On Tue, May 13, 1997 at 18:03:57 (PDT) Louis Proyect writes:
> Microsoft's emergence as a successful corporation
>is a study in the benefits of privatizing technology created in the public
>sphere. Gates developed a proprietary operating system that was modeled in
>the final analysis on the publicly available Unix for use on IBM personal
>computers. After his initial success, he parlayed operating system
>ownership into a virtual monopoly on applications software. Company after
>company was driven out of business because Microsoft sabotaged their
>ability to gain timely access to new Microsoft operating system protocols
>and standards. This became true especially with the introduction of
>Windows, a rip-off of Apple's Macintosh OS.
>
Speaking of Chairman Bill, the following may of some interest:
JK: Why do you keep [your political views] separate [from your
business]?
BG: Because the alternative is inappropriate. I have my personal
views. Then there's Microsoft, a company that gets involved in
very few political things. My own views are those you'd expect
from somebody who feels like he's been very, very lucky and that
the resources under his command are really society's resources.
And I have to be clever about how I'm going to funnel those back
in.
[...]
JK: [Being so wealthy] strikes you as strange?
BG: Oh, very. Are you kidding? Somebody who has this much money
has a command on society's resources. In my view, it all comes
down to how you use it.
---Bill Gates, in an interview with John Kennedy, in the
February, 1997 issue of _George_, pp. 101-2.
Ah, the burdens of the rich.
Bill
--
William S. Lear | Who is there that sees not that this inextricable labyrinth
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | of reasons of state was artfully invented, lest the people
quid faciendum? | should understand their own affairs, and, understanding,
quaere verum | become inclined to conduct them? ---William Godwin, 1793
