-or-
“How I learned to stop worrying and love Microsoft”
by Paul Ferris
Well, I give up. I’ve in the past
bashed Steve Ballmer and Jim
Allchin of Microsoft for dirty open source/free software
tricks. I was wrong, I admit it. I now see the light.
You see, Open Source/Free Software is all part of a dirty commie
plot out to destroy helpless American corporations and their
complex “intellectual property”. It’s an impediment to innovation.
I must have been smoking crack to see otherwise. And that filthy
commie rat Richard Stallman and his manifesto the GPL (GNU General
Public License) — it’s the antithesis to America’s big corporate
right to make the almighty buck at any cost.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
I can’t believe I’ve been so horribly misled too. I need to feel
sorry for poor old Microsoft with twenty some odd billions of
dollars in the bank — they just can’t compete against a lone hippy
with a marketing budget in the thousands if that. Man, it’s
horrible.
Not that Richard’s breaking the law — but neither were a lot of
the commie rats that McCarthy found.
And don’t even get me started on that mud-sucking piece of
satanic pond scum Eric Raymond. They may play like enemies in
public, but I’d bet that if you scanned their home libraries you’d
find the same autographed copies of the Commie Manifesto
lying around.
I think they have mad cow disease too. You know the stuff
spreads like wildfire, and both of em’ have been overseas a lot
lately. You know how Stallman likes to walk around in bare feet —
prolly when he got home some of his boot-licking cronies spread it
worse than a copy of the ILOVEYOU virus. Maybe we need to
quarantine them and a bunch of those whining free software hackers
until we’re sure they’re safe. Maybe lock them up for trying to
harm those big, helpless American corporations like Microsoft and
… and … gee, I’m not all that sure I hear anyone else
complaining, but hey Bill Gates is like more popular than the
president right now, so it’s like Microsoft counts for several
corporations at once. Remember, Penfield Jackson wanted to make
more than one company out of em’ (another simian commie rat he was
too).
It’s just too darn bad that Microsoft is having such a tough
time. What with all that money in the bank and this, a threat they
obviously can’t deal on top of it all. I guess that they might face
having to dip into the cash without us chipping in a helping hand.
Big corporate interests like Microsoft have always been so fragile,
and especially of late what with everyone picking on their
intellectual property. The economic hard times seem to really be
cutting into them in ways that aren’t visible elsewhere with other
businesses. Microsoft would never take anyone else’s intellectual
property and call it their own — they’ve been so generous, open
and helpful in the past. It’s the least we can do to help out by
writing our congressmen and asking them to give the poor charitable
business (Microsoft) a helping hand.
As a matter of fact, I think we need to pass a law so that this
can never happen again. Let’s see, what will we
call it?
I know! How about “The Commie Rat Anti-Free Software Act of
2001”? It’s a piece of legislation I’m proposing that will make it
against the law to even think about stuff with the GPL
license on it.
Remember, if you don’t stop supporting Free Software now, you
never know what kind of big corporate interest might go down the
tubes. Microsoft is a national treasure and never forget that
they’ve in the past tried to help America by making it so that they
were practically the only source for software. Other businesses
tried to compete, but they just didn’t have the vision and (don’t
forget) intellectual property that good old flag waving Microsoft
has. It had nothing to do with violations of American law
(regardless of what that commie Jackson ruled).
With the threat of Free Software extinguished and dangerous
criminals like Stallman and Raymond behind bars, imitation, I mean,
innovation can continue to be brought to you by just one company
like it has in the past. God knows this makes America stronger and
more productive, regardless of the fact that businesses spend money
every year purchasing the same software they already own. Without a
good revenue stream, Microsoft’s’ American dream can’t survive.
So get started and fire a good letter off to your elected
officials — they’re waiting to hear from you and ready to pass
legislation to help out Microsoft in these tough (only
twenty-odd-billion in the bank!) times. It’s sure to make them and
their political contribution managers happy to boot, so never fear
about how popular you’re going to be.
Here’s a good start on that letter:
Dear [my elected official], I used to have my doubts about Microsoft, but recently I realized that even though they have tens of billions of dollars in the bank, and they brag about how competitive they are -- they're actually weak panty-waists who need the helping hand of your legislative action. Please pass a law to put Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond in jail -- maybe even those commie rat-fink mud-sucking pond scum idiot programmers that follow them too. I also think a black-list of names should be collected. People should have to register on the list if they want to work with Free Software, or be placed there by a colleague who maybe recently saw them purchase a PC without Microsoft products pre-installed. Maybe we can put them on it if they've ever been seen buying a CD product with the word "Linux" on it, too. Restore my faith in the American-Microsoft-serving way and lend your support to the proposed bill "The Commie Rat Anti-Free Software Act of 2001" In closing I'd like to remind you that regardless of all the times I've been infected with viruses, rebooted and re-installed the operating system on my computer, I haven't been harmed one iota by Microsoft's monopoly. I love paying for Windows products -- it doesn't bother me a bit that I don't have a choice, and that the price keeps going up. I realize it's my contribution to the American dream -- Microsoft style. Sincerely, [your name here]
Remember folks, Microsoft needs your help! Keep those letters
rolling.
To those of you who don’t have a sense of humor
regarding this issue. I’ve simply decided to cut to the Microsoft
chase, so to speak, and take their marketing strategy to its
logical conclusion. The sooner the disease runs its course, the
sooner the healing can begin.
–Paul ferris