That's got to happen if Linux is going to become a mainstream OS, by all means bitch about how bad Microsoft software is and that it shouldn't have the whole market in its grip but you can't have it both ways.
Like hell I can't. Microsoft forgot their roots in Windows, especially after they "squashed" OS/2. I say "squashed" because Warp is actually still showing up in some financial institutions these days. I'm not going to let that happen to Linux, and I hope nobody else does either. If that means bitching about Microsoft until I'm blue in the face, then I'll be a constant thorn to every proprietary advocate that slithers this way. Think of me what you will, but know that I'll disregard it.
You could also argue that software developers should have the freedom to choose whatever license they want to release their software under.
This is my main issue with this and is why I hate MASM32 so much.
http://www.microsuck.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10215&highlight=MASM32
Oh wow. I didn't mean the MASM
licence. I meant MASM back when it was understood, not demanded, that the only thing it could build would be Win32 binaries. The restriction on not allowing open-source licences was a bastard move, and I hope people literally disregard that left and right. Besides, I'm pretty sure that it's illegal to restrict the licence terms of a conceptual product with a real product like that - some violation of IP copyright laws or another - but that's yet to be tested in a court of law. I suspect that clause is effective because of rampant fearmongering in jurisdictions where it may be null and void.
I can see your point that allowing proprietary software on Linux violates the key principles on which it was founded upon.
I don't agree with it, primarily because I don't agree that proprietary software is immoral or that open source software is inherently better. I don't buy into the argument that it can software vendors can make money purely from services and support (yes, this may work in the bussiness market but I fail to see how it will work in the domestic market).
I'm no GNU fanboy, piratePenguin, Calum, you and I have all discussed this before and you'll never get me to agree with you (even though I can see your points of view) so let's save ourselves 15 pages of flame. 
Wait, you see my point? Then why deflect to the straw-man "software has morals" argument? I'd expect that you, of all people, would see the advantages in clear-box code where particularly amoral or immoral
organisations may be concerned.
My major problem with proprietary software isn't that it's proprietary, believe it or not. My major problem is
what's so bad about the source that the issuing company doesn't want me to see it? Would you buy a car if the hood were riveted shut? How about a house with the windows boarded up and the doors nailed closed? How can someone guarantee a quality product if you can't "wander through it" if you so desire?
I think it'd come as a huge shock were Microsoft to ever disclose their sales versus support numbers, since they charge $35
per unique issue and one of their most infamous avenues of infection is via piracy. The BSA protects them from this, you say? How many suits have they filed against individual or collective pirate groups in the past five years? How about the past decade? How many have they filed as "findings of fact" against unsatisfied corporate customers? I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. Why give our hard-won dollars to a giant money vacuum that sues its best clients, services its small-time customers (to put it in gentler terms), and restricts the inalienable right of American citizens (to say nothing of
global citizens) to be secure in their liberty and property? Were some of these products to be airplanes, you can bet the FAA would be dealing with an epidemic of crashes this very moment. God forbid Windows should ever make it onto a Boeing in anything but an entertainment center.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not trying to start a flame war, I just don't agree with the perspective you're espousing. It sounds remarkably like someone who's been gaming on a PS2 a little too long, and forgets that the Revolution and 360 are still viable options. Call me what you will, I just prefer to see the forest rather than the trees.
I remember MASM (it was a very horrible assembler) but I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
Are you talking about dissassembly, reverse engineering, MASM32 or am I totally on the wrong wavelength?
More reverse engineering than anything, particularly before they put that bastard clause in the licence.
