This was from Robert Thompson's site today (author of "PC Hardware in a Nutshell, by O'Reilly): "And now Bill Gates chimes in on the horrors of GPL. Mr. Gates equates the GPL to PacMan, gobbling everything in its path. This would all be funny were it not so dangerous. As I said three years ago, Open Source software in general and Linux in particular is a deadly threat to Microsoft. Seeing that the Big Lie worked pretty well for Hitler and Stalin, Gates has decided to roll out a Big Lie campaign to discredit Open Source software in general and Linux in particular. If you repeat the Big Lie often enough, some people start to believe it. Keep at it, and pretty soon the Big Lie becomes common wisdom. Everyone knows it must be true--they've heard it so often--so no one questions it. If you can't fight fair--and Microsoft can't because they have nothing to fight with--the only solution is to fight dirty, and that's exactly what Microsoft is doing. Their target isn't the techies. We all know that Microsoft is raising on a busted flush. Their target is the pointy-haired bosses, who don't understand technology (or much of anything else, come to that) but who ultimately make the decisions. Microsoft's goal is to convince these executive drones that installing Linux is dangerous because doing so risks putting all of the company's intellectual property into the public domain (Microsoft isn't very good at differentiating between GPL and PD). That's ridiculous, of course, but if Microsoft can succeed at implanting FUD about Linux in executive decision makers, they'll have accomplished their goal. I find all of this unutterably disgusting, albeit predictable. Open Source software will be the death of Microsoft, and Microsoft is fully aware of that. Microsoft learned their lesson with the antitrust trial. Their failure to wallpaper Washington with Microsoft lobbyists and to buy some congressmen cost them big time, and they won't make that mistake again. The Big Lie campaign is just the first phase of Microsoft's effort to surround and destroy Open Source. The next phase will be Microsoft's attempt to legislate Open Source out of existence. I have no doubt that Microsoft's lobbyists and client congressmen are burning the midnight oil to develop and pass laws that will cripple Open Source. Bet on it." Dave Hardy Systems Manager/DBA Vermont Health Care Administration 89 Main Street Drawer 20 Montpelier, VT 05620-3101 802-828-2914 FAX: 802-828-2949 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ********************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **********************************************************
