Roy Schestowitz wrote:
__/ [ spike1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ] on Sunday 11 February 2007 09:59 \__
Roy Schestowitz did eloquently scribble:
Gates deposition videos
<SNIP>
| Boies: What I'm trying to do is get you to tell me what
| non-Microsoft browsers you were concerned about in January of
| 1996. If it had been only one, I probably would have used the
| name of it. Instead I seem to be using the term non-Microsoft
| browsers. My question is what non-Microsoft browsers were you
| concerned about in January of 1996?
|
| Gates: I'm sure -- what's the question? Is it -- are you asking
| me about when I wrote this e-mail or what are you asking me
| about?
|
| Boies: I'm asking you about January of 1996.
|
| Gates: That month?
<SNIP>
Yeah, I have the video footage. It's hilarious. How he thought he
could get away with trying to not understand plain english is
beyond me... he kept it up for hours, evading questions by trying
to misunderstand them or not understand the most simple grammar.
Maybe he was trying to make the footage so long and tedious that
nobody would bother to watch him admitting that he's as guilty as OJ.
I thought this quote was apt:
It's astonishing to see Gates, surely an individual of well above
average intelligence, petulantly throw up obstacle after obstacle in
the path of David Boies (the attorney asking the questions),
stalling, dodging questions, offering implausible explanations,
claiming not to remember anything, bickering over the meaning of
common words, and the really puzzling bit: doing all this as though
he actually thought it would help his case. Of course it didn't;
Microsoft was found guilty of repeatedly illegally abusing its
monopoly position and the judge ordered that the company be split up.
It's a shame that with the change of government in 2000 Microsoft
wriggled off the hook.
Inasmuch as we see the same charades continue, there is the truth. A
company may purchase parked IP's, purchase advertising, purchase
hardware specific agreements, purchase newspapers, pay columnists,
purchase competition, etc.
One thing they cannot purchase is a person's soul. The will of many
governments in the free world, and to a lesser extent in the non-free
world, consist of sets of people's souls. There is a fundamental human
characteristic or desire that favours freedom over tyranny.
When the proprietary was young, it was favoured as at the time there was
another vendor lock-in regarding mainframes, major minicomputers and
workstations. The generic PC platform became the ideal sense of
freedom, that one did not need to buy vendor specific hardware, but
could go to any number of dealers who provided this generic hardware
clone that was compatible with all other clones of similar venue, and
that at a lower cost. No longer was one required to obtain office
automation functions, engineering and financial analysis and localised
data base functions from a remote system that was very expensive.
Now, once considered as freedom, the proprietary software model that ran
on these clones has become in itself another form of vendor lock-in.
What was once considered a reasonable price to pay has increased to a
non-competitive price without much choice, since it is proprietary, not
generic.
Linux now promises that same freedom by emulating that same model with
the generic hardware in software, that originally spawned the
proprietary software model.
We have seen a quiet, selfless, dedicated rebellion against the
proprietary little by little. There were the more publicised
patriarchs, like Ernie Ball, who felt out of principle to leave the
proprietary, instead of as some of the Winvocates have expressed here,
"pony up the bucks" and remain locked in.
In taking the lead, he found that he is now entered into freedom by
reducing his overhead expenses, increasing his productivity and securing
his net domain.
News of the tyranny expressing that Linux violates proprietary software
patents, which could jeopardise people like Ernie Ball, threats of
lawsuit with people like Brasil's IT minister, Sergio Amadeu for
statements others have made without consequence, threats toward
government officials like Singapore for replacing proprietary office
automation desktop software with OpenOffice, etc., have only helped to
galvanise the Linux and FOSS cause.
People are not stupid, they see through the smug arrogance, smoke
screens and bullying tactics. These same people are the ones who have
been voicing their concerns to their elected/appointed leaders. Those
leaders are not stupid, either.
I see a completely different picture occurring overall in the world
today. There are those who would like us to believe that popular
network statistical organisations present us gospel truth, that so
called certified studies of TCO make proprietary model more cost
effective than the quiet FOSS, etc.
The picture is actually quite different as we hear bits and pieces of
different governments deploying FOSS and Linux. It is happening little
by little, but when it happens, it is now occurring in large
deployments. It is not arithmetic but exponential.
The revolution has already begun and is making great strides.
--
Cheers, Rafael
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/
http://www.hyphenologist.co.uk/killfile/anti_troll_faq.htm
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