"Apt-get is better than the RPM system or no system at all but it's a long way from downloading an install file and having it do its job without having to sift through a giant repository"
You could not be more wrong. Let's run through a scenario shall we.
Let's say you wanted a program to keep track of your recipes.
In windows you would...
1) Go to download.com or google and do a search.
2) Once you found something that looked good you would download it and save it to your disk. 2a) If it's zipped then unzip it. 3) Open up explorer, go to the right directory and run through the install.
In debian...
apt-cache search apt-get install
Voila!
"And the reason I can't install Debian is, as my post indicated, because of my internet connection. It simply won't attach to the apt sources during the installation."
The fact that you despise apt-get (despise???) simply indicates that you are in the extreme minority of debian users. The fact that you are unable to install debian shows that you are in the minority of linux users.
For every operating system there will be people who hate it, who don't understand it, who are unable to use it. This does not mean that the entire operating system needs to be overhauled to accomodate a small minority of users who just can't get it to work.
Do a survey of debian users I bet 99.999% will say that apt-get is the main reason they use debian and.00000001% will say they "despise" apt-get.
I don't think this survey will make any difference. Do you really think MS is sincere? Will they really stop refering to open source as cancer, will they really stop using the words communist or terrorist when talking about open source?
I really don't think so. Not until they have a serious purging at the top anyway.
"We'll never know for sure how much we owe Israel for doing that."
We don't owe Israel anything. We give them three six billion a year on aid and we are the only reason they still exist as a nation. Why do you think Isreal can bomb any country it wants whenever it wants without fearing retaliation? It's because if anybody retaliates against Israel we will turn their country into a parking lot that's why.
"We started out talking about Bill Gates the person, and I'm talking about whether he's an asshole or not. "He" has not been convicted; Microsoft has."
That is a cop out. MS is not a person. MS is a corporation run by bill gates. If MS commits a crime it didn't do it by using it's non corporal body. It did it by using the words and actions of it's top level management which is headed by Bill Gates. Bill gates is absolutely responsible for all crimes committed by MS.
" The reason why I keep harping on the difference between breaking a law and morality is that there IS a difference, and one can be a perfectly nice, even moral, person but still break a law."
You are right in the abstract case. Of course I could be a nice person and break some law regarding jaywalking or something. But you seem to think that just because you can think of a situation in which a nice person can break the law that means that Bill gates is a nice person. That's a false sylogism. Concentrate on the facts regarding Bill gates and his actions. What he did was wrong, immoral and illegal. Just because it's possible for a nice person to break the law that does not mean Bill Gates is a nice person.
"Thank you for the links. The only one, though, that I put any weight on is the Stac case"
In that case you need to keep reading. You are wilfully keeping yourself ignorant of the situation. ATT, Apple, Borland, Sendo, Eolas, IBM, SAP and a whole slew of other companies have filed suits and settled for hundreds of thousands of dollars with MS. Maybe if it was just one company you can chalk it up to some sort of a fluke but this is unprecedented.
Look at the actual words spoken by Bill gates himself. He himself acknowledged that he was treading on somebody elses patent and shrugged it off by saying "sue me!". If that is not the behavior of an asshole jerk I don't know what is.
"Yes, I would (well, not "MS" of course but the people who did it and the people who have responsibility for it). Except that if you use examples like violating business method patents or even examples of copyright infringement, only one of which resulted in a spanking, I'm not going to agree very easily."
Well then the stac case ought to be enough right? Or is your position that it's OK to steal just once? How about the quicktime suit? How about the Eolas suit if you recall eolas won that suit and now it's in the appeals process. How about the settlement with borland and Corel. How about AT&Ts suit for speech recognition technology that MS stole. The Sendo case is pretty telling too why don't you read about that one for a while. The list goes on and on. Just do some research.
"Who, specifically?"
Do I really have to do your research for you? Just do a google search. You will see that CEOs of major retailers like gateway and Compaq were threatened that the price of windows would go up for them if they testified against MS.
"Ideally, I'm looking for the evidence that a jury decided was true as the finders of fact in a trial."
