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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Father Terrence who wrote (22562)	5/30/1998 2:04:00 AM
From: Lady Lurksalot	Respond to of 108807

FT, Gates or Clinton . . . that's a toughie. I'll have to give some serious consideration to that question and to the food for thought you offered in you other post re Gates just south of this one. Meanwhile, I must disconnect from the Net and go earn a living with DESQview, QEMM, WordPerfect, SmartKey, Lotus Magellan, Procomm Plus, and, one of my only two concessions to Mr. Gates and his empire, MS-DOS. I shall return! Holly

To: Father Terrence who wrote (22562)	5/30/1998 1:55:00 PM
From: Lady Lurksalot	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 108807

FT, The question is: Who do I admire least, Gates or Clinton. After much thought and soul-searching, I must conclude that I do not admire either. Both have traded and gained on deception and glitzy hype and the innovation and work of others, as opposed to anything of particular merit they themselves have done. Neither has done much of anything that bodes well for the here and now or for the future. My answer is: Neither is, to me, less admirable than the other. It's Hobson's choice. Had your question been: Which one do I feel LEAST threatened by, my answer would be Clinton--hands down. Clinton will be gone in a couple of years. Gates and his progeny will likely be with us forever. My dislike and distrust for Gates stems wholely from his unethical and dishonest and, yes, illegal business practices. To wit: Literally dumping (giving away) Windows when no sensible MIS or PC user would buy it, as he now is apparently doing with Internet Explorer. His take it or leave it gorilla software licensing contracts with OEMs, to the detriment of the OEMs AND the endusers. Writing software patches to DOS and Windows for the sole purpose of rendering competitors' products incompatible and unusable, while calling these patches bug fixes and enhancements (a fine example of stealth language); Remember "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run?" Announcing products as eminent which he knew to be vaporware, the purpose being to hamper and stymie software production by his competitors. Ostensibly entering into negotiations with other companies, while stealing their technology for his own use and financial gain. You might say these companies could sue, and at last one that I know of did but is now out of business. Few if any companies are able to go against the clout and deep pockets of Gates and Microsoft and survive. Gates has, by legal (although decidedly unethical) and illegal means, singlehandedly gained great power and near-total control of the computer industry. He has, by these inarguably illegal and unethical methods, put a number businesses out of business and many people out of work--both in and out of the computer industry, thereby stifling and eliminating choice and competition necessary to the free-market system. I would not argue that Gates is a marketing genius, a talent I believe he shares with Clinton. The Windows environment or interface (I refuse to call it an OS; it is not) has been around much longer than most people realize. Nobody wanted or would buy this chunky piece of junk. Had Gates not given Windows away in great quantities to get it out the doors of Microsoft and force it onto the computing public, this sorry excuse for software would have remained shelfware. Back in the early 1990s when Gates began dumping his second iteration of Windows and writing the magical and mystical software patches mentioned above, I remarked that a PC is called a PC--personal computer--for a reason, and I resented deeply the fact that it was my PC these cowboys were fighting over at my expense. At the time, few people understood what I was trying to say. Most still don't. Thank you for reminding me of Gates' recent acquisition of a piece of Apple Computers. I had indeed forgotten that unfortunate turn of events--another reason for the thinking people in cyberspace to be threatened by Gates' increasing domination of their personal computers. The DOJ missed virtually any opportunity to reverse these inequities many years ago when Gates was on its platter and its response amounted to a quick slap on his wrists, telling him, in essence to go forth and sin no more. By then it was much too late. Ironically, Gates has prospered largely because inaction by the DOJ at a time such lawful action would have, in all probability, preserved and maintained balance and choice in the market. I think that most any actions the DOJ is considering and might take at this point could do more harm than good, and for a long time to come. There was a cartoon in Business Week a while back, entitled, "What Bill Gates Dreams." It depicted a peacefully sleeping, smiling BG, replete with toothy grin and spectacles, Anne Bingeman and another DOJ drone. Bingeman was remarking to the other drone that now everyone everywhere in the world was required to pay some sort of royalty to Bill Gates, and there was not a thing that could be done about it. Holly