Also, he is giving back the money he took, and then more. That also buys him a lot of forgiveness.
Having a monopoly isn't illegal in the US. Making billions of dollars with a monopoly is not illegal in the US. The abuses in the market that Microsoft was found guilty of, they were punished for. What else are you asking for exactly?
Gates doesn't need any forgiveness. His former company's wrongs have already been accounted for - a long time ago - through an appropriate legal process.
And many things he did while legal, were highly immoral, such as: lying, cheating, investing capital in weapon makers and companies doing the opposite of what he is defending now, tax optimization, heavy lobying, retaining a huge part of capital and not letting it flows in the economy, abusing monopoly, patent trolls (and other kind of extorsions), censorship, helping dictatures, etc.
He earned a lot of money doing so, and the cumulated consequences of those are huge. The fact that people are so quick to forgive and forget those prove that not only he got top noch PR people, but that people are ready to accept anything with a good PR.
Sometimes I wonder if humanity deserve freedom, because it seems it's wired to go in the exact opposite direction and love to allow bad people to shine. Democracy is a long term process, not a 5 minutes vote. It requires you to not allow those persons to mess with the system, then get your blessing years later.
Your profile says you blog about porn. Personally, I'm a consumer and have no issue. But you have a lot of nerve lecturing people about immorality. That isn't the most "above board" industry, and it may have even harmed a person or three.
>but that people are ready to accept anything with a good PR.
Yeah, nobody "gets it" but you...
Microsoft has probably been the least aggressive of the larger software companies in the use of patents. While Gates ran it, I don't recall them ever using patents to shut down competitors. They did collect a "war chest" of patents, but as a defensive "mutually assured destruction" strategy.
Microsoft was famously sued by Apple over "look and feel" copyrights. After that, who could blame them for amassing a large patent portfolio?
> The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have both opened preliminary investigations into bribery accusations involving Microsoft in China, Italy and Romania, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is a confidential legal matter.
The article is 3-year old and of course nothing came out of it, but based on the very happy coincidence that our Government signed a big contract with MS just days after Ballmer had paid a quick visit to our God-forsaken country back in 2004 and that the PM at the time was a corrupt guy (who later on went to prison for other stuff) I'm 100% sure that MS (and Gates) actually took that money out of our pockets.
So, Microsoft, which was headed by Ballmer at the time (Gates already years into retirement from operations), took a contract from your corrupt government, that might have broken a law (never proven)...and Bill Gates is to blame?
You have a lot of misplaced anger.
> You have a lot of misplaced anger.
I'm angered by many other things some of which I have control over, economic colonialism (like it happened in this case) I have no control over so no reason to be angered about. Just wanted to add a different perspective to things.