Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 05:54:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Jim Dennis <jimd@starshine.org> To: kengard@norfolk.infi.net (ken gardner) Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Stop Bill Gates! Message-ID: <199608121254.FAA20922@antares.starshine.org> In-Reply-To: <31FE66AB.3F42@norfolk.infi.net> from "ken gardner" at Jul 30, 96 12:46:51 pm
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> > Hello freeBSD people, > > My name is Kenneth Gardner, and I represent Stopgates, an organization > devoted to stopping Microsoft from taking over the internet and the I appreciate the forthright exposure of your aggenda. Frankly, though, I have to express some irritation. I'm not MS booster. I despise the contortions and decorations that MS-Windows laughingly calls an "interface" and I'm regularly frustrated by it's "automation hostile" nature. I'm deeply concerned about the number of organizations and individuals that have locked their data -- their information, assets -- thier very business survival into Microsoft's proprietary data formats; standardizing on servitude and building a house of cards from the Microsoft deck (a deck where MS regularly "upgrades" the ace and forces a complete shuffle of all the applications levels that were balanced on it). I am convinced that many of the rumors about Microsoft coercion tactics and monopolistic practices are only the barest tip of the iceberg on the horizon. However, I cannot make out Gates to be some sort of "arch-villain." We've got much bigger problems in the world than Gates, or Microsoft -- problems that make the entire software industry shrink to a microscopic point. Bill Gates has almost certainly never locked up a couple of hundred Thai women in a slave labor camp in L.A. It is inconcievable that he's ever parked a truck bomb in an office building and set it off (Trade Center and Oklahoma City Federal Building). He isn't part of the any of the organization that commited assaninations and atrocities at Ruby Ridge, Waco, and in Philadelphia (among several others). I doubt he had Flight 800 shot out of the sky. He isn 't raping the economy by bailing out a bunch of failing S&L 's while leaving incompetant directorships to loot them. He doesn't seem to be murdering doctors and/or assualting pregnant in the name of "life." He's doesn't seem to advocate that we need to maintain an unemployment rate in excess of 7% to "protect" the poor industrialist from rising labor costs. In fact I doubt that he contribute a dime or a breath to the recent national debacle over minimum wage (since I doubt that anyone at Microsoft or any of Microsoft's suppliers is affected by it). He doesn't take a deposit of $1000 dollars and, through the magic of fractional interest banking loan out $6000 to earn $600 while only paying back $50 to his investor (standard CD transaction). He doesn't run divisions offshore to export jobs to underpaid undertrained people in regions where an industrial disaster like Bhopal can kill people by thousands without any criminal nor any significant civil repercusssions. I don't think he funded running guns to covert military operations in South America using agents that conveniently supplemented the arrangement by flying drugs back I'm pretty sure he hasn't propped up any despotic regimes just to have them practice genocide against others within thier borders (Iran). Is he proposing to Congress, and the American people that the money extracted from every working American for the last half a century "isn't enough" and that we should prepare ourselves for the time when our government will drop their end of the "social security" contract? Is he pissing and moaning about the money going to "welfare mothers" while spending orders of magnitude more on "welfare corporations?" Has Microsoft gone to the U.S. Government, hat in hand, begging? Did Chrysler ever pay us (you and me) back? Did he lock any workers in a factory, to prevent them from stealing a few chickens -- only to have many of them die in a fire -- unable to escape through the fire escapes that were chained shut? I've heard that he's a bit of a tightwad -- but has he bounced any checks recently? ... Even if he did, we certainly we didn't elect him to make our laws and oversee our federal budget. He isn't guilty of the hypocrisy that he can blatantly kite hundreds of checks, interest free on a whim where "we the people" would have certainly been jailed for fraud. (I had a friend who was almost convicted of fraud for kiting checks -- wrong I agree; but she was doing it to feed herself and hunt for work. She made full restitution with interest. Did any of our "exemplary" lawmakers pay their bills?) If you're looking for villains -- if you want to speak out against atrocities, crimes and injustice go pick up a newspaper -- or save a tree and read some news on Clarinet. Compared to the people I've alluded to Gates is a folk hero -- no -- a "Saint!" > world. Please visit www.simwell.com/stopgates, and let me know if we may > offer a link to your home page; as we feel that your system is the best > alternative to all of the Windows NT based servers. I look forward to > your timely reply. Thank you. I probably shouldn't post this to the whole list -- it really doesn't have much to do with FreeBSD. But it is so frustrating to see someone express such hostility to a relatively harmless nerd while ignoring the rest of the world. It's really depressing that so many people are willing to participate in sideshows like this, or like the O.J. "trial of the century," or William Kennedy Smith Trial, or any of the petty scandals (frankly I don't care what sorts of imaginary friends the first lady talks to, or which astrologer one of her predecessors consulted, or who the President is sleeping with, or how often a former president was napping). It's even more depressing that the people who buy tabloids are among the diminishing portion of the populace that bother to read anything at all. Even Bill Gates makes me a bit sad. I wonder what drives someone to be such a control freak and so profit- driven that *billions* of dollars and dominance of over 70% of an industry for over a decade still isn't enough. I've seen him speak in person several times over the last few years -- and frankly he doesn't seem happy. I suppose it's inevitable that the richest "self-made" billionaire would have to that insecure since any sane person would "get a life" after making the first few million dollars and seeing his name become a household word. Peter Norton is my hero. I've met him only once (though I worked for his company for a few years). Now there's a man who seems genuinely *happy*. I'll take what's behind door number two, Monty. > Kenneth Gardner > Stopgates All, Please direct any flames or follow-ups to me alone. I'll apologize in advance for posting this as it is off-topic. However I do hope that it sets some people to thinking. Jim Dennis, StopGates--bashing
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199608121254.FAA20922>