[WikiEN-l] This may be true someday soon: GNU/Linux is to MS Windows as Wikipedia is to MS Encarta.

Wed Jul 9 07:33:52 UTC 2003

Erik Moeller wrote:
>...
>I think the Britannica brand will live on, but in  
>terms of competition we should be more worried
>about Encarta (and vice versa).

Hm. Unix at one time owned the server OS business then an upstart call 
MicroSoft offered an adequate product and undercut their prices. So then 
Microsoft dominated the server OS market. Then an upstart OS named GNU/Linux 
came on the scene that offered an adequate product at zero price. Now 
GNU/Linux is doing the same thing to Microsoft that Microsoft did to Unix (as 
far as market share is concerned). 

The Unix/Microsoft thing now looks like it is playing out in the 
Britannica/Microsoft Encarta arena. Will Wikipedia be the Linux of the 
encyclopedia world? Will we also be labled "enemy number one" by the people 
in Redmond within the next several years? Golly, this GNU thing is a virus.

-- Daniel Mayer