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Re: Gates Mocks $100 Linux Laptop

Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> __/ [ Lobo ] on Thursday 16 March 2006 16:10 \__
>
> > On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 06:09:18 +0000, Roy Schestowitz
> > <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >>All news from the past 10 hours.
> >>
> >>http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060316/tc_nm/microsoft_gates_dc
> >>
> >>,----[ Quote ]
> >>| Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates on Wednesday mocked a
> >>| $100 laptop computer for developing countries being developed with the
> >>| backing of rival Google Inc. at the Massachusetts Institute of
> >>| Technology.
> >>`----
> >
> > "If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a
> > broadband connection and have somebody there who can help support the
> > user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text
> > and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to
> > type," Gates said.
> >
> > Gates is full of FUD. I have a hand cranked flashlight that uses
> > rechargeable batteries and led's. A few minutes of cranking gives me
> > light for over a half hour. No batteries to buy. There is also the
> > option of solar panels for daytime use on those computers.
> >
> > Gate's words here will go down in history and come back to bite him on
> > his ass. Gates is turning into an asshole.
>
> No,  he has simply turned into a fighter. He has begun losing the fight in
> two fronts. One of them is the obvious and predictable one: native O/S and
> the rise of Open Source, which is what he tried to extinguish decades ago,
> namely  when he first got started with BASIC. The other rose from the pen
> Source community and are, in this particular case, giving back by support-
> ing the low-cost laptop.
>
> Any  animal will be friendly until it feels threatened. Sometimes I  think
> that  Gates  is an animal, but not as often as I think of Ballmer in  that
> way.

I think it's just plain wrong to promote the $100 laptop computer as a
weapon to use against MS and Bill Gates.    It turns an already dubious
effort to help the poor into an effort to exploit the poor for the
benefit of MS competitors.

And there are hardware makers that will profit greatly from $100
laptops, even if they aren't of any real value to the people who get
them, to say nothing of the fat bureaucrats who can use this to pretend
they've done something for people.


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