Dec 17, 1999, 3:00 PM-
Microsoft holds press confrence announcing that the
Department of Justice has forced them to make public the source code to
windows. The code will be published on their web site and avalible for download.
Dec 17, 1999, 3:01 PM-The Microsoft DOJ Response Team (TM) releases a
trojan horse virus in place of the source code. The trojan maliciously attacks your computer, making it impossible to remove Windows. After many desperate attempts by the media to give the trojan a humorous name, it is simply dubbed the "Windows Locker"
Dec 17, 1999, 4:37 PM-The Department of Justice releases a statement saying that they will take action against Microsoft for their "Windows Locker". Court date is set for 2003.
Dec 18, 1999, 4:49 AM- Some
hacker that actually knows a thing or two about computers releases a program circumventing Microsoft's Windows Locker.
Dec 18, 1999-3:00 PM-Microsoft holds another press conference, saying that they wish they could release the Windows source code, but "gee, we were almost ready to release, and the computer crashed..."
Dec 18, 1999-3:00:21 PM-The internet public doesn¹t buy that story. 78 new variants of the
Melissa virus are launched by various disgruntled nerds within an hour.
Dec 18, 1999-5:58 PM-Microsoft waves the white flag and posts the source code online, a modest 813 MB download.
Dec 18, 1999-6:00 PM- Microsoft's web servers crash under the load of requests.
Dec 18, 1999-6:01 PM-But not to worry, because any good monopoly can afford a few mirror sites.
Dec 18, 1999-6:34 PM-The lucky ducks with
T1 lines have finished downloading.
Dec 18, 1999-7:25 PM-Some
31337 script kiddie with a
Pentium III 600 and a T1 (bought by his parents) releases the first Windows Clone. It¹s essentially the exact same thing, except that the startup screen now says "Butt-dows 99" and the
screensavers are just slide shows of
pornography.
Dec 19, 1999-9:00 AM, Start of the next stock trading day- Given the size of the source code download, the stock prices of various computer storage and hardware companies sour.
Iomega releases a new version of the
Zip drive, which they boast "can fit the entire Windows source code, costs less than a happy meal (with toy), and in terms of physical size, if Gates money was the size of a regular disk, the new disks would be the size of Gates' charitable donations!"
Dec 19, 1999-That afternoon- A number of big software groups release their own branded versions of Windows, complete with hundreds of new bugs. Amung them:
-
L0pht Heavy Industries releases WindowsCrack2000, with
L0phtCrack built right in, so you can "test your network's security" Yeah, that's right...
-The
Cult of the Dead Cow releases BreakWindows2000, with
Back Orifice built in, so you can "remotely administer your computer" Yeah, that's right...
-
AOL releases AOLSUCS, which stands for AOL System Utilites and Computer Software. Unfortunately, no one can download it due to busy signals.
-
Netscape releases a version which has Netscape Navigator totally built in, and unremovable... MAJOR BURN TO MICROSOFT!
-
Apple Computer releases a version, which turns out to be just
MacOS 9, yet the industry still hails it as "the biggest advancement in history: an operating system that doesn't suck!"
-A bunch of people move to
Linux, and are more content with their lives because of it
Dec 20, 1999-Millions of users complain that the new WinClones don't work with anything. All the different distributions are completely uncompatible with each other. Mac users roll their eyes, thinking "jeez, what else is new?"
Dec 31, 1999, 10:22 PM-For the first time since the WinClones' incepition, a user in the #newbie IRC chat room asks "Hey, what if all these windows ripoffs aren't Y2K compatable?" The computing industry is caught offguard, with only 1 hour and 38 minutes to go.
Jan 1, 2000, 12:00 AM-One Linux user cracks that he "couldn't get to sleep, because all I could hear was windows crashing!" Mac users laugh, yelling "told you so!"
Jan 1, 2000-Makers of the hundreds of WinClones finally release Y2K patches on their various websites. Granted, posting them on a website is useless if your computer won't start up in the first place.
Jan 19, 2000-If you had an old
2400 baud modem, your source code download would be done about now.
Feb 2000-With the whole world using hundreds of different operating systems, no one can share files, and no software works correctly. Tech stocks fall to pennies a share, and the rest of the stock market comes crashing with it. The
Dow Jones Industrial Average goes from 11000 to 213 within a week. Large parts of the internet literally disappear overnight, since so many web servers run
Windows NT. Most corporations are either bankrupt or in total chaos. Local utitlies fail, leaving the nation without water, gas, or heat. Mankind slips into the dark ages.
Mar 5, 2000-
Bill Gates' house, containing the last known computing technology in the world, was attacked by a angry mob of 5000+. Gates was never seen or heard from since then. Some say he now lives in the "
underground".
Dec 10, 2003-The Department of Justice holds their court date promised 4 years earlier. No one shows up, because Microsoft is nonexistant. Because of the customs of the current time, Gates is sentenced to a beheading, as soon as he can be found.
Nov 29, 2999-A young yuppie by the name of William H. Gates the fourty-fifth starts a software company and rises it to the point where the government intervines because it has become a
monopoly. The cycle starts itself over again.