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Stallman Feeds Gates His Own Words
soloport writes "C|Net has published an article, written by RMS, in which Stallman points out that Gates is merely calling the kettle communist. Toward the end of the article, Stallman strengthens his point by feeding Bill his own words. Back in 1991, Bill said, in an internal memo: 'If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.' Now, if only Bill were as clear-minded on the subjects of Innovation and Interoperability."
What would it take to get a story like this onto the desk of every Gates-worshipping, MSFT-stock-owning, spyware-infested-Windows-machine-running, Gartner-Group-report-reading, pointy-haired boss?
i'm sorry, but that's fucking brilliant.... can we mod up more please???!?!?!?
In a world with software patents, Microsoft has no choice. Stallman, being essentially a caricature, blames them for a world they didn't create, but do have to live in. Now that Microsoft has a bunch of capital in the form of patents amassed to defend itself, it's only reasonable to protect it's position. People will usually choose certainty over uncertainty.
Stallman's irrational denial of reason in the pursuit of a sweet but foolish ideal doesn't exactly make him the most effective choice for a poster boy.
He deserves a good bashing.
I hope no one takes what I said 14 years ago and uses it against me. I'm quite sure my opinions on many things have changed over time. RMS has fallen out of the news lately so he had to dig up something to get noticed. He's the North Korea of software. If he's not getting attention he has to make some noise, no matter how silly, so people will look his way.
In other words, nothing to see here, move along.