Re: Open Letter/Challenge to Darth Gates
From: shephed (smokey_at_twist1up.com)
Date: 10/26/03
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Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 02:47:32 GMT
A collective reply from America:
"SUCK IT BITCH!"
"--= Ö§âmâ ßíñ Këñ0ßí =--" <abuse@anarchy.gov> wrote in message
news:OBK941FD9DA7F4D20001138@r2-dv8.anarchy.gov...
> There is no escape,the Empire and all its servants are doomed...
>
>
> Messrs William Gates Jnr & Steven Ballmer
> Microsoft Corporation
> One Microsoft Way
> Redmond
> Washington, USA
>
>
> Dear Sirs
>
> I see you have been active again in making interesting and to some degree
> highly amusing statements about Free/Libre Open Source Software and the
> many and varied people who make up its community.
>
> I in particular would like to thank Mr. Steven Ballmer for your
> entertaining exposee of Linux's deepest, darkest secret - that it can
> seriously worry the senior executive of a convicted predatory monopoly,
> without that ever having been the intention of its principal software
> designer and initial developer.
>
> I would also like to thank you for humming and hawing around the question
> of the release of source code to people who can use it, in the light of
> the new MVP source code entitlement program. Well, are they deserving
> members of the Windows development team or not?
>
> In relation to your comments, Steve Ballmer, on Linux's "road map", I
> will refrain from expounding on Linus Torvalds' comment on the cover of
> one of Bill Gates' books, showing him standing in the middle of an empty
> road. It's not nice to make jokes like that, is it, Your Billness? Road
> kill is no joke, even if some enterprising chef has written a book about
> it.
>
> No, I have something else on my mind, something much more worthy.
>
> I would like to challenge you to a software coding bake-out, a bet to see
> which methodology works, and which doesn't. You have made some progress
> with your NT source tree, anyone can see that - Windows 2k3 is a more
> serious product than Windows XP, and definitely a more realistic - and
> much more massive - product than Windows 95. Congratulations.
>
> You have also declared that Windows 95, Windows NT 3.x and NT 4.x are
> discontinued, end-of-line, unsupported products. And Windows 98 is
> shortly going to be in the same category, having already been
> discontinued. And Microsoft is attempting to roll the Win9x features into
> the NT line. XP is the nearest you have come to success. In the process,
> Windows users have enjoyed an interesting remote use of RPC and other
> features that might otherwise bug you. And in the process you have put
> back Longhorn's release date.
>
> My challenge is this - release the entire range of discontinued, end-of-
> line and unsupported Operating Systems mentioned above (Win9x, NT 3.x and
> Win4.x) and their related utilities and Productivity Applications, as
> Open Source under the BSD/MIT license, since you have stated at sundry
> times and in diverse manners that that license is one you can live with.
> You are of course expected to sanitise the source trees - we don't want
> trouble with absurd IP cases.
>
> Release the sanitised source trees, minus any bits and pieces of third-
> party encumbered code Microsoft may have in the Win9x and NT 3.x and 4.x
> source trees, to the ftp servers at the MIT, ibiblio, the U of Calif. at
> Berkeley, and the U of Cambridge, UK, with prominent notices stating that
> they are released under the terms of the BSD/MIT licenses placed in
> slashdot.org, newsforge.com, computerworld.com, news.com.com,
> www.theinquirer.net and www.theregister.co.uk and other industry news
> outlets.
>
> My bet is that in the time it takes Microsoft to come up with a half-way
> decent Windows product, the Open Source development process starting from
> an earlier, identical initial source tree without constraints will
> produce one better. The length of time is going to be the same.
>
> On one side you have the multi-billion dollar transnational corporation,
> on the other you have an amorphous world-wide community. One has a head
> start, but the code bases for this challenge are the same.
>
> The only catch - Microsoft is not allowed to use the source code produced
> by the open source effort until after it has rolled out Longhorn - thus
> preserving the independence of the challengers, who will not have access
> to the Longhorn source tree. After the challenge has finished and the
> bets have been tallied up, then it is a totally different story, because
> the BSD/MIT license doesn't prohibit incorporation within a closed-source
> code base, only the denial of attribution. But should Microsoft use the
> independent effort's code during such a challenge, it would be an
> admission that the Free/Libre Open Source community is right, and must be
> met with an appropriate forfeit - the sanitising and opening of the
> Longhorn source tree.
>
> I propose in the interim that the challenge in the interim be named
> something other than Windows or Office - precisely what will have to be
> decided upon later.
>
> So, there you have it. Are either of you betting men, able to face a
> challenge?
>
> Yours Sincerely
> Wesley Parish
>
>
> --
> --=( Ö§âmâ ßíñ Këñ0ßí )=----- ----- --- - -
> Rebel Alliance Galactic Usenet News Service
> --- --- ---=================----------- - -
> Bin Laden, before turning to the Dark Side:
> http://www.sid-ss.net/911/obl-at14.jpg
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