It's a part of the trial record. It was brought out in testimony under oath. The justice dept never followed up and charged MS with witness tampering though.
"I do, but I don't remember the aftermath -- what happened to that?"
Nothing. Like I said the justice dept decided not to go after MS for evidence tampering, witness tampering or perjury even though they had a rock solid case for all three. The perjury case was obvious as Bill gates clearly lied under oath, MS admitted that they tampered with the video tape and the fact that they tried to intimidate witnesses came out under cross examination.
"You're right, I don't, and I appreciate the links. But you have to understand that I don't think you have all the facts, either, or at least are discounting EVERY Microsoft/Gates fact even when not all facts should fairly be discounted."
Nobody has all the facts. Nobody can have all the facts. I have more facts then you. I have lots of facts that paint a picture of an immoral sleazy man who runs a immoral sleazy company which will repeatedly lie, cheat and steal in order to make more money. There can be no disputing that. The evidence is all over the place.
Re:I am committed to delivering ...
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More E-Voting SNAFUs
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· Score: 2, Informative
"It does seem a bit suspicious if he's making that statement to one side and not the other though, but I don't think it's a smoking gun."
He is a lifelong republican, he was writing the the republican donors.
" Actually, if you look at who wants more registration and who wants to make Election Day a national holiday (or, hell, moving it to a weekend day), it's pretty clear that the left wants more participation and easier voting, and the right wants more restrictions on registration and harder voting."
The answer is simple and obvious. Move election day to July 4th. There is no better way to celebrate your independence then to vote. It's already a holiday. It's summer time so it would be easier for the handicapped and the elderly to get to the polls without having to deal with harsh conditions.
How hard is it to move the election up by a few months?
Why is that OK with you? Why is somebody who breaks laws a better person then somebody who did not break laws? You judge ellison harshly even though he has never been charged with a crime and you want to give Bill gates a pass even though he has been convicted.
"But I haven't heard anything about outright stealing technology;"
In that case you have your head buried in the sand. Sendo, Priceline , and Stac are just a few of the victims of theft of Intellectual property by MS. I am not talking about copying applications here I am talking about out and out stealing of technology and breaking contracts. Here is a quote from one of the articles I linked to. During one of those meetings, Priceline said Microsoft CEO Bill Gates told Priceline founder Jay Walker that he wasn't going to let patent infringement claims stand in his way.
According to a Priceline press release announcing the suit, "Mr. Gates went on to say that many other companies were suing Microsoft for patent infringement and that priceline.com could, in effect, get in line."
Further down the article. This is not the first time a company has claimed that Microsoft stole its technology after meeting to discuss a business relationship.
In December 1998, Goldtouch Technologies sued the software giant, saying Microsoft illegally copied its design for an ergonomic mouse after the two companies had discussed the product.
Other companies who've sued Microsoft for patent infringement include Eolas Technologies, which claimed earlier this year that the Redmond, Wash., giant infringed upon a plug-in patent. And in 1994, a jury ordered Microsoft to settle with Stac Electronics Inc. for violating a data-compression patent.
MS has a history of sleazy behavior like this.
"Give me more information, and then I can make a proper judgment."
I have provided you with a few links, google can provide much more.
"But I'm not really arguing that they didn't do those things"
Why not? If they did lie, cheat and steal is it OK with you? Is that moral? If I could prove to you that MS lied cheated and stole would you agree with me that they are immoral? My guess is that you don't think there is anything wrong with lying, cheating and stealing as long it's done in the name of making money.
"I asked those questions in order to contrast against Philip Morris's own violations of mores and laws, in order to show that there's complexity in the issues."
It's not that complex. Both Phillip Morris and MS are immoral companies doing immoral things. You can argue about the degree of immorality but that's a hollow argument. that's like saying one mass murderer is less immoral then another one because he killed less people.
"But are they being immoral? What are they being immoral about? Destroying other people's things? I guess in itself that's immoral."
Yes they are being immoral. Yes destroying other people's property is immoral and illegal.
"But are you trying to say there's absolutely no justification for such things? There's never a time when destroying somebody else's things is NOT immoral?"
