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Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

"I do not like Nathan Myhrvold."

I dislike what Nathan Myhrvold has done with IV, the business model is despicable, and essential hacks major errors/bugs in the legal system to extrapolate money from productive members of society, and creators. The entire approach is a scam.

But, it's important to separate the bad that people do, from the good. Bill Gates and Microsoft (criminally) leveraged a monopoly to drive a good portion of a company (Netscape) I worked for out of the browser business.

But, that doesn't mean I can't respect and be amazed by the good that Bill Gates now does.

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I dislike Nathan Myhrvold as a whole, and that's what I think that guy meant too: with the information we have, we can only hate Myhrvold.

And I, for one, do not excuse Bill Gates for all the bad he's done to the world of software, among others, just because of his charity. But that's my personal opinion.

For all the bad he's done to the world of software? I appreciate that Microsoft illegally bundled a browser with their OS, driving their biggest competitor from the market, and subsequently stalling browser innovation for ~5 years, but to think that Gates was a net negative for the world of software is a bit heavy-handed.

Gates' originally mission was a personal computer in every home and on every desk. I don't mean to detract from Apple, or IBM or any other company, but Microsoft accomplished that goal, in a remarkably short period of time.

And even if you believe that Microsoft did somehow damage the world of software (which I dispute), his charitable work has saved millions of lives, and will continue to do so. I understand that the ends don't justify the means, but whatever ill will you feel towards him for not being a champion of free software can't possibly overwhelm his positive contributions to humanity, even if they don't live in this country.

Microsoft just won their place in the market, in part by using ruthless business tactics (and lots of luck). Everybody wanted everyone to get a computer, it was the default vision of the future. It would have happened without Gates, maybe with better software, maybe not.

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