“There’s been a lot of buzz on the Net recently about a movie
that opened across the country January 12. The villain in MGM’s
“Antitrust” is based on the man so many love to hate, Bill Gates.
Adding to the buzz — at least among the open source crowd — is
the fact that Linus Torvalds, Jon “maddog” Hall, and Miguel de
Icaza were all involved in the making of the movie….”
“The basic story line is the battle between good and evil. Gary
Winston’s company (NURV, Never Underestimate Radical Vision) is in
a “winner take all” race to achieve global convergence for the
delivery of video, sound, and text over all kinds of electronic
devices. The product NURV is developing to achieve that convergence
is called Synapse, which seems to be some weird science held
together by Java.”
“The forces of evil — Winston and NURV — clearly reflect the
core values of Bill Gates and Microsoft, as the film contains, for
example, numerous references to the government’s antitrust case
against Microsoft. Winston is shown before a Senate committee
mouthing the same sort of absurd denials of monopoly power that
Gates did a couple of years ago. The Microsoft philosophy of
winning at any cost, and to hell with restrictive laws, ethics, or
mores, was portrayed with remarkable candor and accuracy. From
Winston’s home (complete with digital art) to the NURV campus,
you’re never left in doubt as to whom the character is based
on.”