the DotGNU project - see http://dotgnu.org/ - however I do
think that this book is worthy of being recommended.)