[LUG] Steel

[Adrian Midgley <akm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The US unwisely and not sensibly applied a tarrif to imports of steel to 
protect their domestic steel industry, which presumably supports the 
President unlike their users of steel, but that's another matter.

Following a verdict at WTO, the EU is now applying tarrifs to a range of 
US goods.

I suggest that encouraging our MEPs and the Commission to apply a high 
tarrif barrier on software would be an excellent way of catching American 
.gov attention, and that any effect of a reduction purchases of non-Free 
software such as Microsoft Office and Windows would not be adverse to our 
aims either.

The difference to profit that a large manufacturer of computer hardware 
secures by agreeing with MS that they will pre-install Windows on _all_ 
their computers, rather than those on which the customer asks for it is 
not large, and a tarrif based on the advertised list price of an operating 
system and Office suite could make a significant differnece to the 
willingness of large manufacturers to provide options of OpenOffice on 
Windows or of Linux, to the immediate and long-term beneift of their 
customers in the UK and EU.


-- 
From the Linux desktops of Dr Adrian Midgley 
http://www.defoam.net/             

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