I never said and I'd appreciate it if you did not put words into my mouth. There may very well be circumstances when it's OK to destroy other people's property. You keep trying to muddy up the issue by throwing up these stupid straw man arguments but I am not going to bite.
"Why is it so hard for you to believe that morality and ethics are a complicated issue? Countless people have struggled with these issues for thousands of years because it's so complicated, yet you seem to think it's black and white.'
It's not hard for me to believe th
Re:Ellsion Was defined by Negative Space of Gates
on
Everyone Else Must Fail
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· Score: 2, Insightful
" My point in all of this is that you can't condemn someone on the basis of two colorful phrases."
I am not. These two phrases don't stand alone. They are taken in context with a world of words and actions from the same top level execs at MS.
"I hesitate to judge the PEOPLE as evil simply on their choice of words. "
First of all it'e perfectly OK to judge people by what they say. You are judging Ellison by what he says aren't you? Secondly I am not "simply" judging them by what they say I am aslo judging them by what they do.
" for example, leveraging your monopoly position in a market is immoral! It's illegal, it's unethical (because it's illegal and general business practice avoids it), but immoral? Whose morals?"
Wow what an odd statement. First of all Bill Gates has done much worse then things then leveraging his monopoly. He has also stolen technology from his partners, he has reneged on contracts, he has stolen customers from his partners, he has lied repeatedly and backstabbed just about everybody he partnered up with.
Secondly yes being unethical and breaking the law is immoral. Whose morals? Well just about anybodies. Did your mother tell you it was OK to be unethical? Did your mother tell you to break the law in order to make money? What moral system approves of unethical and illegal behavior. I can only think of one structure of thought that has no problem with unethical and illegal behaviour and that is satanism.
"Judging from your signature, I would think that you probably believe manufacturers who help design and build bombs or guns or other military goods are immoral. Am I right? Do you think capitalism is immoral? [I suspect you do.]"
I believe that everybody in the chain of an immoral act bears some responsiblity no matter how small. I as a taxpayer bear a minute percentage of responsiblity for the bombs that fall on innocent children in afghanistan. There are others that bear more responsiblity with the brunt of it being borne by the pilot who released the bomb. My signature refers to our obsession and love affair with war. The US is unable to go 10 years without declaring war on somebody or another. It's necrophelia love of death, love of corpses. We revere war, we revere warriors.
As for capitalism I do think it's immoral in the christian sense. Christianity (as thought by christ) and Capitalism are mutually exclusive. Love of money is the root of all evil and capitalism is based on love of money. It is harder for a rich man to get to heaven then for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Capitalism is based on the deadly sins. Where would capitalism be without Greed, gluttony, covetousness, pride, sloth, lust etc?
"What universal mores did Microsoft people break? What laws did Microsoft people break?"
Lying, cheating, stealing to start with. Are you aware that there was a trial and that MS was found guilty?
"Also, I'm quite surprised by your belief that people who have a more fluid idea of morality -- e.g., looking at the context ("situational" morality, as you put it) -- are themselves immoral and unethical!!"
I never said such a thing.
"but what about "environmental terrorists"? Are they immoral for causing such destruction in the name of protecting the environment? Are they unethical?"
If they caused destruction then yes they were immoral. Why is that so hard to understand for you? If you kill people, destroy other peoples property, lie, cheat, steal etc you are immoral. In most cases you are also a criminal and deserve to be punished according to the law. If you are an environmentalist and you destroy a logging truck then you should be tried for vandalism and be fined or jailed. Why is that concept so foreign to you?
"Is he immoral in all his business dealings?"
No. Does he have to be? Is it OK for him to be immoral in 90% of his business dealings? Is it OK to be 10% immoral? He is immoral in a lot of his business dealings.
Great. I guess that disqualifies 99% of all senators who have ever served.
Lucky for them the rest of the population does not feel like you do.
Re:Ellsion Was defined by Negative Space of Gates
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Everyone Else Must Fail
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· Score: 2, Insightful
"But those quotes are clearly metaphorical, not literal; there's absolutely no question that a baby and someone's trachea were not being"
They may be metaphorical but in the entire universe of metaphors top level MS executives chose ones that are gross and violent. As I said this is serial killer talk not normal people talk. I use metaphors all the time but I would never have chosen imagery like that.
