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Comment by pannSun | Hacker News Reader

Bill Gates isn't doing good - the money he stole [1] from us is doing good. And he didn't have a change of heart - he hasn't opposed any of the IP maximalist, pro-corporate lobbying that helped MS grow so wealthy. Do you see him calling to end software patents?

I can forgive the stolen money, even credit him for how he's using his loot [2], but he hasn't lifted a finger to undo the damage he did to software freedom - our freedom. Objectively, that makes him hostile to any non-corporate entity.

[1] Acquired by underhanded means through the mentioned anti-competitive and lock-in practices.

[2] The parts used to fight malaria and such, at least. Not so much the $319 million he sent to his pet media outlets, to give but one example of what is counted as "philanthropy": https://www.theblaze.com/news/bill-gates-bankroll-media-outl...

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> Objectively, that makes him hostile to any non-corporate entity.

You can't just put the word "objectively" at the beginning of something and make it objective. He's not hostile to those kids in Africa who don't care about software freedom but are not dead because they didn't get malaria.

I get that we're on HN, but this idea that the good of software is somehow the most important good is just lunacy. I genuinely cannot fathom how anyone can see stopping software patents as more important (or even remotely close to the same level of importance) than stopping malaria.

> the good of software

But it's not just the good of software, because software is eating the world. Software is in your phone, in the tractor that grows your food, in the gene sequencing machine (and gene sequencing software) used to fight disease, in self-driving cars, and in non-self-driving ones too. And you can bet there will be software in automatic weed killing robots.

It's how you access your bank, the news, even government services. It's how you find a date, a taxi, how you order food. It. Is. Everywhere.

On net, if you were at risk of malaria, he is not hostile. But to the average global citizen, and especially their descendants in the future, he is hostile. Because the line between software freedom, and just freedom, is vanishing, and fast.

Some utilitarians might argue that it is morally right to redistribute money and effort in software in rich countries and rich corp software licences, to developing low-hanging innovation, institutions, policy, and advocacy that improves lives where the dollar can be stretched best, Gates' legacy be damned.

What? Bill Gates is a fine person. I know this because the decades long multi mullion dollar influence campaign to make me think this has been working to perfection!

What about the children?

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