The Softening of a Software Man 617
theodp writes to tell us that New York Magazine has an interesting editorial stating that no one is afraid of Microsoft anymore. The article argues that Microsoft has noticeably been adrift in the wake of Gates' philanthropy, which some cynics suspect is a Rockefeller-like attempt to 'fumigate his fortune' as he makes a play for the history books. From the article: "Like the robber barons, Bill Gates has moved from trying to take over the world to trying to save it."
Um... (Score:5, Funny)
Which leaves only Steve Ballmer.
Re:Um... (Score:4, Insightful)
I still think a good case can be made for Steve Jobs being the antichrist. Without ever making himself look evil he manages to tempt countless people into sin through techno-lust, and the vitriol exhibited by rabid Mac-lovers towards basically anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest can hardly be thought of as "natural" hatred.
Re:Um... (Score:5, Funny)
LIAR!
Re:Um... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, you get the feeling from Microsoft that they just roll on like a column of amoral tanks over their opponents, whereas Jobs' actions make him seem like a targeted, deliberate agent for the secret police.
And in the 1980s, when Microsoft was beating their opponents in the marketplace with over- (and under-) handed business deals, Apple was running opponents out of business (i.e. the whole Apple II clone industry) in the courtroom.
Re:Um... (Score:3, Informative)
Thanks, I totally agree with your statement. Many of the new generation are not aware of what happened during those days. As an owner of a Laser 128 [apple2clones.com] (which I loved to death) I followed with interest Apple's destruction of the many available Apple clones [apple2clones.com] which were out there. Even after that, I purchased an Apple //gs [fortunecity.com], just to watch Steve Jobs destroy that platform too, as he pitted his own engineers against each other in a ridiculous internal power struggle which eventually killed the //gs. Many of my f
Re:Um... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Um... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Perhaps Bill Gates really ISN'T the antichrist. (Score:4, Insightful)
If nature did have a way of weeding out idiots, you'd be in serious trouble!
Re:Perhaps Bill Gates really ISN'T the antichrist. (Score:5, Funny)
it's called not getting laid
Re:Original Parent isn't far off (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to say that I disagree with this, because the "idiots" in Africa that you mention afterwards are the disease's primary victims, and not being able to find out about these things does not make one an idiot.
For the record, do you know if the "unprotected homosexual contact" figure includes "accidental" (protection failing) cases? Bec
Re:Original Parent isn't far off (Score:5, Insightful)
As usual, the evidence of the ignorant falls somewhat short of being accurate.
You can contract AIDS not just from sharing needles, but from using another junkies' spoon. Too, used needles are all that's available sometimes. Street dealers sell them for convenience sake. They have to ... you can't buy needles in a store. Because that would encourage drug use and frighten churchgoers. There are needle exchanges in major US cities, but they only operate a few hours a week in various locations. Not to mention, many junkies fear they'll be marked by undercover narcs if they pick their rigs up there. It's not that junkies wouldn't use fresh needles if they were available, in fact they're preferable (sharper). They're not, though.
The relatively high percentage of AIDS in the black community is correlated to the relatively high percentage of black men who are incarcerated. One of the great unspokens within the black community is that many men have sex with one another in prison. Before the GNAA chimes in, you should understand many heterosexual men have sex with other men in prison. It's a different world no one can judge unless they've been there. It doesn't help condoms aren't distributed in prison. Homophobia, you understand. Don't want to look gay or anything. Same reason guys don't admit to it, same reason guys don't get tested, same reason guys give it to their girlfriends when they get out. Shame.
As for having unprotected sex being idiotic, if that were true we're all idiots. Well, probably not you. I'll let you in on a little secret, though -- condomless feels better. In the moment, it's pretty easy to convince yourself that you can beat the odds.
Re:Original Parent isn't far off (Score:4, Insightful)
Dont forget that Africa is becoming the rape caital of the world. It's pretty tough to get your generic rapist to use a condom.