It's obvious to me that this kind of talk goes on all the time at MS headquarters.
"Gates could be the nicest guy around, but still run his business ruthlessly"
I could not disagree with you more. The definition of morality does not change when you clock in to work and when you go home. If you are an honest, ethical person then you will behave that way no matter what. I acknowledge that some people have sliding scales of morality or situational ethics but by definition those people are immoral and unethical. Morality is built into your character and shows in all your actions.
Bill Gates is immoral in his business dealings which makes him an immoral person. Ethical people don't spend 8 hours a day screwing people, it just does not work that way.
"Gates is certainly a nicer person to work for and with."
He is a known and habitual backstabber. He has betrayed just about every company he has set up partnerships with. He has stolen technology and customers from strategic parners.
Maybe he treats his employees well and therefore is nice to work for but he betrays the people he works with.
"but I can't imagine Bill Gates ever saying "Maybe I should fire a few Maverick missiles in his [Ellison's] living room" "
I am not so sure. This is the same company that put out memos using gross terminology like "knife the baby" and "cut off the air supply". This is serial killer talk. I don't know if the terminology originated with gates but he did not raise any objections to it.
"He's ruthless like a ruthless Monopoly game player -- bend the rules, maybe even cheat, be a poor loser, but it's still just a game."
You are making up to be some sort a bafoon. Sure he wants to project that image (and many people have bought it apparently) but I think you are very wrong. Good honest decent people don't lie, cheat, steal, and break the law habitually.
"Put it this way: if Larry were to lose Oracle and all of his money, I think Larry would be plotting someone's death."
That's just bullshit. How did you arrive that bit of anlysis? You have psychic abilities or something.
Why not? Isn't MS the only real threat to Oracle? Maybe IBM too but surely it would be a huge mistake not to keep tabs on MS.
Also don't forget the Gates is just as ruthless as ellison if not more so. I think Ellison understands exactly what Gates is capable of and wants to make sure he does not end up on the long list Gates victims.
"That sig was written after getting mod-bombed for a legitimate criticism of Mozilla."
Often times the moderation on slashdot is not fair but then again there is no law saying we have to hang out here at all.
I don't know what your critism was but most of the time when I hear people critizise Mozilla here it's either based on total ignorance, out and lies,or something to the order of "mozilla has different key mappings then IE so therefore it sucks" or "it won't run activeX controls so it sucks". Critizing Mozilla for not acting EXACTLY like some other browser , critizing it for something they have publicly stated they will never support should legitemately be modded down.
You know that ambassadors are pretty much rubber stamped. Only rarely do they get held up. I do remember that the republicans held up one nomination because he was gay though.
"Slashdot's love affair with Mozilla is nauseating."
My love affair with Mozilla is satisfying. Sometimes when I am on somebody elses computer I use IE and it constantly surprises me how much it sucks. I usually end up downloading Moz for them and setting it up. It's not fair that people I know should suffer by using an inferior browser.
"Those all say pretty much the same thing as the Washington Times,"
What that some iraqi complained about the UN? Ooooh well that must mean that the Washing times is not a right wing publication financed by the reverend sung yung moon then!.
What the fuck? Doesn't the US administration compalin about the UN full time?
Re:How will H usage affect this?
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Global Dimming
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· Score: 1
In other words it will exactly like gasoline is today.
Yes it is. It's a very convenient way to stop wasting my time listening to the type of people who would read a publication like that. Anybody who reads the washington times is incabable of thinking rationally. I don't want to single them out of course. I would also not waste my time listening to bible thumpers, islamic jihadists or anybody else who is driven by idiology rather then rationality.
The US taxpayers sure are getting reamed on this arent' they. They pay for the bombs, they pay to destroy things, then they pay to get them repaired. What's worse this money will be spread around to 60 different countries making other people rich.
When it's all said and done over a hundred billion dollars of the US taxpayers money will be sread around the rest of the world. I guess we don't really need that money after all do we?
