[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill for this link. ]
“Despite all the hokum and cultural self-deception that we live
in a “meritocracy,” the truth is that the mediocre, the weak, and
the ignorant have always found a way to survive by ganging up
against the wise and the good. In the software industry, we have
seen Microsoft’s anti-excellence brigade dominate through clever
alliances with such PC makers as Packard-Bell, NEC, and Compaq —
makers of proprietary, wimpy machines that are difficult to
maintain and service and are subject to all sorts of goofy
failures. Weak-minded consultants who cared only for cash instead
of providing quality to their clients — well, they jumped on the
bandwagon as well. Wimpy software is the perfect match for wimpy
PC’s and wimpy minds, of course, since there are plenty of
blameworthy people to point the fingers at….”
“In the real world, reliable and flexible platforms like
OS/2 Warp and Linux are seen by many mediocre programmers and
highly-paid but overrated consultants as threats to their carefully
arranged hegemony of mediocrity. There’s nothing like being
able to tell the client, “Sorry we had to come by today and charge
you $800 to restore your data on your PC, but that’s Windows.
There’s nothing we can do about it. Oh, well, too bad.” There’s
nothing like having a steady stream of “maintenance” income from
systems that collapse like a house of cards when you push them at
all. There’s nothing like the handy treadmill of
ever-more-expensive “upgrades” in software, that coincidentally
also require “upgrades” to the hardware. Nobody will “die” in this
scenario, because the current regulatory regime will just
rubber-stamp a takeover by a bigger company that has more resources
to donate to the cause of maintaining mediocre systems, just like
the producers make sure nobody will “die” on the television
program.”