Dan
I understand now. You are an idealist. The world would be better
is Microsoft were minced meat. Well, it would not. Others would
become king of the hill.
When faced with something that I don't like, I have always found
that the Shirley Temple paradigm works best: Give me what I want
or I'll hold my breath forever. I'm sure that your hero Big BG
would evaporate into the ether, we were to try it.
Re: Lessig
I knew of his background. It certainly looks impressive. But
consider this. In doing all of this clerking and teaching, he
has never had to hold a real job. His standing at Harvard is
dependent on the amount that he publishes, for whom he does
consulting and who he sues or defends. I see nothing abnormal
or bad in his trying to hustle some part time work. It is
expected. I can understand that he needed or wanted extra
money.
But please don't confuse being any kind of lawyer with purity
of spirit or of motivation. Lawyers as a class are not like
that and the law has nothing to do with justice, truth,morality
or ethics. It is simply choosing a side in a dispute- or being
chosen and using everything and anything to prevail. And of
course rule number one- make sure that your client can and
does pay. I have sworn not to use expletives on the internet,
but I must say it anyway, lawyers are expletive deleted. To
summarize, Lessig is a jerk; a well educated lawyer, but still
a jerk. And this is amply demonstrated by his famous phone call
which also indicates terminal sycophancy.
The theoretical basis for the DOJ's law suit is not accepted
by many leading economic scholars- see the works of Paul
Klugman, for example.
Put yourself in Bill Gates shoes for a minute. Your company is
incredibly big. Even though you don't have many people you must
have your company 10 % per quarter. How do you do this, Dan.
The first thing is to assure that your cash cow does not loose
market share. You do this by updating the technology frequently
so that people can justify buying your new operating system and
you do this as often as you can. Tight integration of the OS
with internet stuff is only an excuse. It could have been
something else- voice recognition, for example.
No Dan, I can not agree that the PC operating system would be
better is it were designed by the government with, as George
Bushs said in another context , has the compassion of the IRS
and the efficiency [and inteligence] of the post office.
Gene |