Slashdot Mirror
"Apt-get is better than the RPM system or no system at all but it's a long way from downloading an install file and having it do its job without having to sift through a giant repository"
You could not be more wrong. Let's run through a scenario shall we.
Let's say you wanted a program to keep track of your recipes.
In windows you would...
1) Go to download.com or google and do a search.
2) Once you found something that looked good you would download it and save it to your disk.
2a) If it's zipped then unzip it.
3) Open up explorer, go to the right directory and run through the install.
In debian...
apt-cache search
apt-get install
Voila!
"And the reason I can't install Debian is, as my post indicated, because of my internet connection. It simply won't attach to the apt sources during the installation."
Go to cheap bytes and spend two dollars on a CD.
The fact that you despise apt-get (despise???) simply indicates that you are in the extreme minority of debian users. The fact that you are unable to install debian shows that you are in the minority of linux users.
.00000001% will say they "despise" apt-get.
For every operating system there will be people who hate it, who don't understand it, who are unable to use it. This does not mean that the entire operating system needs to be overhauled to accomodate a small minority of users who just can't get it to work.
Do a survey of debian users I bet 99.999% will say that apt-get is the main reason they use debian and
I don't think this survey will make any difference. Do you really think MS is sincere? Will they really stop refering to open source as cancer, will they really stop using the words communist or terrorist when talking about open source?
I really don't think so. Not until they have a serious purging at the top anyway.
"We'll never know for sure how much we owe Israel for doing that."
We don't owe Israel anything. We give them three six billion a year on aid and we are the only reason they still exist as a nation. Why do you think Isreal can bomb any country it wants whenever it wants without fearing retaliation? It's because if anybody retaliates against Israel we will turn their country into a parking lot that's why.
"We started out talking about Bill Gates the person, and I'm talking about whether he's an asshole or not. "He" has not been convicted; Microsoft has."
That is a cop out. MS is not a person. MS is a corporation run by bill gates. If MS commits a crime it didn't do it by using it's non corporal body. It did it by using the words and actions of it's top level management which is headed by Bill Gates. Bill gates is absolutely responsible for all crimes committed by MS.
" The reason why I keep harping on the difference between breaking a law and morality is that there IS a difference, and one can be a perfectly nice, even moral, person but still break a law."
You are right in the abstract case. Of course I could be a nice person and break some law regarding jaywalking or something. But you seem to think that just because you can think of a situation in which a nice person can break the law that means that Bill gates is a nice person. That's a false sylogism. Concentrate on the facts regarding Bill gates and his actions. What he did was wrong, immoral and illegal. Just because it's possible for a nice person to break the law that does not mean Bill Gates is a nice person.
"Thank you for the links. The only one, though, that I put any weight on is the Stac case"
In that case you need to keep reading. You are wilfully keeping yourself ignorant of the situation. ATT, Apple, Borland, Sendo, Eolas, IBM, SAP and a whole slew of other companies have filed suits and settled for hundreds of thousands of dollars with MS. Maybe if it was just one company you can chalk it up to some sort of a fluke but this is unprecedented.
Look at the actual words spoken by Bill gates himself. He himself acknowledged that he was treading on somebody elses patent and shrugged it off by saying "sue me!". If that is not the behavior of an asshole jerk I don't know what is.
"Yes, I would (well, not "MS" of course but the people who did it and the people who have responsibility for it). Except that if you use examples like violating business method patents or even examples of copyright infringement, only one of which resulted in a spanking, I'm not going to agree very easily."
Well then the stac case ought to be enough right? Or is your position that it's OK to steal just once? How about the quicktime suit? How about the Eolas suit if you recall eolas won that suit and now it's in the appeals process. How about the settlement with borland and Corel. How about AT&Ts suit for speech recognition technology that MS stole. The Sendo case is pretty telling too why don't you read about that one for a while. The list goes on and on. Just do some research.
"Who, specifically?"
Do I really have to do your research for you? Just do a google search. You will see that CEOs of major retailers like gateway and Compaq were threatened that the price of windows would go up for them if they testified against MS.
"Ideally, I'm looking for the evidence that a jury decided was true as the finders of fact in a trial."
