Bill Gates On Linux 1194
King-of-darkness writes "USA Today had an interview with Bill Gates on june the 30th. Gates seems to be considering Linux as a passing thru competition just like OS/2., and That Microsoft are the ones that keep pushing new technologies."
But... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhm, yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the guy that managed to overlook the internet when he wrote The Road Ahead in 1995.
OS/2?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Off to RTFA to find out....
He is correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Nevertheless, he is only right for now. Linux is a locomotive, and its only picking up steam.
Maybe if Microsoft Developed for Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
With Linux, Microsoft has never had its hand in the pie. They have never had any control over its development. Linux bears no similarity to OS/2 as a competing technology. To suggest it is just wishful thinking on Bill Gates part.
This is USA Today (Score:5, Insightful)
So, here he says it isn't a big deal. I'm sure that in real life, he cares a great deal about it.
News flash - Bill Gates downplays linux (Score:5, Insightful)
> thru competition just like OS/2.
Well, what would you expect him to say? That Linux may (if people get their act together) start threatening Windows on the desktop, and that people are really not fond of Microsoft's draconian licensing schemes and forced inclusion of DRM in their products?
A newspaper interview with a businessman is nothing more than an opportunity for free advertising. You don't think Bill knows that?
Re:And don't forget about! (Score:5, Insightful)
We bet on graphical user interface.
Funny, I seem to remember that someone else had already proven the GUI in the market when MS "bet" on it.
Nobody used OS/2? (Score:5, Insightful)
None of his friends used OS/2 so nobody used it. I guess nobody uses mainframes either, and the Internet was invented 10 years ago.
Extremely ironic... (Score:5, Insightful)
Surprise: Xerox did that way before Microsoft ever thought about it. And Bill himself only thought about it when he saw one of the first demo model of the Apple Lisa (if I remember well). And that's just one example among many.
Microsoft never innovated: it just latched on all the good ideas. GUIs, ACLs, www browsers, spreadsheet, heck, even the mouse was invented by somebody else.
So, what kind of "innovations" has been created by Microsoft? Maybe Clippy. But that's it, and we all know how helpful that is...
And for those who may believe that Microsoft improved on all of these, I have just four words for you: Blue... Screen... Of... Death.
Whew! Enough ranting. You can start modding me down, now.
Re:Yeah.... (Score:5, Insightful)
> They keep bring us new stuff like MS-Bob.... and Clippy...
Of all the stuff they've released in multiple markets over the past two decades, all you can find to troll with are Microsoft Bob (an application from 1995) and Clippy. Seems to me they might not be doing so bad after all. Why not compare modern versions of MS apps to versions of Mac OS or Linux from 1995 then?
I love Linux, but the Microsoft Bob troll is so crusty, like no mistakes were made with Linux or OS X over the years...
Big Difference (Score:3, Insightful)
The big difference between other Microsoft competitors and Linux is that the others have to be lucrative for the companies developing them. IBM had no reason to develop OS/2 if it was not going to be a profitable project.
The development of open source alternatives is typically not for the purpose of selling the software at a profit. Therefore, unlike commercial alternatives, they will not be cancelled if they cannot make a profit. I think that gives the open source competitors a huge advantage.
Linux is here to stay ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux is here to stay, and they know it. This is _not_ like the OS/2 days. OS/2 was IBM's, GNU/Linux is a comunity, they can't sweep linux out of the market because most linux users uset it because they won't run anything from Microsoft. I know I do.
Even if RedHat, Mandrake and all commercial distros dissapear and SCO's FUD manages to kill Linux (highly unlikely) the mentality, press coverage and community that has gathered around GNU/Linux will live on in the *BSDs and even in OSX.
All the people and companies spreading FUD and satanizing Linux have, in some way or another, gained a lot from the GNU/Linux movement. SCO has lasted a little longer than it should have because of OpenLinux, OSX and Windows have incorporated software and ideas that were born in the GNU/Linux/*BSD world.
Even if Linux is to dissapear the "damage" is already done
Some would say that the "world domination" thingie has already started.
Re:And don't forget about! (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft was the LAST person to the party when it came to the GUI. The same thing goes for "NT" technology. Billy is still trying to effectively replicate both MacOS and OS/2.
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
CORBA has been around since at least 1991 (longer, I think), and most agree that it beat Microsoft in the DCOM-CORBA "Object Wars" (as evidenced by Microsoft moving on to Web Services). Although CORBA now provides the underlying technology for things such as J2EE, it is largely gone as far as a standalone technology. Was CORBA "passing thru" or was/is it a real technology?
