Dr. Matt Lee (mattl)

An interesting article on Bill Gates and the importance of source code –  in it, it refer to Bill Gates statement in a recent BBC interview that he and Paul Allen were stuck with the first computer they had access to, until they found the source code in a bin.
In a bin.
30 years later, Bill Gates and Microsoft continue to trash the freedoms of computer users, with Steve Ballmer describing the same goals and community ideals that allowed Gates to learn as a cancer, with Gates himself saying “there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with.”
30 years from now, will Microsoft continue to act with hostility toward the very goals that gave Gates and Allen their big break? Will the next generation of Microsoft be able to finally drop the arrogance of Gates and embrace the free software community as something other than a threat? Remember — companies like Sun have shown hostility towards free software in the past, only to turn around and release something as significant as Java under the GPL — not just any free software license, but the same license that Gates disagrees with.