It's a part of the trial record. It was brought out in testimony under oath. The justice dept never followed up and charged MS with witness tampering though.
"I do, but I don't remember the aftermath -- what happened to that?"
Nothing. Like I said the justice dept decided not to go after MS for evidence tampering, witness tampering or perjury even though they had a rock solid case for all three. The perjury case was obvious as Bill gates clearly lied under oath, MS admitted that they tampered with the video tape and the fact that they tried to intimidate witnesses came out under cross examination.
"You're right, I don't, and I appreciate the links. But you have to understand that I don't think you have all the facts, either, or at least are discounting EVERY Microsoft/Gates fact even when not all facts should fairly be discounted."
Nobody has all the facts. Nobody can have all the facts. I have more facts then you. I have lots of facts that paint a picture of an immoral sleazy man who runs a immoral sleazy company which will repeatedly lie, cheat and steal in order to make more money. There can be no disputing that. The evidence is all over the place.
"It does seem a bit suspicious if he's making that statement to one side and not the other though, but I don't think it's a smoking gun."
He is a lifelong republican, he was writing the the republican donors.
" Actually, if you look at who wants more registration and who wants to make Election Day a national holiday (or, hell, moving it to a weekend day), it's pretty clear that the left wants more participation and easier voting, and the right wants more restrictions on registration and harder voting."
The answer is simple and obvious. Move election day to July 4th. There is no better way to celebrate your independence then to vote. It's already a holiday. It's summer time so it would be easier for the handicapped and the elderly to get to the polls without having to deal with harsh conditions.
How hard is it to move the election up by a few months?
"Microsoft has broken some laws, too, yes."
Why is that OK with you? Why is somebody who breaks laws a better person then somebody who did not break laws? You judge ellison harshly even though he has never been charged with a crime and you want to give Bill gates a pass even though he has been convicted.
"But I haven't heard anything about outright stealing technology;"
In that case you have your head buried in the sand. Sendo, Priceline , and Stac are just a few of the victims of theft of Intellectual property by MS. I am not talking about copying applications here I am talking about out and out stealing of technology and breaking contracts. Here is a quote from one of the articles I linked to.
During one of those meetings, Priceline said Microsoft CEO Bill Gates told Priceline founder Jay Walker that he wasn't going to let patent infringement claims stand in his way.
According to a Priceline press release announcing the suit, "Mr. Gates went on to say that many other companies were suing Microsoft for patent infringement and that priceline.com could, in effect, get in line."
Further down the article.
This is not the first time a company has claimed that Microsoft stole its technology after meeting to discuss a business relationship.
In December 1998, Goldtouch Technologies sued the software giant, saying Microsoft illegally copied its design for an ergonomic mouse after the two companies had discussed the product.
Other companies who've sued Microsoft for patent infringement include Eolas Technologies, which claimed earlier this year that the Redmond, Wash., giant infringed upon a plug-in patent. And in 1994, a jury ordered Microsoft to settle with Stac Electronics Inc. for violating a data-compression patent.
MS has a history of sleazy behavior like this.
"Give me more information, and then I can make a proper judgment."
I have provided you with a few links, google can provide much more.
"But I'm not really arguing that they didn't do those things"
Why not? If they did lie, cheat and steal is it OK with you? Is that moral? If I could prove to you that MS lied cheated and stole would you agree with me that they are immoral? My guess is that you don't think there is anything wrong with lying, cheating and stealing as long it's done in the name of making money.
"I asked those questions in order to contrast against Philip Morris's own violations of mores and laws, in order to show that there's complexity in the issues."
It's not that complex. Both Phillip Morris and MS are immoral companies doing immoral things. You can argue about the degree of immorality but that's a hollow argument. that's like saying one mass murderer is less immoral then another one because he killed less people.
"But are they being immoral? What are they being immoral about? Destroying other people's things? I guess in itself that's immoral."
Yes they are being immoral. Yes destroying other people's property is immoral and illegal.
"But are you trying to say there's absolutely no justification for such things? There's never a time when destroying somebody else's things is NOT immoral?"
