Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
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>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>-----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




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?001401c1039e$b0327f20$1401a8c0>