I've always wondered how my life would change if I had a billion dollars. Knowing me, I'd probably start buying out companies that compete with my interests and then threaten foreign governments just because I could. I mean, hey, after all I've got a BILLION dollars in the bank! People with that kind of money should be able to do whatever they want, right? Who cares if that makes me look like a three-year-old with an ego the size of Montana.
Oh, wait a second, it appears that Bill Gates has beat me to the punch.
It would seem that he purchased a software company in Denmark, and is now extorting the Danish government to vote for the EU software patent bullshit... or else he'll close the company and fire all 800 employees (read the entire scary story over at Groklaw). What a monkey-spanking pig-f#@%er.
I wonder if it's possible for me to never, ever use another Microsoft product for the rest of my life? The bugs, security breaches, vaporware, delays, and multitude of other sins all pale in comparison to extorting a government. Not just any government... DENMARK! A friendly government. As if the USA didn't already have enough problems? I want so badly to believe that this story is not true. But, given Gate's history, that's probably just a pipe-dream.
And I thought Apple's legal crack-down on rumor sites was bad, sheesh. Bill Gates must have a dick the size of a mosquito.
UPDATE: Now Boing Boing has it.
UPDATE: And now Boing Boing is reporting that Microsoft denies it will be closing the company. They do not, however, deny that Bill Gates made the threat (so who knows?). In any event, Microsoft Windows still sucks ass.
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Yeah, because Microsoft is really going to go bankrupt if software patents are not introduced…
Being able to live amicably with MS would be nice to achieve – hopefully once I get my Mac Mini it’ll be closer to a reality. At the moment I don’t think Linux offers an amicable solution to the average home user.
The big joke here is that Microsoft’s products are mostly copies of other people’s work. If progress-halting patents had been enabled when they got started, they wouldn’t HAVE any products! Sweet irony that Microsoft is wanting protection from other people doing to them what they’ve been doing to others all along.
The simple fact is that software (and, by extension, the internet) is all built on somebody else’s work. The US patent system is a total joke… bringing forth companies that do nothing but dream up products they will patent, yet never build. They just wait for somebody to come along and actually DO it, then unleash the lawyers. Who in their right mind wants this system in place? Nobody will be able to afford to innovate anything, because big-money companies with sweepingly vague patents will squash them over legal challenges they can’t afford to fight. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The USA shot itself in the foot with this madness, and I can only hope that more civilized nations will learn from our mistake.
Like North Korea?