Re: Offtopic, inappropriate jokes?

[gavin.walker@example.com]

> honorable, capitalist companies

Oh please, you're fooling yourself into thinking that's the way the world works.
The basic tenet of your argument is that people should be *nice* to each other,
and history has consistently proven that that just isn't so. Given the
opportunity, people and the companies they work for shaft each other to get
ahead. To try and pretend otherwise is delusional. Capitalism is shades of grey
- do you really think that there are any corporations in this world that haven't
dicked over a competitor for profit? If you do there's no point continuing this.
Suffice to say you'd be wrong. So, some don't do it quite so much as Microsoft,
some do it more, some less. But they *all* do it. Microsoft got in trouble
because they went over the top and the US government had to be seen to be doing
something...


Gavin





Internet
Norman.Diamond@example.com - 06/08/2001 10:10 AM


Please respond to tlug@example.com
To:   tlug

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bcc:  Gavin WALKER


Subject:  Re: Offtopic, inappropriate jokes?




Gavin Walker wrote:

> Bill Gates isn't evil. He's a capitalist.

Wrong.  Some capitalists obey antitrust laws that prohibit "tying".  Some
capitalists honor the warranties that they attach to their products.  Some
capitalists don't even produce fraudulent demonstrations in court before
being forced to withdraw them.

If antitrust laws were obeyed, anyone who wants to use Windows 2000 on a PC
wouldn't have to pay for a copy of the garbage Windows ME when they buy the
PC.  And if we think really hard, there might be other OSes that they might
choose instead.  Maybe some of those more honorable, capitalist companies
would have a chance to gain the profits they've earned.

If contract law were obeyed (let alone product liability law), anyone who
got slaughtered by Windows 95's FDISK command within 90 days of purchase
would have got a repair from Microsoft.  In order to get bugfixes after that
period, one might need product liability law.  But in a capitalist-oriented
industry, it would be enough to have competitors who do allow us to download
bug fixes -- or maybe even competitors who let us fix buggy programs
ourselves -- so that Microsoft might have to copy their practices in order
to survive.

Bill Gates started out as a capitalist but converted himself to a kingpin of
a criminal organization.

Incidentally, being a capitalist, sometimes I think of buying shares of
Microsoft.  The reason is that crime pays.  Meanwhile my complaints about
the evil empire would continue.

Yours sincerely,
Norman Diamond

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