I never said and I'd appreciate it if you did not put words into my mouth. There may very well be circumstances when it's OK to destroy other people's property. You keep trying to muddy up the issue by throwing up these stupid straw man arguments but I am not going to bite.
"Why is it so hard for you to believe that morality and ethics are a complicated issue? Countless people have struggled with these issues for thousands of years because it's so complicated, yet you seem to think it's black and white.'
It's not hard for me to believe th
" My point in all of this is that you can't condemn someone on the basis of two colorful phrases."
I am not. These two phrases don't stand alone. They are taken in context with a world of words and actions from the same top level execs at MS.
"I hesitate to judge the PEOPLE as evil simply on their choice of words. "
First of all it'e perfectly OK to judge people by what they say. You are judging Ellison by what he says aren't you? Secondly I am not "simply" judging them by what they say I am aslo judging them by what they do.
" for example, leveraging your monopoly position in a market is immoral! It's illegal, it's unethical (because it's illegal and general business practice avoids it), but immoral? Whose morals?"
Wow what an odd statement. First of all Bill Gates has done much worse then things then leveraging his monopoly. He has also stolen technology from his partners, he has reneged on contracts, he has stolen customers from his partners, he has lied repeatedly and backstabbed just about everybody he partnered up with.
Secondly yes being unethical and breaking the law is immoral. Whose morals? Well just about anybodies. Did your mother tell you it was OK to be unethical? Did your mother tell you to break the law in order to make money? What moral system approves of unethical and illegal behavior. I can only think of one structure of thought that has no problem with unethical and illegal behaviour and that is satanism.
"Judging from your signature, I would think that you probably believe manufacturers who help design and build bombs or guns or other military goods are immoral. Am I right? Do you think capitalism is immoral? [I suspect you do.]"
I believe that everybody in the chain of an immoral act bears some responsiblity no matter how small. I as a taxpayer bear a minute percentage of responsiblity for the bombs that fall on innocent children in afghanistan. There are others that bear more responsiblity with the brunt of it being borne by the pilot who released the bomb. My signature refers to our obsession and love affair with war. The US is unable to go 10 years without declaring war on somebody or another. It's necrophelia love of death, love of corpses. We revere war, we revere warriors.
As for capitalism I do think it's immoral in the christian sense. Christianity (as thought by christ) and Capitalism are mutually exclusive. Love of money is the root of all evil and capitalism is based on love of money. It is harder for a rich man to get to heaven then for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Capitalism is based on the deadly sins. Where would capitalism be without Greed, gluttony, covetousness, pride, sloth, lust etc?
"What universal mores did Microsoft people break? What laws did Microsoft people break?"
Lying, cheating, stealing to start with. Are you aware that there was a trial and that MS was found guilty?
"Also, I'm quite surprised by your belief that people who have a more fluid idea of morality -- e.g., looking at the context ("situational" morality, as you put it) -- are themselves immoral and unethical!!"
I never said such a thing.
"but what about "environmental terrorists"? Are they immoral for causing such destruction in the name of protecting the environment? Are they unethical?"
If they caused destruction then yes they were immoral. Why is that so hard to understand for you? If you kill people, destroy other peoples property, lie, cheat, steal etc you are immoral. In most cases you are also a criminal and deserve to be punished according to the law. If you are an environmentalist and you destroy a logging truck then you should be tried for vandalism and be fined or jailed. Why is that concept so foreign to you?
"Is he immoral in all his business dealings?"
No. Does he have to be? Is it OK for him to be immoral in 90% of his business dealings? Is it OK to be 10% immoral? He is immoral in a lot of his business dealings.
"But I seriously don't th
I read your post. It seemed to me like a critism of slashdot and not mozilla. I don't know if that makes any difference but that was my impression.
Great. I guess that disqualifies 99% of all senators who have ever served.
Lucky for them the rest of the population does not feel like you do.
"But those quotes are clearly metaphorical, not literal; there's absolutely no question that a baby and someone's trachea were not being"
They may be metaphorical but in the entire universe of metaphors top level MS executives chose ones that are gross and violent. As I said this is serial killer talk not normal people talk. I use metaphors all the time but I would never have chosen imagery like that.
