Here's a question for your millennium: Do we declare Microsoft mogul Bill Gates a saint now or wait until he buys the Vatican and commits autocanonization?

The rap on Gates is: Of course he's guilty of monopolizing the software industry, but he looks like the chubby-cheeked nerd next door. He must be brilliant. He has more money than God, a cute wife and a house bigger than New Hampshire. Besides, breaking up Microsoft would hurt the consumer more than it would Gates.

William Henry Gates III (aka Bill Gates Ver. 3.0) is now worth $100-plus billion. The geometric growth of this fortune could make Gates the first trillionaire within the first decade of the new century. Wealth is power and power is an aphrodisiac. Which still does not explain why the press finds Billy so doggoned likable.

When the Justice Department charged him with antitrust violations, Microflaks portrayed Gates as the creative genius driving the computer revolution and plotting the marketing strategies of the 21st century.

You might think this much green horse manure in one place at one time would scorch the soil and kill every sprout breaking the surface. Instead, apologists sprouted like daffodils in April.

Time magazine dismissed the charges against Microsoft as the product of envious soreheads. Newsweek glorified Gates in a five-page puff piece.

Journalists salivating after America's substitute for royalty fawned over Gates and fell over one another in their eagerness to report that Sir Saint Bill puts his pants on one leg at a time.

Reporters seemed awed by his affection for 2-year-old Rory Gates (what a guy! Richer than Midas and still has room in his heart for his baby girl).

One writer said visitors found the Gates mansion on Lake Washington "cozy and tasteful." The pile of structural steel and glass that Bill and Melinda call home cost $17 million and sprawls over 60,000 feet - the equivalent of two football fields. Amenities include a theater, an indoor pool and a trampoline room. Make that a "jumbo deluxe cozy and tasteful".

Then, of course, there is the soon-to-be-legendary Gates' generosity. His gift of $7 billion to charity makes him history's most generous donor. Well, not quite. Not yet. Gates transferred $7 billion worth of Microsoft stock to a foundation named for and controlled by Bill and Melinda Gates. Presumably, the "power couple" will give it away eventually. Before the antitrust charges, Gates' charitable contributions - as a percentage of income - roughly equaled those of the average welfare mom.

Gates' critics tend to be fellow nerds. There is no denying their envy of his $100 billion. A mope earning $10 an hour would have to work 5 million years to bank that kind of cash.

One Gates hater commented, "In less than 40 years, the 'free' market has determined that Bill Gates' efforts, such as they were/are, are the equivalent of you or me working twice as long as Homo sapiens have existed on earth."

Sour grapes? Judge for yourself, but first discover how Gates acquired his wealth and what he gave the world in return.

William Henry Gates III's path to riches was paved with brilliant decisions. He made the first and most important of these sage choices on Oct. 28, 1955, when he entered the world through the right pelvic arches. He was born the great-grandson of J.W. Maxwell, who founded the Seattle National City Bank in 1906.

J.W. Maxwell sired J.W. Maxwell II, also a banker, who established a million-dollar trust fund for grandson Billy, the future software baron.

Gates' second great decision was to attend a private high school that charged today's equivalent of $20,000 a year. Lakeside High School mothers raised thousands of dollars to buy computer time from General Electric.

Gates and buddy Paul Allen both learned BASIC, an easily mastered early computer language. When the PTA computer fund ran out, Computer Center Corp. stepped in to provide Lakeside High students free computer access.

Gates and Allen became teenage computer researchers. That is, they played with CCC's computer until it crashed, then wrote down what they had done to cause the crash so programmers could fix the bug.

Had he been born into different circumstances, Gates might have been ended up flipping burgers, working on the docks or sweating out a white collar 9 to 5. But really smart guys (those born with a million clams) don't work for others.

Gates went on to Harvard. Allen enrolled at Washington State University. The two contracted with a dying electronics company to adapt BASIC to run the first microcomputer, the MITS Alstair.

Allen did the hacking. Harvard student Monte Davidoff did the math. Gates played poker with his rich buddies at Harvard while Allen spent months in an Albuquerque motel room convincing MITS to use their operating system. Microsoft came into existence because Allen successfully managed both the business and technology, earning him ... a minority stake in the company.

When the Big Blue Marble developed the IBM PC, the computer giant needed an operating system for its new personal computer. Any one of 10,000 nerds could have designed the software IBM needed. But the other 9,999 lacked Gates' family connections.

His father was a prominent corporate lawyer. His mother served on the boards of the First Interstate Bank and Pacific Northwest Bell. She and IBM CEO John Opel were both members of United Way's national board.

Opel gave the contract to Mary's boy Bill.

Daunted by the task, Gates bought an operating system designed by Tim Patterson, a computer freak who called his program QDOS for "Quick and Dirty Operating System." QDOS became MS/DOS. Gates paid $50,000 for the software that would generate his billions.

In Microsoft's deal with IBM the manufacturer was required to pay for a copy of MS/DOS with every computer it sold. Although customers were told they were receiving MS/DOS free, the cost of the software was built into the price of the computer.

Software designers created a raft of applications to run on the popular IBM PC.

Scores of electronics companies, rushing to grab a chunk of the exploding market, built IBM clones. Like the original, the new computers used Microsoft's operating system.

Just as IBM appeared to conquer the marketplace by 1983, Apple Computer introduced the Macintosh, whose graphical user interface (GUI) and mouse presented a totally new approach to personal computing.

Gates countered with a GUI program he called Windows. No, he did not steal the idea from Apple. Both Gates and Apple stole it from Xerox. But that's another story.

Microsoft began buying popular programs to package with MS/DOS Windows. Again, the cost of this "free" software was built into the price of the computer.

Bill Gates became a growing presence in the lives of computer users. Windows filled a need that was not there. GUI programs did make computers easier to use, but at the expense of computer performance. Imagine owning a Porsche that came with 350-pound guide squashing the passenger seat.

The monopoly created by MS/DOS made Windows instantly universal. Those who hated the program were still forced to buy it. By this time nearly all available software was designed to run with Windows.

Gates upped the ante with Windows 95, a program so massive that it required 10 times the computer power to run the same programs that once ran on DOS.

Windows dominates the industry not because it is the best, but through Gates' smothering control of the market. Unix is a better operating system. IBM, Informix, Oracle and Sybase make better database management software. Adobe Frame and WordPerfect are better for most text processing tasks than Microsoft Word. PhotoShop and LivePicture are better image editing tools than Microsoft PictureIt. The list goes on.

Former Microsoft software wizard Mark Ciccarello scoffs at the claim Gates has created 2 million or 3 million jobs. "What a crock! The computer industry has certainly created jobs. Bill Gates and Microsoft have just managed to hijack a large portion of the revenue stream. If Microsoft's employees weren't working for MS, they'd be working for Apple or IBM or Sun or whoever wound up being dominant instead."

Ciccarello characterized Microsoft as "a company full of aggressive, hardworking, second-rate intellects."

The notion that anything that hurts Gates will hurt the consumer even more is the assessment of passive, idle, third-rate intellects.