Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2001 02:01:03 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Gilbert Gong" <ggong@cal.alumni.berkeley.edu>, "j mckitrick" <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org>, <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: BSD, .Net comments - any reponse to this reasoning? Message-ID: <001401c1039e$b0327f20$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <008f01c1034a$8190d3a0$190f000a@ggongws>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Gilbert Gong >Sent: Monday, July 02, 2001 3:58 PM >To: j mckitrick; freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: BSD, .Net comments - any reponse to this reasoning? > > >A few other points.. >1) I hesitate to defend Bill Gates, but the man has given a lot of money to >charity (and I mean a lot, even considering how much he has). As much as I >like the idea of free software, when the man has given say $100 Million to >fight Aids, $1 billion to the United Negro College Fund, $750 million to >support immunization of children in the poorest countries, etc etc >(see http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/grantlist.asp?mode=&search= ) I >have a hard time seeing him as "the single most disgusting person in the >entire world". There's a lot more to this world than software.. > I hesitate to turn this into a religious argument, but I think you should reread The Little Drummer Boy or the story about the church bells that would ring only when a gift that was worthy was left (I forget the name of the story) or any number of giving stories like this. The point is that while giving to the community should be a regular part of people's lives, it's only when an individual devotes their entire being to the gift that it truly indicates a striving to touch God in the individual. While giving a billion dollars (note that the billion is spread over 20 years so the actual cost is 50 million a year and probably a lot less if it's operated like most trusts where investment revenue funds the trust) is splashy, if you will note most of the giving programs place a heavy emphasis on technology, indeed one of the basic premises of the foundation is that technology will solve the world's ills. It seems to me that there's a basic conflict of interest here because Microsoft derives it's revenue from technology sales. While it doesen't seem that the Foundation takes pains to discriminate against non-technology requests, they kind of leave those up to interested people in the community to do all the footwork. It's only the things that are directly related to technology that they spend time on and the bulk of the money in gifts seems to go to technology or education into technology. There's a seeding of future Microsoft sales here that should be obvious. Call me a hard-ass but I'd have a lot more respect for their giving if Bill Gates himself volunteered at least 4 hours a week, every week, dishing out soup in a soup kitchen, or assisting in a clinic, or otherwise directly working with the needy people, rather than simply having one of his employees peel off another million or two from the company coffers. After all he's so rich that he doesen't have to work a lick of time for the rest of his life, he's far more able to take 4 hours a week doing this than you or I who are wage slaves. It also might do wonders to improve his own morality, which frankly would do more to help the computer industry than any number of anti-trust lawsuits. Bill and Melinda may be giving, but on the other side of the door Bill is running a large corporation that is basically involved in criminal activities. There's a disconnect here between personal morality and how he conducts his business that should be obvious. If his personal giving would have a positive effect on his own morality then I'd applaud it, but I don't see any evidence of this - very likely because he himself is only connected to the administrative operations of their Foundation, and doesen't regularly devote personal time to the one-on-one work with the needy that he's funding. >Projects such as Linux and FreeBSD cannot be forced out of >business, as long >as there are volunteers working on them, they still live. Even when no one >works on the project, as long as the code is archived somewhere, it has the >opportunity to be ressurrected someday when the need returns.. > Unfortunately, archived code is pretty worthless after a short period of time. If you want, you can get any of the old UNIX BSD code that was run on the VAX or PDP's it's out there for purchase for the cost of the media. But, if a group was starting out from scratch to port one of the old distributions to the PC today, it would take an immense amount of effort. You probably could write it from scratch just as easily. Open Source can be killed, through neglect. For example, a number of Open Source device drivers in FreeBSD itself have already become extinct. (Ultrastor 14f, Seagate ST01, Intel Etherexpress16/3c507, etc.) Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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