OS/2 was also around for quite a number of years, and was until very recently an actual product. Great OS, IMHO. If we want to define Linux as being around long enough to not be "passing thru", then that applies to OS/2 as well.
DR-DOS? PC-DOS? Microsoft outlived them both. Or, to be fair, Microsoft did what it does best, redefined the game.
Mac OS? Doesn't get me started (although I like to think its making a comeback with OS X... made me a convert... UNIX OS with great apps and interface)
Now, I'm no defender of Microsoft, but I think what Bill Gates was probably saying was "Hey, we've faced down stiff competition before, and won. How is this different?" On that point, I have to agree. Maybe they will lose this time, but they have definatly been down this road before and know a little something about smashing threats.
(no, this is not a troll. My favorite OS'es are Linux and Mac OS. Just trying to credit where its due)
Re:Oh, for Christ's sake (Score:1, Insightful)
If you think (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, turn around, pull your thumb out of your ass, and read something educational.
They always think they're different. (Score:3, Insightful)
And the roadside is littered with companies that believed they were "somehow different and unique" from everything that had gone before - where are they now?
It's an _ok_ article (Score:2, Insightful)
Windows does seem to be a platform that does a lot of innovation. I've seen the betas of Longhorn, they're really doing some awesome architectural change to the OS. I don't think Linux users can deny that the most popular window managers out there aim to imitate Windows' look-and-feel so as to be familiar with those users. What does this result in? A clone machine. Nothing risky and new is done very often and really pushed out (I'm talking about KDE or Gnome doing something major and pushing it out) for fear it'll push potential new users away due to its dissimilarity with Windows.
Don't get me wrong. Linux is very stable and the kernel is getting so rock-hard and that is very impressive, but until there's really a reason to make people's heads turn, people will remain on Windows. They need to see something that turns their head and they say "Wow, that's something that makes my computing life easier that's not available on Windows." Only then will desktop users really consider switching. But as long as the advertising scheme for Linux is "Just like Windows!", there won't be a super compelling reason for people to switch. Oh yeah, the lack of software hurts, but we've beat that catch 22 into the ground.
Of course, another problem is that once it's done on Linux, Windows will probably embrace-and-extend it. That's a slight downside of the cost arrangement of Linux. If someone was to get some new innovative thing into Linux, nobody can afford to get protection for it such as patents. Sure, most of you may not like software patents, but face it, it's the way it is and you have to protect yourself whether you like the system or not. I'm not saying MS will steal the code, but they have a whole slew of programmers that can tinker with something until they figure it out.
This is all stuff easier said than done. Since MS is the 900lb gorilla, they have a lot more freedom to do the pushing than the following. These are just my opinions, though.
Re:Typical (Score:0, Insightful)
"Yah, and Linux isn't competition either."
Yeah and Bill definitely said that.
Re:And don't forget about! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let see:
- IBM bet on the 16-bit PC.
- Apple bet on the graphical user interface
- Netscape bet on the web.
- The NT technology base (thats "new technology" technology for those don't know) was forced down user's throats.
- Sun bet on the internet and Java (MS calls this stuff
Yeah, MS took some big risks there
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Yes, we think Linux is a serious threat to our core business". POW, stock prices get hammered, they get sued.
The guy has to be the leader of the company, he's not there to look objectively at anything!
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
He means on the desktop. Obviously, even Bill knows that Linux kick MS ass on the server side. But until Linus starts bringing the GUI into the tree, then I would tend to agree that Linux will never make significant inroads to Windows.
Heck - Linux doesn't even have a desktop. X/KDE/Gnome/etc are responsible for that. And those run on other unices, too. I'm not sure why Linux = Windows competitor to most. It has nothing to do with a desktop OS.
Re:Uhm, yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because he discounts it now doesn't mean he can turn around and dominate it later.
Re:If you think (Score:0, Insightful)
Bill has questions. I have answers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Me: Apple [apple.com]
Gates: Who else has the guts to get speech, get the recognition levels up, get the learning levels up in the standard interface?
Me: Apple [apple.com]
Re:What did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but it does make me really curious about a few things.
I think the mere fact they talk about Linux in a USA Today interview with Gates says a lot. Besides, in the interview itself he isn't completely dismissive about Linux or OS/2. He said that OS/2 was serious competition because it had the weight of IBM behind it. If he's publicly saying the same thing about Linux then they are saying in public that it's a major threat.
Personally, I hope they misunderestimate Linux right until it kills them. I stand by my belief that once non-windows home computers have around 20% of the market share, MS is doomed. At that point, hardware manufacturers will be losing serious sales if they release products with only Windows drivers. Software manufacturers will either release only for Windows, or make the software multi-platform and increase their potential market by 20%. Game manufacturers will be in an even better situation. If they release for PC only, they hit a small market, if they make the game multi-platform, not only do they get the additional computers (Linux, OS X, etc.) but additional consoles as well. If MS loses the monopoly on Windows machines as game computers, and Apple decides to break their monopoly on Office by doing what they did with Safari... at that point MS is dead. Let's just hope they don't know it yet.
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you remember the "Team OS/2" astroturfing? The Linux community doesn't even need to do stuff like that. It's truly grassroots, even as it's attracted the help of the big names, including OS/2's father, IBM.
The difference with IBM and OS/2 is that they were in an already weakened position when OS/2 was around. The PS/2 line was one of the biggest flops of all-time for IBM, and they were simultaneously trying to sell Windows-based machines and still push OS/2 as their main OS. They were too scattered with that, along with the big divorce lawsuit with Microsoft over their Joint Development Agreement. On top of all that, this is when Microsoft was insisting on per processor license agreements, a practice which got them hand-slapped by the FTC and later the Justice Department.
Linux, on the other hand, is relatively unencumbered by all that baggage, with the noteable exception of the SCO lawsuit, which at this point, has no direct bearing over Linux itself, just IBM, and I don't think they're really sweating it any, despite what Darl McBride would have you think.
Re:Finally, an interview with Gates! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:He is correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dear Linus (Score:1, Insightful)
OK, before you mod me to -1000, think about this for a second. This is precisely the way the mainstream users look at the PC market. (Actually, they're an even tougher crowd than this, and I could have added a few more requirements to the list above. But that will suffice for a first approximation.)
Re: Uhm, yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
> And then proceeded to realize his oversight, turn is company around on a dime, and now has a large slice of that internet pie.
Heh. Eight years later and Microsoft's biggest contributions to internet culture are browser integration, Outlook backdoors, and e-mail trojans. I don't think he 'gets' the internet now any more than he did in 1995.
Bad hair day (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If you think (Score:2, Insightful)
Be installed on 100 machines without paying for a licence for each one.
Why OS/2 "passed through" (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux suffers from some of these problems, but incompetency and bad marketing are hopefully not amongst them. The one thing Linux absolutely has to do however is start loading up with consumer features. This means making stuff easy, be it installing new drivers, supporting graphics and sound properly, playing games. At the moment Linux sucks unless you're prepared to put a lot of effort into it or never intend to change your hardware ever. At present I'd say that the big boys have just about mastered producing a reasonable desktop, but there is a long way to go yet.
what journalist???!?!! (Score:3, Insightful)
my sig --(GPLed, use it, but make the source available)
Re:new? (Score:3, Insightful)
Eric
Of course he is going to say these things. (Score:5, Insightful)
By definition, CEOs are cheerleaders to the general masses. The article was written for USA Today, bought mostly for its 4 colour weather map.
Of course his answers are going to be biased. Of course they are going to be "MS NUMBER ONE!" in tone. It would be irresponsible if he didn't.
A CEO is a part sales person. He is selling MS. He and all sales people will streach the truth.
Move along, nothing to see here.
Re:Flaming Bill.... (Score:2, Insightful)
He's trying to change history.
Remember, reality means nothing these days. It's all about making the public think they know something. See it in public relations, politics, product advertising...
Salt is NOT bad for you.
Tomatoes are NOT vegitables.
The USA is NOT a democracy.
Microsoft did NOT revolutionize the PC.
Yet people believe.
Re:Extremely ironic... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just the one that I can think of - use-based dynamic menus. Perhaps someone can point me to earlier cases of this, but I still like it and still find them useful.
There appears to be a religious objection to them in the Linux world, I suspect primarily because the idea came from Microsoft. OK - so some people hate them, meaning that the feature should be configurable. Despite that, I'd like to see dynamic menus start making their way outside of the Windows world.
It's not so much religious as practical. Think about it. Everytime you stop using a feature for w hile it disappears. Not once, not twice, all the time. Use it or lose it. If you start using a feature, the menu-option reappears.
This means your menu items are never in the same place! You quickly lose all efficiency, especially for menu-items that don't have icons in front of them. You can never sit down at some one else's workstation and expect things to be in the same place. I can't tell my mom she should use the third option from the top (which comes in handy sometimes when she's using a Dutch version of Office, whereas I'm using an English version and the translations are farfetched at best).
Also it changes the way pull down menus have worked for years, with the sole exception of most-recently used files (only at the bottom of the File pull down menu). Talk about breaking the user's mental model of your app!
GUI gurus know this. They tell you, if an option is not available, disable it (gray it out) so the relative position remains the same. This somehow applies to context menus, but not to pull down menus?
I'm all for simple vs. advanced pull down menus, but self-adjusting.. Puh-lease. Not to mention my startmenu is at the same time not alphabetized, as well as unpredictably axing applications all the time. I used it yesterday, now it's gone, but the app I used last a few months ago is still there.. Yikes.
I don't know if self-mutilating pull down menus are a True Microsoft Innovation (R) but yes, they are annoying. There are plenty of better GUI enhancements that could be supported..
Linux passing on... (Score:3, Insightful)
Licensing Costs (Score:5, Insightful)
> For any project, if you look at communications
> costs, hardware costs, personnel costs, all that,
> software licensing ranges -- the highest you'd
> ever find is, like, 3% of any IT-type project.
Wow. Not my experience, to say the least.
To me, this is indicative of exactly where Linux does and will continue to shine. The above statement is probably true for Chase Manhattan, and I doubt we'll see Chase switching to Linux anytime soon (although I don't doubt that their big iron is still a commercial UNIX).
Most of the people I deal with, though, are either small research groups or small businesses: Five guys with three computers and a world to conquer. This is where Linux is already excelling, and I think this is where it will excel for the immediate future.
That is why Gates is wrong. OS/2 had some advantages over Windows (such as the 'IBM army' as he puts it), but it was competing with Windows for the same goal. Where I see Linux being really successful is in places where the Microsoft Barrier-to-Entry(tm) is just too high. Unlike OS/2, Linux isn't going to be driven from these places. Linux is not going away, although it may not be going to the foreground, either.
And as more and more small businesses and contractors and researchers use Linux to do cool and interesting things on the cheap, bigger businesses will start to notice.
Re:Dear Bill (Score:2, Insightful)
Kinda makes your point moot doesn't it?
Re:Of course he is going to say these things. (Score:3, Insightful)
Consistent Message (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft are the ones that keep pushing new technologies.
This is quite consistent with what Bill Gates has said many times before, that "freedom to innovate" was endangered by any action against Microsoft, despite it being officially judged a monopoly.
Alongside this use of doublespeak is the recent lobbying by the "Institute for Software Choice" in Australia for government organizations there to avoid free and open source because of the economic harm it would cause to MSFT, a corporation based in the United States.
As a U.S. citizen, I've already enjoyed the benefits of free and open source software developed in Australia and look forward to seeing more of it. Likewise, a lot of free and open source software has been developed in the United States that could be of great benefit to Australian users in government, industry and at home. I don't see why the Australian government should be especially restricted from making the kinds of command decisions on IT infrastructure that companies all over the world make every day - you know the kind - the corporate standard is to run Windows and to use Word, etc.
The hue and cry about freedom of choice and innovation is only raised when there is a palpable danger that the choice might be other than one designed to further bolster the financial interests of Microsoft, or that innovation might result in a potentially lucrative new technology being developed outside Microsoft.
People like Bill Gates who, with his money and fame, enjoys instant access to government officials and the media across the world to promote his point of view (aligned to increase shareholder value at MSFT) is able to get an audience that common people, or even average knowledgeable IT people, simply cannot hope to get.
The fact that free and open source software is making inroads through grass-roots word of mouth based on its own merits, devoid of such a heavily funded marketing organization, and despite this lopsided point of view being propagated by Gates at the highest levels and in most public venues, is a remarkable testament to Lincoln's adage that "you can't fool all of the people all of the time".
It gives me hope.
Actually... (Score:1, Insightful)
People are dumb, panicky animals that will follow anyone willing to arouse them. Bill is just real damn good at getting the herd to put their collective nose in his crotch.
Re:But... (Score:4, Insightful)
There is currently too much commercial money in Linux from many different players for it to just "go away". Also, MS's typical tactics that they use to "beat" the competition won't work on Linux. Price cuts may keep some from switching, however many that want to switch do it not just because of cost, but also choice. People and companies are tired of the MS slogan of give them the razors and sell them the blades. Most people are not dumb enough to buy into getting heavy discounts from MS. Because they all know that MS will try to make it back some other way once they are locked in. Many people and companies are also tired of the anti-competitve tactics and their freedom of choice being taken away. When you build your infrastructure on MS, then all those app you use are designed to function "best" when you ONLY use other MS stuff. I personally think that MS's goal is to be the ONE developer of all software. Sure, some of the small meaningless shareware type stuff will still float around. But for any of the bigger apps, protocols and codecs, MS wants to hoarde that and be the only controller. It kind of reminds me of a "One Ring to Rule Them All" type of deal.
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If you think (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux truly runs the gambit of support from zilch (but completely free) to 24x7 support for mission-critical applications. This is great when you have development and test environments where you don't want to pay licensing/support for something that customers will never see. You're lowering overhead which nowadays is very important
On the technical side, being able to modify Linux means that it can run in a number of environments from the desktop/workstation (where a larger, less efficient kernel that has more stuff compiled into it doesn't matter) to a server (where stability and speed are more important) to very small devices (where a small memory footprint is important).
If you're talking stability, security, and speed and other *nix features/functions, then yeah, Linux is not a very compelling product. But merely copying *nix isn't what made Linux popular in the first place!
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apples and Oranges. Microsoft has great marketing skills but no idea what they are talking about. It shows in this interview with Bill. OS/2 was never this popular. Not only IBM but many other companies are using Linux. Hell, even Oracle has announced Linux is their primary development platform. OS/2 never had that from anyone.
How many OS/2 web servers have you guys been hitting lately btw? OS/2 database servers in use? Sure banks use OS/2.. how many banks out there compared to # of other businesses in the world?
See my issue with Bill's comments? Same ol' FUD. Life is good
Re:He is correct (Score:2, Insightful)
Its just one example of a situation with Linux that keeps it from being ready for the desktop as far as Multimedia is concerned.
Re:But... (Score:2, Insightful)
It is as dead as Fortran and Cobol.
So in other words, its dead.
Re:But... (Score:4, Insightful)
And let's face it: All MS did the last 20 years was defend their DOS/Windows dominaton. Network effects helped them greatly, OS/2 went away almost by itself (of course MS will always be MS so they also blackmailed German computer makers not to preinstall OS/2 - however OS/2 would have died anyway.), hardware makers fought the battle for them on servers. Microsoft had only to make sure x86 stays MS-only and hardware-maker would make the hardware cheap and fast enough to endanger Unix.
Linux changed all that.
On servers Linux is extremely successful and has already surpassed Windows in Europe, on embedded systems it is about to do the same. On the desktop we still have the big problem of weak software support, but unlike IBM or Microsoft the open source community has the power to create a complete desktop from scratch: KDE. It includes everything from browser to office suite and is certainly good enough for mainstream needs.
Re:Typical (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not saying that Bill did say that; thing is, *him denying* that he said it doesn't make that fact, either.
I wonder if the real truth will ever come out. When I went to college in the mid80s I remember hearing that 640k joke quite often; and this was before the real media hype surrounding Gates and MS started. So...I wonder.
SB
Re:I wonder (Score:1, Insightful)
and That Microsoft are the ones that keep pushing new technologies
does the article submitter think that Linux is the one pushing new technologies? yeah, that'll be the day...
Re:What did you expect? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dear Bill (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.
Get a Mandrake 9.0 ISO.
Serisously. It goes somthing like this:
Insert CD.
Partition things. Install things. Add a password. Reboot.
Congrats, you now have Linux with a pretty desktop, OpenOffice, Kmail and Mozilla.
Compair with XP:
Insert CD. Partion things. Format. Reboot. Install. Type in long setrial number. Reboot. Install more things. Install Office XP. Reboot. Register XP. Install SP 1-3. Reboot.
Re:It's an _ok_ article (Score:3, Insightful)
tab based browsing... Uhh, Mozilla and Opera are available on Windows. Mozilla is still free of charge.
popup blocking... Amazing new toolbar from google. [google.com]
multiple desktops... It's a free download, if you want it. [microsoft.com] Personally I prefer my multi-monitor setup instead.
But multiple desktops has been around since at least Windows 3.1, it's not that new.
You're making the mistake of underestimating the competition, thinking that these things don't exist in Windows just because you lack experience with it.
OS2 isn't DEAD, just dosen't MATTER (Score:1, Insightful)
Linux, on the other hand, still IS, and is a extremely large competetor to Microsoft, at least in the server arena.
Overall, the opinions of Billy Gates on this issue are rather baseless, comparing Linux to OS/2 and the like. Two key differences are that Microsoft actually participated in the creation of OS/2, and it was not open source.
La vie en rose (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares what some corporate director thinks of Linux? Linux and OSS do not have to compete in the market as they are not of the market. They cannot be bought or sold, or controlled, driven out of business.
OSS is not another Pepsi for the masses, its for coders, and people that want an OS that was created to be useful, not filled with stupid sh*t thought up by a focus group.
Bill goes on about all of the hot new "technologies" that MS is creating, all with suitably meaningless code names, "longhorn", "lance", "infinity", "big sleek cat like thing". Who knows if any of these things will be useful. Most MS technologies seem to be focused on locking their customers in to their platform rather than providing any useful functionity. Paladium, Doc scripting, passport, the paperclip, need I say more?
Commercial software is increasingly becoming a platform to get you to buy other stuff. Personally, I get enough advertising stuffed through my eyeballs already. Its like movie theatres, remember when you used to go to a movie pay your $2.50 and NOT be showen 30m of commercials before the movie started?
In a nut shell, commercial software producers think a great enhancement is a talking paperclip whereas OSS producers think a popup blocker is a good feature.
Just be happy, and grateful to OSS developers, that you have a choice.
Re:doesn't matter (Score:2, Insightful)
Then why does IIS keep getting hacked?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
IIS enjoys only one half the market share of Apache for web servers. Meanwhile IIS enjoys the majority of actual hacking events.
Why? Monocultured soft target. Look at Nimda and Code Red they're working on the hopes that you have your files located in C:\winnt\system32\...
Easy target. Pushover even. But NOT the largest target.
Your Linux scenario neglects a few things about priviledges needed to open up ports and the like. You also need to give that program execute priviledges and hope that (in your scenario) they are using the
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Uhm, yeah. (Score:1, Insightful)
Also, your little Q&A shows that you don't have a clue what you are talking about. By default, Outlook won't even let you touch an attachment with a
Please take your ignorance someplace else. Try kuro5hin- that place is full of ignorant people.
Forget Innovation... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:doesn't matter (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Uhm, yeah. (Score:2, Insightful)
Umm, sorry. IIS in 2003 has not been out nearly long enough to say anything about its merits let alone its security or lack therof. Come back in a year or two when all the crackers have had their fun. One big problem with a rewrite is that you lose all those bug fixes and security fixes.
**If they were separate programs, it would be harder to work together and actually less secure because they would be in separate process spaces so allowing only the calendar to talk to email and not other stuff is harder to do. How about you offer some valid reasons why they should be separate programs?
Again, your are way off. How are programs running in a seperate process space insecure? You want programs in a seperate process space to create security and stablity between two different applications. The way programs have been desinged to interact is by using something called a standard. This is how all these servers can talk to one another, how you can browse the web and do many more things. MS has standards that they use for their own programs. Though they are just a greedy monopoly and do not believe in sharing or encouraging standards compliance. They want to keep their "standards" proprietary and call them "trade secrets" or "IP". What if every other programmer or corporation took this same approach? We would not have servers that could talk over tcp/ip, the internet, etc because everyone would be doing their own thing like MS.
**So you don't like a couple of their programs (such as IE). Use something else and be happy!
Again, with MS practices, it is very difficult to exercise free choice. You have to fight against "integrated" products, closed protocols, closed document formats, etc. MS does not want any user or corporation to have choice and they have continually shown that. If they cared about their customers having the ability to make a choice, then they would work with standards compliant technologies. If they want to "extened" a techonology, they would share that back with the IT world and have the extensions become part of the standard intstead of hoarding it.
What I find sad is just how effective the MS FUD and marketing machine really is. You seem to actually believe the stuff that you are spewing. No corporatioin becomes an monopoly by caring about choice, standards or customers. They get there by unethical business practices.
open standards, open standards, open standards... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Bill's interview is typical PR material; anyone from MS's marketing group could probably give the same interview. But what scares me, is that every time Microsoft "innovates", all they really do is make stuff that is incompatible with anything non-Microsoft (and sometimes their own products aren't compatible!)
That in mind, it seems more important to me to promote open standards than Linux itself. Of course I would love to see Linux have a respectable desktop market share for better OEM support. But what good is my Linux machine if I can't even surf the web because too many web pages are written only for IE? How much of a pain is it if I have to tell everyone to resend their MS Office documents in a format I can read (OOo won't always cut it)?
And now we're seeing some cases where the US and/or state governments' are officially blessing Microsoft's otherwise incompatible data formats---this should be criminal! Public information that is avaialable electronically (either through the web or some other means) should not dictate which software is used to view, edit, modify or interact with that data.
If you go to a "IE only" government website, you're effectively seeing a tax funded advertisement for Microsoft. Your taxes paid for the software purchase, for the staff to setup and maintain that system, and now you're effectively taxed again by being forced into purchasing some (very expensive) software. And people call open source communist?!
I think we need to put some effort into a strong "inform the masses" campaign. An easy first step is to write editorials to your local paper brining to light the dangers of proprietary data formats and vendor lock-in. I was thinking about pre-scripting a lot of these letters and posting them on my website for all to use/borrow/steal/whatever. These letters also need to be sent to government representatives.
The article should contain proposed solutions. As much as we love Linux and friends, we can't beat it down peoples' throats. Some other viable thoughts:
Finally, I think it's important to have some good, strong analogies or metaphores to illustrate the negative impact of the Microsoft monopoly (and their use of proprietray, non-compatible data formats). The most obvious analogy, to me, is as follows:
What if Ford Motor Co. owned all the roads in the U.S.? Surely they would design the roads such that only Ford vehicles worked on them. And furthermore, they would hide behind IP laws to make it illegal for anyone to make a car for their roads. What if Ford only offered one or two models of cars that actually worked on these roads? And those cars were their most expensive?
If the above scenario were true, public outrage would be rampant. Most people simply don't realize that this contrived situation is the case with Microsoft. Worse, people don't understand the implications of Microsoft literally owning your data.
Welcome to the United States of Microsoft, comrade.
Re:Typical (Score:3, Insightful)
This is as meaningless and irrelevant as the analogus statements made about Gates. "Earning money" is not a character reference unless the money was earned honorably. Where Gates falls on that scale is a subject for debate, but citing his wealth out of that context is meaningless as far as I'm concerned.
Re:new? (Score:3, Insightful)
MS does actually provide value to a huge customer base - there's a reason that their monopoly has thrived. Like it or not, MS has played a large role in the progress of desktop systems over the last two decades.
Re:He is correct (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And don't forget about! (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, that's a very good summary of why MS has been a good business. They let other people shoulder the venture risk, often with MS' funding, then they take the (prospected and analyzed) risk of a full deployment of that technology. If their product is often inferior, it's inconsiquential to the Gee-Wiz factor and the confidence people have[/had] that the company would improve it. In the past, MS was usually the first one to show people new tech.
...which brings us to today (and reality). You'll be hard pressed to find anyone in the tech sector that has confidence in MS' responsibility to deliver good code. MS has to rely on managing bureaucracy's confidence in MS, which still exists because MS is a successful business. Thanks to the Internet, and MS' demonstrated incompetence at using it as a tech showroom, MS is no longer the first company to show tech to most people. Now the companies that actually shouldered the initial risk can show the tech off. MS can still offload initial risk, minimizing their liabilities, but it's harder to yank the rug out from their "partners" now. Recently, they've tried patenting ideas their partners are developing that they're funding. Half the time, they've got a contract that permits it, and the other half of the time it's illegal but the patent department thinks they have the right contract.
Anyhow, MS can still fund innovation, but the other two leverages are gone. That leaves us with the business practice of funding innovative and/or useful projects and selling the results with a service plan. Oddly enough, that's what OSS-interest companies are learning how to do.
Segueing back to the first paragraph, I've some political speculation. In the USA there's a tendancy to try to team up and pick a winner, which is why people tend to try to stick with the popular choice, even if it's inferior. This is probably because of the mindset of strategic voting required for multi-candidate plurality voting to function in a reasonable way. That is, everyone decides to buy MS because that'll give MS more money (resource) to work with to improve their product, as opposed to giving a lot of candidate companies a little money. This may explain why countries with wiser voting systems [wikipedia.org] (like Borda Count [wikipedia.org], Instant Runnoff [wikipedia.org], or {my favorite} Condorcet's Method [wikipedia.org]) more readily adopt Linux, BSD, or adopted BeOS.
Longer than three years... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd put it at more like five years. Some of us have been using it for even longer than that. It might have had hobbyist roots, but once we started selling masquerading firewalls to people with dialup and early Cablemodem/DSL, inroads were made. Then, we started selling file servers, and then servers to replace Windows NT Server as a PDC, and so on, and so on...
This isn't to say that it was immediate, or that it was in chunks, but grassroots movements, which Linux started out as, don't jump out immediately. It is rare that I find anyone at all who hasn't at least heard of Linux. They may not know anything about it at all, but simply hearing the name has some recognition.
Bill's underestimation (Score:2, Insightful)
Bill underestimates the open source community as whole. Mr. Gates asserts that the social intertia behind the open source movement does not have enough MONEY to mount a challange to Micro$oft. The problem is that the economic value of the open source community is found in leverage mindshare. The economic force behind open source and Linux is in the abillity and intelligence of it's contributors. This is the vision and reality of R. Stallman in drafting the GPL. Micro$oft will never match the intelligence and creativity of the open source community.
Number 2: Compare time-to-market performance for Linux versus Micro$oft over the past few years and the eveidence is clear that Linux design cycles easily out-performs the lumbering monolith of the Micro$oft development process. Whatever Micro$oft throws at the market will be copied or improved much faster in the open source community than Micro$oft's developers. They have already lost due to their cumbersome internal organizational structure.
"It's the CONTENT stupid!"
JP
Re:Typical (Score:5, Insightful)
by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive, and
available freely - but only 5 percent of the people would use it."
The car would have to be assembled at the home. There would be a steering wheel which is only used to navigate the car some of the time. There would be 47 pedals that each respond to varying levels of pressure. The manual would contain no illustrations and only cover half the functionality. A passenger seat is available to add to the Linux car, but the installation procedure requires new tools that you'll have to research how to use. The headlights and blinkers work, but the windshield wipers are still in development. (Nobody thought to copy that functionality until MS did it 4 years ago.) The Linux Community would bash MS for their wiper addition, claiming that one of their modes work only intermittently. However they'll cheer on the Linux team when they finally figure out how to copy that function they thought was useless and would make the users stupider. You'll be able to get a moon roof for free, but once you install it you'll find that you have to replace a component in the engine because suddenly the tires won't turn anymore. There's no automatic transmission, only manual, and it's got 19 gears plus 3 seperate modes.
Despite the well known fact that consumers want easy to use products that do what they need them to without much fuss, the Linux Community will act stunned and surprised at every turn that only the few people with the interest and the time will want anything to do with this car. Meanwhile, the Microsoft car still sells quite well and people drive quite happily with it. They've even got a large selection of games to play.
Re:It's an _ok_ article (Score:2, Insightful)
show me the innovation! (Score:3, Insightful)
All of it has been bought, borrowed, or stolen EXCEPT Bob and Clippy. Show us something else they've done that actually demonstrates anything resembling innovation, and maybe we'll stop poking fun at Bob and Clippy.
In other words, we're not poking fun at Bob and Clippy because they were mistakes (MS has made plenty of other mistakes, i.e. the autoexecution features in outlook). So, saying that "mistakes were made with Linux or OS X [too]" is missing the point completely.
Now, I'll grant you that there isn't a whole lot of innovation in Linux either. But the flip side of that is that Linux advocates don't go around bragging about their "commitment to innovation" either.
Re:Typical (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Typical (Score:3, Insightful)
Note what the quote you're reading in 1986 actually says, though... "Bill Gates couldn't imagine why anyone would need more than 640k with MS-Dos", which is pretty much true. I doubt he even said that, but if he did, it wasn't such a dumb thing to say - and may have even been said in the context of promoting a next-generation graphical interface that would require more memory.
On the other hand, all this does is illustrate that you can't prove a negative. Lots of people around here saying things like "he can claim he didn't say it, doesn't mean it's true!" Well, I can say your claim to have not killed JFK isn't true either, but I would probably look pretty ridiculous doing it. Of course, you probably couldn't prove you didn't kill JFK, but that doesn't give me the right to say you did.
Statements like the one you found in 1986 are how rumors get started, and rumors turn to urban legends simply based on the fact that it's often impossible to prove a negative, to prove something didn't happen. If nobody here can provide proof (and not the "I heard it was on some Apple CD in 1981" nonsense), then it fits the definition of folklore.
Re:Extremely ironic... (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep in mind, Microsoft uses 'innovate' in a marketing sense (remember Microsoft is really more of a marketing company than a technology company). In this sense, 'innovation' isn't about inventing new things, it's about incorporating new things (whereever they were invented) into product. As far as Marketing is concerned, technology isn't real until it's part of a sellable product (and at Microsoft, it's not real until it's part of a Microsoft product). In the sense they use it, they do innovate. The spin is that they use it in that sense, knowing that people will take it in the technical sense (i.e. actually inventing new things). Typically marketing ploy, really - use a word in a specific sense, so that you can claim that in some way you're speaking the truth, but take advantage of the fact that people in general will take that word in a different sense.