Since Bill Gates was brought up, I should mention that I am not a fan of Microsoft as most people know. Now, one may say that this is contradictory to my opinions regarding a free market. This is not true. Sun Tzu is right...however, government interference and control, in the name of patents and warped copyright law, is to blame. I fully support a return to transparent creativity and the limited controls we saw up to as late as the first half or so of the 20th century. The same limited controls - or lack of, if you will - that made it possible for Walt Disney to create Mickey Mouse, even though it was based on - and improved upon - an already existing character.
If you're interested in what I mean, check out the following (it's about 30 minutes long, so you may want to bookmark it for later, but it is extremely useful and interesting information - I
HIGHLY recommend it).....
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/lessig/ (I recommend watching the flash presentation as it provides audio and visual as well)
So, the problem with Microsoft is not that it is a monopoly per se. It is that improper government interference in the realm of information has created Microsoft. Were Microsoft's creativity to be a transparent technology, as technology and creativity was in the past, it would be quite simple. People could still not re-
publish Microsoft's works, but creating tools that can work alongside Microsoft products would be totally and easily possible. In other words, the main barrier to entry for OpenOffice.org - that the .doc format is the de facto standard and that OO.o can't guarantee 100% compatibility with it - would not exist. Just as it was legal to take apart the cotton gin and create a tool to work with the cotton gin, so too should it be legal and possible for competitors such as OpenOffice.org to create a word processor that can "work with" MS Word.