Dear Eric,

A few years ago I had a heated phone conversation with Bill Gates about Jav=
a.

He argued that the way Java developers wanted to go was bogus and he knew i=
t.

He said something like this -- "WORA is bullshit."=20

(I'm paraphrasing, I don't remember his exact words, but this is the gist o=
f what he was saying.)

I told him I agreed, but it didn't matter what he and I thought.=20

For all we know, it's what the users want. One thing was for sure, many dev=
elopers wanted it. Who are we to argue with developers, I asked?

I asked him to get out of the way of WORA, to let it happen, to not bother =
to have an opinion about it, to be above the stupid attacks that were comin=
g from McNealy and Joy, etc, but his actions, well, he decided to go the ot=
her way.

I have the same thing to say about SOAP now, to you.

There are at least *some* developers who want to go beyond what the BDG cal=
ls for.

These are people I respect as I respect you. People like Paul Kulchenko, an=
d Glen Daniels, and Keith Ballinger.

Why should you or I attempt to stand in their way?

For all we know, like the developers who wanted WORA, they may be onto some=
thing.

We don't know anything about them, really, other than they are intelligent =
and hardworking, and like you and I, they like to make software.

It may be tempting to think of Microsoft as always-evil, I sometimes indulg=
e in that myself, but I *know* it's not true. On an individual basis, there=
 are plenty of people at Microsoft that I like, as people, as engineers, as=
 software developers, even as politicians. I spent hours talking with Keith=
 on the day of the HailStorm announce, and he opened my eyes to about a doz=
en different things. I value this enormously, that kind of leverage, where =
someone will teach you a dozen things in a few hours is very nice.=20

Anyway, I'm satisfied that we've reached the point I wanted to reach. I con=
tinue to advise open minds beyond all other kinds of open-ness, we can work=
 together, basically it's best to keep an open mind to work with the people=
 you'd like *least* to work with. This is a lesson it took me many years to=
 learn. That way you're living a generous life, and reap the enormous benef=
its that come from that philosophy.

Dave