lecturing Bill Gates

on capitalism, is something I never realised I wanted to do until fate gave me the chance. Now, every time I sneeze, banknotes burst out of my pockets and credit cards rattle on the desk. I had expected lots of angry squawking from Linux weenies, but so far there has only been intelligent and civilised feedback.

Update: two Guardian readers complaining that I use “communism” to mean a bad thing; one script kiddie sending me a virus after taking the trouble to look up and fake Zoe Williams’ reader address. “Hello! My 12 year old doughter received this screensaver on a CDROM that was sent to her through advertising. I find it disturbing that children are now being targets of nazi organizations. I would appreciate to hear from you on this matter, as soon as possible. Thank you.”

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One Response to lecturing Bill Gates

  1. Rupert says:

    I covered some of the same ground but from a different angle in a ZDNet leader the other day. I sometimes find it difficult to triage ridiculous statements made by the famous into the standard categories of stuff they actually believe, stuff they don’t actually believe but are saying to fortify the faithful, and stuff they don’t actually believe but are saying to enrage the enemy. (It’s particularly difficult when I’m trying to parse things that Steve Ballmer says when he’s let out on his own).

    In this case, I think that Gates is saying this because he believes it, and he believes it because he can’t see how IP has value for its creators when it’s freed, and because he can’t see that he can’t see how Microsoft can play that game. So therefore the game as normally construed is wrong, and he can best win by doing it his way despite the grinding of gears at the interface between Bill and Reality. It’s worked before.

    I do wonder how deep this goes. Recently, MS’ attempts to contribute to the anti-spam standard foundered because the company refused – at Gates’ personal behest, according to rumour – to relinquish licencing controls over its IP, and nobody could say why this was so difficult for them. And then there’s this interesting article from Saga Magazine (really!) about Gates’ father’s role in getting the B+MG Foundation underway.

    I find I can cope with the eternal IP bollocks better if I think of it as psychological rather than financial. As I’m equally qualified in both fields, I guess I should pick the one that annoys me least…

    R

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