DaveNet: Thursday, October 30, 1997; by Dave Winer.

Steve Duff on Bill Gates

From Steve Duff, sduff@wolfenet.com, in response to Netscape Had Options:

DaveNet and Scripting News have been fascinating this week, thanks in large part to the e-mail from Bill Gates.

Bill Gates is often portrayed as the Ultimate Satan of the computer world. It's easy to see things this way if Mr. Gates is talked about by a journalist or just a disgruntled computer nerd. On the other hand, when you have a chance to read his mail and see him more as a person, rather than some remote billionaire, you find it much more difficult to simply write him off as The Evil One. After all, his letters are extremely well-written and charming. I've also seen Mr. Gates being interviewed on TV, and here too he seems open and genuinely enthusiastic.

In fact, I'm willing to believe this is exactly how he is.

The above is not sarcasm, nor is it simple naivete. But it doesn't mean I think he should Have It All.

So Netscape had options. Netscape coulda done this, they coulda done that. Same with all those other crybabies who've been broken on the wheel of evolutionary fortune. And it's all okay what happened to them, what's happening, or what will happen, because they just couldn't compete. Who needs SGI? Who needs Netscape? They blew it. Too bad.

Obviously, the world of capitalism is pure social Darwinism. You win, lose or just get by. I do think it's unfortunate, however, that so many seem to take such delight when Microsoft squashes yet another competitor. Perhaps we Americans suffer too much from 'Winnerism.' We applaud the winners, however they achieved their victory, because as Vince Lombardi put it, "Winning isn't everything, it's the ONLY thing."

Not that I have any special love for Netscape. I find Communicator unwieldy, unstable and usually slow. I actually prefer MSIE. However, both products seem more geared to the business user than the end-user. There are browsers I prefer to both, such as IBrowse and VoyagerNG.

I also would suggest that just because Microsoft made it plain two years ago that they would integrate Explorer into Windows, this hardly makes the DOJ's position unjustified. OK, the DOJ blew it. Maybe they underestimated, or just didn't understand at the time, exactly how important the Internet was/would become. Given that no less a company than Microsoft practically missed the boat, perhaps we can forgive the DOJ their myopia. But then, perhaps ignorance of the market is no excuse for the DOJ.

I have no desire to see Microsoft destroyed. I can also understand why developers would love to have just a single platform. But I am an end-user, and I like alternatives. Like whole different computers, and not just multi-boot PCs with System Commander. The latter may be the fate of all users of alternative platforms, but so long as those alternatives exist, I will pursue them. I even think it's good for Bill Gates that I do so.

Also from Steve Duff

A screen shot of VoyagerNG 2.88, a web browser for Amiga.

Steve says "I have opened three prefs windows; one for bookmarks, a general prefs window for the app itself and one for the local Magic User Interface prefs."

Voyager is a one-man project, the man is Oliver Wagner, and it supports frames, tables, built-in image decoders and soon, JavaScript.