It's obvious to me that this kind of talk goes on all the time at MS headquarters.
"Gates could be the nicest guy around, but still run his business ruthlessly"
I could not disagree with you more. The definition of morality does not change when you clock in to work and when you go home. If you are an honest, ethical person then you will behave that way no matter what. I acknowledge that some people have sliding scales of morality or situational ethics but by definition those people are immoral and unethical. Morality is built into your character and shows in all your actions.
Bill Gates is immoral in his business dealings which makes him an immoral person. Ethical people don't spend 8 hours a day screwing people, it just does not work that way.
"Gates is certainly a nicer person to work for and with."
He is a known and habitual backstabber. He has betrayed just about every company he has set up partnerships with. He has stolen technology and customers from strategic parners.
Maybe he treats his employees well and therefore is nice to work for but he betrays the people he works with.
"but I can't imagine Bill Gates ever saying "Maybe I should fire a few Maverick missiles in his [Ellison's] living room" "
I am not so sure. This is the same company that put out memos using gross terminology like "knife the baby" and "cut off the air supply". This is serial killer talk. I don't know if the terminology originated with gates but he did not raise any objections to it.
"He's ruthless like a ruthless Monopoly game player -- bend the rules, maybe even cheat, be a poor loser, but it's still just a game."
You are making up to be some sort a bafoon. Sure he wants to project that image (and many people have bought it apparently) but I think you are very wrong. Good honest decent people don't lie, cheat, steal, and break the law habitually.
"Put it this way: if Larry were to lose Oracle and all of his money, I think Larry would be plotting someone's death."
That's just bullshit. How did you arrive that bit of anlysis? You have psychic abilities or something.
Why not? Isn't MS the only real threat to Oracle? Maybe IBM too but surely it would be a huge mistake not to keep tabs on MS.
Also don't forget the Gates is just as ruthless as ellison if not more so. I think Ellison understands exactly what Gates is capable of and wants to make sure he does not end up on the long list Gates victims.
What kind of a book would you expect if you only talked to people who hate the guy?
This is nothing more then trolling.
"That sig was written after getting mod-bombed for a legitimate criticism of Mozilla."
Often times the moderation on slashdot is not fair but then again there is no law saying we have to hang out here at all.
I don't know what your critism was but most of the time when I hear people critizise Mozilla here it's either based on total ignorance, out and lies,or something to the order of "mozilla has different key mappings then IE so therefore it sucks" or "it won't run activeX controls so it sucks". Critizing Mozilla for not acting EXACTLY like some other browser , critizing it for something they have publicly stated they will never support should legitemately be modded down.
You know that ambassadors are pretty much rubber stamped. Only rarely do they get held up. I do remember that the republicans held up one nomination because he was gay though.
I could see how an absolute retarded idiot could translate my post that.
"Slashdot's love affair with Mozilla is nauseating."
My love affair with Mozilla is satisfying. Sometimes when I am on somebody elses computer I use IE and it constantly surprises me how much it sucks. I usually end up downloading Moz for them and setting it up. It's not fair that people I know should suffer by using an inferior browser.
That's why we have trials in this country. It will all come out in court eventually unless of course MS decides to settle.
"Those all say pretty much the same thing as the Washington Times,"
What that some iraqi complained about the UN? Ooooh well that must mean that the Washing times is not a right wing publication financed by the reverend sung yung moon then!.
What the fuck? Doesn't the US administration compalin about the UN full time?
In other words it will exactly like gasoline is today.
"Isn't that convenient."
Yes it is. It's a very convenient way to stop wasting my time listening to the type of people who would read a publication like that. Anybody who reads the washington times is incabable of thinking rationally. I don't want to single them out of course. I would also not waste my time listening to bible thumpers, islamic jihadists or anybody else who is driven by idiology rather then rationality.
The US taxpayers sure are getting reamed on this arent' they. They pay for the bombs, they pay to destroy things, then they pay to get them repaired. What's worse this money will be spread around to 60 different countries making other people rich.
When it's all said and done over a hundred billion dollars of the US taxpayers money will be sread around the rest of the world. I guess we don't really need that money after all do we?