Omegacat... Well said... and Thanks...
Ever since SDR's departure from Wave message boards, I've seen that there is a role for radical pragmatism. It isn't objectivity that I'm talking about. I'm too far gone for that now.
But, when the subject is Microsoft, I am reminded of Trudeau's gesture upon shaking the hand of Richard Nixon: he counted his fingers to make sure one hadn't been liberated from him.
I'm not so certain that I'm worried about Microsoft DELIBERATELY taking Wave out.
But, gods dither for what they think are moments while the whole of our lives pass.
And one has to remember that A big reason that the TCPA got re-jiggered into the TCG was to get around Microsoft's sole veto power.
Microsoft moves as IT sees fit. It's schedule is NO ONE else's. IT creates its own atmosphere. Had it been left to its own devices, I assure you that it might have just slow-walked this whole trusted computing thing to death. Otherwise WHY the need to get that sole veto power out from under the Redmond thumb?
Oh, and I guess the cat's out of the bag: as FUN and thoroughly entertaining it is, the THEORY that Gates and Sprague the Younger divided the world amongst themselves... at some neo-Yalta... just doesn't wash with me. Even in broadest outlines. Microsoft breaks open patents and dares you to sue them. Intertrust was successful in securing a nice settlement. But, that's more the exception than the rule in how these things usually come out. Microsoft counts on the little players being cowed and not having the RESOURCES to stand up and challenge a wrong.
Over the years, I keep reading these stories--which I tend to think are "seeded" by Microsoft's able PR folks--about how the company is out to change how the world views it. That they are actually hurt that the world sees them as an uncaring BEAST.
Oh, see? The BEAST weeps these tears... Poor Monopolist and mover of markets. Pity the Juggernaut as it lurches suddenly toward you.
And I've bought into this PR stuff on occasions... convinced that the failure of initiatives like PASSPORT... surely have chastened them and made them aware of the need to work and play well with others. Surely, they KNOW that they can't really have all the marbles... right?
Scarcely a week goes by that I don't see the smiling, geeky, be-sweatered Gates pouring millions into this or that noble cause.
But, I still wonder... What was that bump in the dark a few moments ago?
Best Regards,
c m
