Paul Burke wrote
[...]their mindset is "must use open source software;
closed source evil! Bill Gates is spawn of Satan!"
Joel said:
You're telling me he isn't?
Jan said:
Just as an aside, nobody is 'evil'
or at least not more or less then anybody else in that contexts.
Heh. That's a good one. Now tell us the one about The Three Bears.
Surely your memory is not that short.
See if any of these ring a bell:
Gary Kildall, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds.
I am under the impression that many 'leaders of the free software blah blah'
run this as a business.
Just like the green politicians make money, these are politicians too.
The issue with software is that you write it.
It is possible to write a 1000 page book about a 100 line C program.
Even more then one book. And people will buy it, spend month reading it,
and say AHHHH and OOOOOH.
You can make politics with it, and make a good living from that.
Sell space for conferences about it, the works.
Others will write the 100 lines of C code themselves, and save lots of time.
Human species, the 'character' is a variable, although for many it may
be fixed at some point in youth, it can be altered.
The potential is for all men to be able to be a beast or a saint.
So if you call Gates 'evil' then you are merely pointing out a facet
that may very well be somewhere manifest in you too.
That brings us to the question what is good and bad.
That what is really good is happiness happening within us.
I could image that Bill Gates left MS perhaps just to get aways from the
demonising done by others.
Remember in the evolution US committed genocide on the native Americans, we in
Europe possibly did the same with 'Neandertalers'.
The right of the strongest.
There is nothing wrong with evolution and fighting.
So, with all that 'character', make belief, illusions employed, an uncertain outcome
for the human species, the _only_ thing that counts is how much of the time you
can be happy.
Your efficiency in percent is: 100 x days_happy / days_lived.
And it does not matter if kill or let live, fight or live in peace.
What does matter is that you find how the inner workings of your brain are and
chose happiness.
Do meditation.
So, as to the software, I wrote my programs because I needed the functionality,
for study, for fun.
Gate did the same, wrote a simple BASIC IIRC.
He just knows how to make $$$ with it, so let him, it is a free world, capitalism,
I chose not to pay him those $$$, use Linux and write what I need.
What Torvalds and others do I really do not care a lot, our vision on DRM is different.
I have written 2 operating systems, a CP/M clone (in that time) and a windowing multitasker.
If Linux goes in a direction that I find not agreeable I will write my own.
For now it does what I need, server, communication, plays my TV and videos, not even need
for faster hardware.
I hope to get a Sony PS3 next year (March announced in Europe) and run Linux on it.
Already there is Linux available for it now.
That will up my speed and resolution to HDTV, give me blue ray playback all for 499 Euro.
Goodbye PC, that thing (Cell processor) can run as server too, looks better then the
beige box....
But it is also easy to write a small multitasker and run on one of the Cell co-processors.
It is a free world, and you can choose.
Balmer is not dictating anything, he may think he does, but as long as there is competition
he is always in danger of going belly up, I have seen big companies make big losses.
The original idea of an 'operating system' was to make a standard interface for software
to talk to the hardware, provide some basic functions.
Both MS windows and Linux are getting a bit bloated, a lot actually, and not always better.
The hardware will be getting faster....but power consumption should go way down.
Pro of Linux is that you can run it small, I have it on a USB memory stick too.
Try that with Vista? So Balmer will face a formidable challenge.
Fight for survival.
