Did you need any further proof that Microsoft is evil?
I’m not talking about connotations of “evil” like “acting solely in self-interest” (
I’m talking about the real deal. I’m talking about the “you’re with us or you’re against us” kind of evil, the “no peaceful coexistence is possible” kind of evil, the “using all opportunities to strangle competition in the crib” kind of evil.
Florian Mueller, campaign manager for NoSoftwarePatents.com, writes:
Brussels (15 February 2005). In today’s edition, Danish financial newspaper Børsen reports that Microsoft founder Bill Gates threatened the Danish government in connection with software patents. According to the article, Gates told Rasmussen and two Danish ministers in November that he would kill all 800 jobs in Navision, a Danish company acquired by Microsoft in 2002, unless the EU were to quickly decide to legalize software patents through a directive. Denmark is a country with only 5 million inhabitants and a relatively small high-tech sector to which the loss of 800 jobs would have significant implications.
He further explains:
“The country in which you develop a technology has nothing to do with where you can take out patents. If they move jobs to Asia, they won’t get a single additional patent, neither in Asia nor in Europe. If you warn politicians of consequences that are directly related to a legislative issue, that’s acceptable. If you threaten with causing damage that has no factual connection whatsoever, then it’s blackmail. Plain and simple.”
[…]
In Mueller’s opinion, those media reports on political blackmail “show the enormous desperation of those who cannot make a case for something as unjust as software patents on the basis of economic reason.”
I am utterly and thoroughly disgusted.