I guess this letter has been online for quite awhile, but today was the first time I saw it. It shows that Bill Gates’ aversion to the open source movement has deep roots.
Microsoft proves that you can spend enormous amounts of money to develop seriously flawed software. Has the open source side shown that you can create great software with no money spent on development? I’m beginning to think that the answer is 90% of the way to yes. That last 10% has to do with friendly interfaces and documentation accessible to non-propeller heads and I don’t know if it will ever happen. Maybe we need an open source batallion of gifted teachers, technical writers, creative writers and artists to finish the job.
Toward the end of Alex’s guitar lesson yesterday, his teacher played us a wonderful piece that kept us both mesmerized. When I asked what it was called, I thought he said “Caroline’s Dream”. Searching for that phrase on the web brought me to a lot of goofy women named Caroline sharing their dreams online. So I looked for +guitar +celtic +acoustic and turned up references to