Clone Wars.

So often when deconstructing a work of silly punditry, the Macalope will log on later to see that there is a response, a comeback, a retort.

And he will sigh.

Because they're always really lame.

Can't the brown and furry one just let the air out of a piece without having to spend an entire week on it?

Well, such was his initial reaction upon finding that ZDNet's Jason Perlow had posted a response to his piece from Monday. But to his delight, he found this response was different. This was saucy, with a piquant flavor and none of the usual bitter aftertaste so many of the Macalope's other sparring partners have left him.

The Macalope's frown? Turned upside down.

In response to the pointy one's point that the legs of the Mac cloning biz might be short and stumpy, Perlow replies:

What, amputees aren't entitled to have fun? You got a problem with veterans who had half their limbs blown off in the OS wars?

See what he did there? He riffed on the Macalope's bit. It's almost unheard of. A tip o' the antlers to you, sir!

But I guess Macalope likes to get his point across using inflammatory and tasteless metaphors.

Inflammatory, yes, but as a gourmand such as yourself should know, taste is subjective.

I believe the good Macalope is again confusing harmless PC hobbyists doing things in the privacy of their own homes with the activities of a struggling upstart computer manufacturer, whose business practices are under very close examination. Not once have I advocated people actually go out and buy systems from companies like Psystar. Yet.

Fair enough. Whatever freaky hermaphroditic PC action people are into at home is their own business.

But I have said, continuously, that Apple could significantly expand its market share by allowing Mac OS X to run legally on other hardware platforms, particularly to leverage and entice the efforts of the Open Source community working on Linux and similar systems.

The horny one would argue with you about how significantly cloning would expand market share. But, more importantly, market share is not the most important metric. If it comes at the cost of profit, it's not much of a prize. As a matter of fact, it's the kind of "prize" that can put you out of business. Remember, we have precedent.

The Macalope was there, Jason, and maybe he remembers it a little differently than you. In his recollection, it went down like this:

1. Technology pundits say Apple must license or die.
2. Apple licenses and has its lunch eaten.
3. Steve Jobs returns, kills licensing and returns the company to profitability.

OK, there are some details left out, but that's the Reader's Digest version and the Macalope's seen nothing other than your unsupported assertions to the contrary that would belie this historical truism.

But, who knows? Maybe you're right. Clearly Apple's doing something wrong, huh?

Not everyone thinks the Apple industrial design ethos fits their ideal of cool or sexy, mister smart antlers.

The Macalope doesn't argue that you and many others want more choice -- everyone loves choice -- but our fundamental disagreement is over whether it's in Apple's interests.

Oh, and "mister smart antlers"? Awesome.

Don't you know anything about Godwin's Law?

That was actually the Macalope's point -- that you were flirting with it.

Incidentally, the most hysterical example evah of Godwin's Law was executed by a former ZDNet blogger you might have heard of.

Well, Jason, the Macalope can't say it hasn't been fun because it has. He looks forward to our next bout.