From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Sat Nov 16 2002 - 04:23:26 MST
On Fri, 15 Nov 2002 Dehede011@aol.com wrote:
> In my entire engineering career I never once built anything that I
> wouldn't have improved vastly had I had a 2nd shot at it. Naturally Ford,
> Gates, etal didn't do anything as well as someone else could have done it
Ron, stop assuming for a moment that Bill Gates personally invented
anything. He wrote a Basic once, I've seen the code. It didn't strike me
as genius code, I'm afraid. Microsoft didn't write even DOS, it was a
purchased 3rd party product.
They do certainly have very good marketing and legal department. They
didn't make too many mistakes, or at least mistakes which threatened their
existance. They kept bringing cash in, preparing for the winter, that
hasn't come yet. They play their monopoly position well, and they do use a
lot of muscle behind the scenes. I would say their accounting practise is
fraudulent, except it's obviously not significantly worse than the rest of
the industry. Which is not saying much these days. In a sense, they're
just the biggest and baddest bully on school ground, who'll beat you up
and take away your lunch if the principal is looking elsewhere.
Now all the kids, their parents and school officials had enough of that
kid, and put him on trial, threatening him with expulsion.
Here's where the analogy breaks down, because here Microsoft owns enough
politicians and judges to have a lot of control in the outcome of the
trial. The jury is out yet, because EU's sights are still on Redmond, and
they're less easy to buy.
I'm usually not a Microsoft basher. I use their products when I have to
(at work, for time being), and stick to open source in all other cases. I
can't really ignore the impact the iron fist has on hardware, driver
availability, rights management, collateral damage on the infrastructure,
but open systems is a wide enough niche to be comfortable.
However, I won't keep my quiet if people are claiming that Redmond is the
bee's knees, has invented everything there is, and is generally a
benefactor to the world. Because that's utter horseshit, and needs to be
said straight. Let Microsoft's PR dish out the lies, but don't spread the
lies yourself, ok?
> later. But our system in its wisdom said we will go ahead and give
> innovators a patent and exclusive rights for a period of years -- it is
> better to have the innovation even at the price of the obvious inefficiency
> that causes.
Innovation, my ass. Give me at least a single novel item Microsoft
invented. Surely, it can't be that hard?
> If you look at Gates or Ford's works and say I can improve on that all
> I hear is a recitation of the obvious. We should improve on their efforts --
> we stand on their shoulders.
Ron, sorry to say, but you obviously have very little clue about the
industry, and Microsoft's role in it. As an engineer, you're surely aware
of the dangers of talking about a field you know nothing about? It should
be easy enough to find the truth using Google.
> Now, is the patent period proper? I think that is very debatable.
> But some want stronger laws, some want weaker.
Patents certainly have their role, but not software patents. I side with
Linus on this one: ignore them, as far as open source is concerned.
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