Microsoft is not evil. I know that a lot of people will disagree
with me, but they are wrong. Microsoft is an organization of people
(just as is the US government, the Red Cross, my handbell choir, my
family, and my town). An organization is not a moral entity, because
the organization has no attributes beyond those held by the people who
make it up. An organization takes no action beyond that which its
members undertake.
Microsoft is made up of a group of individuals, each of whom is
responsible for the decisions they make. "I was acting under orders"
didn't work for the Germans at the Nuremberg
War Crimes Trials, and it won't work for anybody who works at
Microsoft. Anything that Microsoft does that you may wish to label as
"evil" is being done by a person. That person may deserve the label
"evil".
Similarly, many people who work at Microsoft are not responsible
for the decisions made by corporate management. No doubt some people
at Microsoft disagree vehemently. Everyone has their own opinion of
how things should be done. We're all individuals -- even those who deny
it.
It's strategically important to remember that Microsoft is made up
of disagreeing individuals. We in the open source community need to
reach out to those individuals who are sympathetic to our goals and
principles. If we treat Microsoft as a uniform entity, we give up the
only method likely to convert Microsoft to our way of thinking. If we
are always hostile to Microsoft even when they do the right thing.
posted at: 20:57 |
path: /opensource |
permanent link to this entry
18.87 km 61911.09 feet 11.73 mi
4722.00 seconds 78.70 minutes 1.31 hours 8.94 mi/hr
Simply gorgeous out today. See the temperature graph below.
It's only going to last one day, so I went for a ride into town to run
some errands. Blowing like a sumbitch in my face, whipping up the sand
spread earlier on the snow and ice of last week. Kept up a nice pace
coming back downwind, though. Cruised at 18mph, making up for the
time I spent in the post orifice.
posted at: 19:23 |
path: /bicycling |
permanent link to this entry
Startupboy
points out an interesting idea: Securitize Citizenship. In other
words, give every US citizen a blank passport, and let them do
whatever they want with it. This is a great idea! It solves several
problems. First, it allows people who don't like immigrants to buy up
passports and destroy them. Second, because there will certainly be a
market for purchasing these passports, it lets all US citizens benefit
from their hard work in making the US a nice place to live. Third,
because the price will change, it will give citizens a personal reason
to increase the quality of their government as seen by the rest of the
world.
posted at: 16:39 |
path: /economics |
permanent link to this entry
I recently discovered that New York State license plates have a
"watermark". It is an invisible badge imprinted into the reflective
background of the plate. All three of my family's cars have this
watermark. You can see it if you stand behind the car and shine a
flashlight downwards at the plate. It's only visible within about a
twenty degree cone, so if you don't see it, move around a little.
Apparently license plate
aficionados know about these watermarks and look for them to help
date license plates.
posted at: 06:29 |
path: /life |
permanent link to this entry