One in three of the 4,000 women questioned by CIET Africa, non-governmental organisation, said they had been raped in the past year.... In a related survey conducted among 1,500 schoolchildren in the Soweto township, a quarter of all the boys interviewed said that 'jackrolling' - a South African term for recreational gang rape - was fun. [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Perhaps Bill Gates really ISN'T the antichrist. (Score:2)
Re:Perhaps Bill Gates really ISN'T the antichrist. (Score:4, Insightful)
Those people are idiots, too, right, Gravis Zero?
Re:Perhaps Bill Gates really ISN'T the antichrist. (Score:3)
In terms of evolution maybe the soceities where these things are allowed to happen should not be the ones to survive...
can you blame him? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, it does take a lot of effort and energy to be competing with Bono. [time.com]
Re:can you blame him? (Score:5, Funny)
Bono has lots of free time.
Don't be alarmed (Score:5, Funny)
have you seen him? (Score:2)
Yeesh.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:3, Insightful)
People who want to look good in public eye do good deeds in public ? It doesn't take much to be modded Insighfull around here, now does it ?
Not trying to flame you, just wondering about the person who apparently found a previously unknown insight from your statement...
Re:So why is that a troll? (Score:2)
Hell, I'd sell my heart for about $500, and my mind for about $1000. Package deal'll get you both for $1200. You listening, Bill? Send a check for $1200 and you can have my heart *AND* my mind.
To the OP: sorry, I'm a cheap whore.
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is giving ~2% of your fortune to charity each year really that amazing?
It is more worthy than all of the other donations by people, many of whom might be donating a lot more money in percentage terms, or actually donating their time to the cause?
It's good however, because you don't hear much about other mega-rich people giving to charity. Maybe they do, but don't claim as much publicity from it? And ~2% of a mega-fuck-load is still a fuck-load (20 kilo-fuck-loads!).
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Bill Gates has given more to charity than anyone EVER.
I think the guy deserves a little credit
No. Giving more than anyone ever (I think once you take inflation into account, that isn't true) means a large impact to the world. It does not mean a large impact to Bill Gates.
Is it really generous when he can give ten times as much without even noticing the money's gone?
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Another thing that you (plural) seem to forget is that most of Bill's billions are not liquid--it's tied up in stock.
"Yeesh" Indeed (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember, it's your money he's giving away. By self-serving use and abuse of the US legal system, he stole hundreds of billions of dollars from people all over the world. He was convicted of this in a US court.
It's great that he's giving some of this money to charity. Personally, I'd rather have the few hundred dollars he's got from me back so that I could choose how to spend it myself. I'd also rather have the businesses he ruined back, and the generation of computer programmers he ruined back, so tha
Re:"Yeesh" Indeed (Score:4, Interesting)
How about the computer manufacturer who was strong-armed into charging a "Microsoft tax" on every system sold even if they shipped their system with OS/2? Granted, you could likely find a place which didn't factor in this cost, but how would you have known that back then?
Not that I agree with the person you replied to, but at least on that point there is some merit.
Don't fall for his hypocricy. (Score:2, Insightful)
I disagree. In the New Testament we read about a poor old widow who gave to the temple a couple of coins, which was what she needed to live. Relatively speaking, she gave much more than any millionaire could give.
On the other hand, if Bill Gates wants to become a good person, WHY DOESN'T HE GIVE US BACK WHAT HE FREAKING STOLE!?
I mean the monopolic practices, forcing us to pay licenses for Windows, etc etc etc.
It's as if a rich man exploited poor men but
Re:Don't fall for his hypocricy. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:5, Funny)
I knew a woman once that didn't have much money because she was a "housewife" or "stay at home mom", whichever you prefer.
She volunteered everywhere she could. The animal shelter, local museums, homeless shelters, Special Olympics walks, cancer drives, the list goes on.
Everyone thought she was the kindest person in the world, and one day I asked her why she did all of this stuff.
She said that she absolutely hated her husband and family and would do anything to get out of the house.
Re:Check the facts (Score:5, Informative)
Thats the whole point of a foundation. you DO NOT give as much as your investments return. You have to account for things like inflation, which is not steady over time and which is actually at a low point right now.
