What the hell kind of hypothetical is that? You wanna play that game? Let's say Dr. Mengele had come up with a cure for hemorrhoids, would you take it? Or do you want actual true examples? Nitrogen fertilizer, which saved billions from starvation, was made possible because of Fritz Haber.. who also invented and advocated using gas and chemical weapons. Volkswagen was developed by the Third Reiich, you wouldn't ride in one? There were actual Natsis such as Arthur Rudolph who developed the US space program a
What if unicorns flew out of Bill Gate's ass and were used to feed all the world's hungry? That isn't happening either, so stop with the stupid hypothetical situations. The hate for Gates can continue with good conscience.
You can dislike Gates all you want but he was responsible in no small part for bringing together personal computing to standardize on a platform that was accessible to everybody, even competitors like Linux and Apple. You have always been able to simply replace the Windows OS that came with your PC for something else, this was a great enabler for projects like Linux that could use the supply chain that Microsoft built (but didn't own) to get their product out to potential users. You didn't have to buy a spe
You have always been able to simply replace the Windows OS that came with your PC for something else, this was a great enabler for projects like Linux that could use the supply chain that Microsoft built (but didn't own) to get their product out to potential users
So that Linux got the users and Microsoft got the money? Yep, that was the thing that got deemed illegal by the DoJ around year 2000 or so, wasn't it?
So that Linux got the users and Microsoft got the money?
Nope. Linux still failed to get any significant user base in the desktop market.
Yep, that was the thing that got deemed illegal by the DoJ around year 2000 or so, wasn't it?
No but Jean-Louis Gassée certainly made the argument that the dominance of OEMs was the real anti-competitive action rather than their APIs and action around IE and Java.
Nope. Linux still failed to get any significant user base in the desktop market
That's clearly beside the point as long as the number of people who bought a machine with Windows and reinstalled it with Linux is non-zero: Linux got a user and Microsoft got the money.
You can dislike Gates all you want but he was responsible in no small part for bringing together personal computing to standardize on a platform that was accessible to everybody, even competitors like Linux and Apple.
It was IBM's experiment using off-the-shelf parts and the clean-room clone manufacturers reverse-engineering the BIOS that resulted in a more-or-less standardized PC that anyone could make or use. Microsoft was just the company that subdued the market for an OS for that relatively open archit
Of course I would. But that doesn't mean I like the idea of a world where people get mega-rich in questionably ethical ways, where they end up with so much money that they're capable of doing the kinds of things that governments normally do, and then society's priorities end up being shaped by the casual opinions of those benevolent multi-billionaires. They might or mightn't have welfare of the population in mind, and if they have a whim of incompetence without process to vet themselves against expertise
To all the Gates haters here (Score:2)
Let's say, for a moment, that you're diagnosed with a deadly and incurable disease, and you have only a few weeks to live.
Now, let's say that some science lab, financed entirely by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, comes up with the cure for that disease.
Would you take it ?
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Of course, but I still wouldn't forgive him. Why would I?
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What the hell kind of hypothetical is that? You wanna play that game? Let's say Dr. Mengele had come up with a cure for hemorrhoids, would you take it? Or do you want actual true examples? Nitrogen fertilizer, which saved billions from starvation, was made possible because of Fritz Haber .. who also invented and advocated using gas and chemical weapons. Volkswagen was developed by the Third Reiich, you wouldn't ride in one? There were actual Natsis such as Arthur Rudolph who developed the US space program a
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What if unicorns flew out of Bill Gate's ass and were used to feed all the world's hungry? That isn't happening either, so stop with the stupid hypothetical situations. The hate for Gates can continue with good conscience.
Re: (Score:0)
You can dislike Gates all you want but he was responsible in no small part for bringing together personal computing to standardize on a platform that was accessible to everybody, even competitors like Linux and Apple. You have always been able to simply replace the Windows OS that came with your PC for something else, this was a great enabler for projects like Linux that could use the supply chain that Microsoft built (but didn't own) to get their product out to potential users. You didn't have to buy a spe
Re: (Score:2)
You have always been able to simply replace the Windows OS that came with your PC for something else, this was a great enabler for projects like Linux that could use the supply chain that Microsoft built (but didn't own) to get their product out to potential users
So that Linux got the users and Microsoft got the money? Yep, that was the thing that got deemed illegal by the DoJ around year 2000 or so, wasn't it?
Re: (Score:0)
So that Linux got the users and Microsoft got the money?
Nope. Linux still failed to get any significant user base in the desktop market.
Yep, that was the thing that got deemed illegal by the DoJ around year 2000 or so, wasn't it?
No but Jean-Louis Gassée certainly made the argument that the dominance of OEMs was the real anti-competitive action rather than their APIs and action around IE and Java.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope. Linux still failed to get any significant user base in the desktop market
That's clearly beside the point as long as the number of people who bought a machine with Windows and reinstalled it with Linux is non-zero: Linux got a user and Microsoft got the money.
Re: (Score:2)
It was IBM's experiment using off-the-shelf parts and the clean-room clone manufacturers reverse-engineering the BIOS that resulted in a more-or-less standardized PC that anyone could make or use. Microsoft was just the company that subdued the market for an OS for that relatively open archit
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Of course I would. But that doesn't mean I like the idea of a world where people get mega-rich in questionably ethical ways, where they end up with so much money that they're capable of doing the kinds of things that governments normally do, and then society's priorities end up being shaped by the casual opinions of those benevolent multi-billionaires. They might or mightn't have welfare of the population in mind, and if they have a whim of incompetence without process to vet themselves against expertise