How nice of you to wish death upon the one man who has done more
for humanity than any other in history. And I'm not just saying that
because he fed me for a year.
Absent actual physical coercion, absolutely anything one does to
cajole as many people as possible to give you money--voluntarily--
is, by definition, providing a benefit to them. Except to the small
extent of MS's government contracts (a /very/ small part of its
business) which are not paid for voluntarily, every penny of the
world's richest man's fortune came from people who /chose/ to give
it because they derived benefit from his products. Regardless of
how grudgingly they may have felt about being locked in, or how much
they lied to themselves about wanting reliable software (no one
really wants reliable software, they just think they do), the fact
is that they signed the checks.
Despite the fact that Microsoft never really invented anything novel,
ignores standards, bullies its competitors, and does lots of other
things people might not like, the world would be a much darker and
poorer place without heroes like Gates, who do the Right Thing for
whatever reasons. Motives don't count--results do, and Bill Gates
gets results.
When I awake from my suspension, I'd much rather see a world with
Bill Gates than some worthless whiner like Marc Andreesen.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC