[wordup] bruce sterling on microsoft (via dan gillmor)

[Adam Shand]

I love Bruce Sterling, and thank god someone just hooked him up with
free wireless. :-)

  http://lists.personaltelco.net/pipermail/ptp/2002q3/014282.html

Adam.

From: http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/dan_gillmor/ejournal/3742378.htm

Posted on Fri, Jul. 26, 2002
Open Source, Sterling, Etc.
Posted by Dan Gillmor

Back at the O'Reilly Open Source conference. Just had a great talk with
Jeff "Hemos" Bates from Slashdot.

Now I'm in a session listening to Bruce Sterling, who's talking about
"emotional issues." This is great stuff, and too full of amazing ideas
to capture here in any remotely adequate way.

"I'm not a coder," he says, adding how amazing it is that so many people
who know nothing about a subject like to butt in and tell people who do
know something how to behave.

He's OK, to a degree, with the idea of the bazaar for software
development. But Microsoft as a cathedral? Not a chance. A cathedral is
a holy place. Enuf said.

Open source is about hanging out with the cool guys. "Very tribal and
it's very fraternal," he says, noting the names like Linus and Richard.
"That form of organization is not a bazaar."

What follows is semi-verbatim quotes of the best stuff I'm hearing (I'm
missing a lot...):

This guy, William Gates, is my age....I've never met him. I hate to pick
on him. He's obviously a smart man. Obviously a nicer guy than a lot of
his competitors. Physically killed and ate all of his competitors. The
older he gets, the uglier he gets.

It's all about fear, uncertainty and hate. Where do you want to go today
to give us some money?

The man seems troubled. He has a guilty conscience. Financing
third-world kids. Palladium-secuirty state. An operating system that
fears and hates you.

Like an airport. They still expect you to spend money in there.

Where to you want to go today? Men with automatic weapons. Surveillance
cameras all over the place. You can't sob as you kiss your mother
goodbye at the airport, because it's all on videotape. Then a security
check, assumes you've swallowed dynamite and will kill any one you see.

That's the contemporary computer system. Razor-thin returns on
investment. Can't innovate. If you do it will be swept up into Microsoft
OS (or Apple).

Largest legal destruction of wealth in history. VCs should admit it.
Swaggering tech CEOs a race of slaves, like deer in market's headlights.

Moral choices keep getting starker. Even free software guys spend most
of their time aping commercial software.

Free software still has an almost pirate state of mind. GNU's Not Linix?
What are you, then? Something childish about that.

Not as bad as the scene in commercial software. There's no reason to buy
Microsoft software that spies on you. Do you want ot make Jack Valenti
the king of your box and Mickey Mouse your commissar?

Why do you put up with viruses? Not just infecting your girlfriend,
boys, you get your mom, your five-year old daughter. Why don't you teach
your 11-year-old daughter not to click on that attachment? Because she's
your 11-year-old daughter, moron.

My posting software just crapped out for a few minutes, which means that
I lost a bunch of this talk. So I'm just going to listen.