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Comment by rgossiaux | Hacker News Reader

The thing is, it seems pretty clear-cut to me that the good that Gates has done with his foundation has far exceeded any bad that was done through MS business practices. It's hard for me to take seriously the idea that things like aggressively stifling competing software is the same or larger magnitude as helping millions of people in the developing world with basic things like nutrition, sanitation, and disease prevention. Gates is worshipped because he's currently making a very serious, very earnest, very large positive impact on the developing world, and I have no shame in supporting him.

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> the good that Gates has done with his foundation has far exceeded any bad that was done through MS business practices

Do you realize that the money $billionaire using were taken away from $company customers? Those money were not created out of thin air by $company. They would have been used in many other ways by the customers - including making the world a better place.

The only value $company really creates is in the products and the company behavior - everything else is just transferring money.

Now, transferring money from large masses to socially beneficial organizations it's done by taxation through a democratic process or by voluntary contribution.

Individuals having the power to grab your money and decide how to spend it, like kings in a feudal society, can easily do more harm than good.

> it seems pretty clear-cut to me

Yes it would. That's the whole point of Public Relations, you, as part of the public, now relate differently to something than you ordinarily would.

> It's hard for me to take seriously the idea that things like aggressively stifling competing software

Well, that is because you are a terrorist, and your ideas are a cancer on society.

The above is basically a post-2000 translation of Microsoft's 90's "stifling competing software" tactics for software development they could not squash outright.

> helping [..] people in the developing world with basic things like nutrition, sanitation, and disease prevention.

By taking away education, self-determination, local opportunities? Yes, not quite as dramatic as people dying, but equally important for long term stable development.

> and I have no shame

No, you have a different frame of reference. I'd say one that lacks a complete historical record.

> far exceeded any bad that was done

Mnh. How many billions of hours were lost to crappy software?

Which might have been supplied by better sources, if not for sharp operator practices.

(Spilled milk, anyways. But let's not say it was without cost.)

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