Leaked Bill Gates E-mail on Getting Windows NOT to work with Linux
“From: Bill Gates
Sent: Sunday, January 24, 1999 8:41 AM
Jeff Westorinon; Ben Fathi
TO: Carl Stork (Exchange); Nathan Myhrvofd; Eric Rudder
Cc:
Subject: ACPI extensions
One thing I find myself wondering about is whether we shouldn’t try and make the “ACPI” extensions somehow Windows
specific. If seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that Linux works great without
having to do the work. Maybe there is no way Io avoid this problem but it does bother me.
Maybe we could define the APIs so that they work well with NT and not the others even if they are open.
Or maybe we could patent something related to this.
”
This is quite possibly the most damning email of them all, and if there’s _ever_ a question as to if Microsoft’s being anticompetitive, this answers it. Not only speaking of making it hard for others to use, but including the possibility of patenting the technology to keep it out of the hands of others, “even if they are open”. It’s way past time for the Open Computer, no more of this ACPI bullshit, no more of Microsoft’s designs influencing the way Linux users have to use their machines. This is quite possibly the scummiest thing I’ve read to date about Microsoft.