You can say what you want about the Gates foundation but the fact of the matter is that is has done real work - and it is well-managed. It isn't just a billionaire throwing money at the latest fad, it is a self-sustaining foundation aimed at an important problem for our time. Bravo.
-everphilski-
Re:Check the facts (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:4, Informative)
He plans to eventually give it all away, leaving something for his childern.
Thats a bit more than ~2%.
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if he didn't give it all away... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:2)
Thats not the issue. Obviously I prefer Gates helping the less fortunate to hoarding his money, I just happen to think that writing a few checks shouldn't buy the guy a hero's legacy and overshadow the 20 years of unethical/monopolistic buisness practices that created said money.
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:2, Troll)
When he took such an obvious path as creating a nonprofit organization (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and pumping in record billions of $$$ to avoid tax and into a country that is a outsource heaven. Really, who didn't see this coming. But some will give him credit for it. OOps did I mention the B
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:5, Insightful)
When he took such an obvious path as creating a nonprofit organization (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and pumping in record billions of $$$ to avoid tax
I guess you got modded "insightful" by people who are really bad at math.
Donating money to charity does not leave one with more money than one would have had if one didn't donate at all.
If I have 120 dollars and I donate 20, I get taxed on the remaining 100 dollars (let's pretend it's 35%) - so I wind up with 65 dollars.
If I have 120 dollars and I don't donate anything, and I get taxed on the 120 dollars (and let's pretend that the tax rate on 120 dollars is 40%) I wind up with 72 dollars.
So, you see, even after considering the tax benefits, one does not magically wind up with more money after donating than if they didn't.
But, you know - if reality were different, I guess maybe you would have a point.
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, so what are some examples of things that would be sufficient pennance for his misdeeds? You say that erasing third world debt, immunizing about a third of the worlds children against various diseases, funding a cure for AIDS,
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, well, I've just taken everything you had, so now I have more than you, but I gave some small fraction of it to charity, so that's alright then. You are scum because you aren't giving anything of what you don't have anymore to charity. To the almshouse with you where they might deign to bestow the charity of what was once yours upon you, derived from my own generosity.
You're welcome. I'm here to h
Buying karma (Score:3, Insightful)
The $20M he gave to a University library buys him naming rights. $20M to Bill Gates is pocket change. How much "hurt" did he feel making that contribution? About as much as a regular guy would feel if he gave a quarter to charity. To Bill, $20M to see your name written ov
Re:Buying karma (Score:4, Insightful)
You are correct. Billg said that he would donate $1 million over 10 years to fight aids in india. He then made a $1billion dollar investment over 4 years to setup microsoft institutions there to fight linux.
He also likes to play tricks with his money. A $25 million donation to kids in need that really equated to being $25 million in printed MS WinME licences. Nothing like printing your own money and claiming to be giving away vast fortunes.
He likes giving away money, you see. Thats why hes the richest man in the world.
Re:Yeesh.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the man's tactics sucked and (Score:2)
But look on the bright side... Uh... No wait...
On the bright side, he bankrupted everybody who was trying to make a living by commoditing the hardware.
I now own two eMachines with Athlon 64 CPUs, GIGs of RAM and 1/2 a TB of HD and they cost me about a grand. (One's running slackware...) But I still like my two Macs better.
Bill Gates may have employed strategies better s
Looking at the bigger picture... (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't ever forget... (Score:2)
gates following in Rockefeller's footsteps (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact, arguably, plutocrat fortunes, as used to fund foundations, might be said to be the primary force used to direct and channel American leftism. Read more about this in Roelof's book _THe MASK OF PLURALISM. Basically, her main thesis is that plutocrats funded the large nonprofit foundations so that they could fund leftists who were not oriented towards economic oriented leftism, but instead towards identity politics. Thus, the white lower middle class was turned away from leftism in general. Well, there is more to it than that, but it was a major factor.
I doubt Gates could ever match the effect that Rockefeller, Scaife, etc had on American political culture. Too many other players in the game now...
