On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 7:22 PM, Tracy R Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If you think Linux guys are kooky check this out: > > http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Comes-3096.pdf > > They are at least as nuts.
"Nuts" is right. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119698832376116538.html <snipped quotes> In 2000, Jim Plamondon quit his job at Microsoft and embarked on an obsessive quest to invent a new musical instrument. His brainstorm: an odd keyboard variant with stubby joysticks and a honeycomb of buttons he dubs the Thummer. ... After years trying to get his project off the ground, his family is strapped for cash. The two kids have put their college plans on hold, hoping that in a couple of years their father will be able to help pay tuition. The family doesn't have health insurance. "Things got really tight," says Ms. Plamondon. For a time, she says the family relied partly on the paychecks her then-18-year-old son brought home from his computer-store job ... With a handful of working prototypes, Mr. Plamondon is continuing to search for investors and gain a consumer audience. Taking stock of his savings, he says he has about six months left before he'll have to find a full-time job. ... </snipped quotes> What's noteworthy isn't that a "nut" had a job at Microsoft -- it's that his particular brand of "nuttiness" served a useful function there. For eight years, Microsoft was putting him up in front of hundreds of people, using him as a trainer, and internally circulating his documents about how to evangelize MS standards and products. Years after the fact, Microsoft can try to distance itself from a few of his crasser comments. But when a guy like that gets to play a key role in the production of ideology at a multi-billion dollar company, there must have been people higher up liking what he's doing, sponsoring/championing his view, and agreeing that it's emotions and affiliances, not facts and decisions, that rule the market. --Rachel -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