Re:gates following in Rockefeller's footsteps (Score:3, Funny)
Divide and conquer. We can't have the proletariat getting their shit together and organizing, can we? At least not before I pay off my 300-foot yacht.
Re: identity politics and "divide and conquer" (Score:4, Informative)
A political scientist named Fresia has a book online that talks about this. It's called _TOWARD AN AMERICAN REVOLUTION_.
Also, one Richard Bissell, an early CIA honcho who helped start the Ford Foundation with CIA and plutocrat money, said the tactic for destroying leftism was to not debate the leftists about their ideas, but instead to divert their energies to activities and interests that would be less harmful (to the rich and megacorporations, one presumes). The primary diversion created by the Ford Foundation and other nonprofits was Identity Politics/Pluralism/Multiculturalism.
Divide and Conquer, same as it ever was....
Re:gates following in Rockefeller's footsteps (Score:2)
-russ
foundations fund the "right kind" of leftists (Score:2, Interesting)
Some sorts of leftists write about stuff like this, "Hey, let's tax the upper class much more so we can pay for universal healthcare, early retirement, and low cost college!"
Other types of leftists write about stuff like this, "Hey, the whites are racists and they oppress the minorities by enslaving them. And men are oppressing women!"
And you have some in between those two types.
Now, you look at supposedly leftist oriented o
Re:gates following in Rockefeller's footsteps (Score:2)
What is identity politics?
So what you're saying is that they set up these non-profit foundations to take the 'manpower' (voters, volunteers) etc from real leftism and turn it towards whatever identity politics is?
Re:gates following in Rockefeller's footsteps (Score:2)
As for your foundations, did the conservatives ever get in on the foundation game back in the days?
I know they've been very busy in the last ~15 years, funding/starting up conservative think tanks, lobbying groups and other organizations.
Adrift? Try sinking. (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess now to stay afloat they're going to have to come up with some good ideas other than selling people antivirus software to patch up their crappy vulnerable OS. That was a good idea, if only for the irony.
Re:Adrift? Try sinking. (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps he's just tired of the rat race. (Score:2)
What's left after you acquire arbitrarily large amounts of money and power?
Re:Perhaps he's just tired of the rat race. (Score:5, Funny)
"Some Cynics" (Score:2, Insightful)
Really, who else do you know other than maladjusted computer geeks really care that much about Bill Gates? What he does with his fortune is almost hardly noticed by the general public, until this year. And very few people would call Gates a robber baron at all.
The fixation with Bill Gates and Microsoft on slashdot is really unhealthy. You people need to get out more.
Robber Barrons (Score:5, Insightful)
And very few people would call Gates a robber baron at all.
The parallels between Gates and the robber barrons of 1880-1920 are pretty obvious. Perhaps it is your healthy non-geek detachment that prevents you from observing it. Gates has profoundly distorted an industry of great promise and gathered tremendous wealth to himself through careful construction of a monopoly. He did so through maniacal competitiveness, and cunning much like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford. Has he affected history? Certainly. Positively? Doubtful. His legacy is DRM and the anti-virus industry. Like the robber barrons, later in life he chooses to disgorge some of that wealth in a very public way in an effort to whitewash his image. He may leave his name on a couple of buildings, but posterity will see him reviled like his predecessors.
All Men (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:All Men (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:All Men (Score:2)
after I am dead; it is also best to receive benefits
now when it matters -- it is too later after death. ( This I presume is
common thinking, at least of the humans I meet
so far. I have yet to observe the opposite.)
Nothing to fumigate (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)
The way US taxes work is this: you can make all the money you want, but you have to get rid of it this quarter. If you use it to buy things of value, you pay more taxes. If you fritter it away on worthless services or give it to employees, you pay less taxes. So there are basically two strategies you can take in order to pay the least amount of taxes possible: give away every
Re:Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
No more enemy? (Score:2, Insightful)
It worked for Rockefeller and MacArthur (Score:4, Interesting)
Almost nobody knows that John D. MacArthur, who funded the "genius" awards (posthumously), made his money with a life insurance company scam. His unauthorized 1969 biography, "The Stockholder" [barnesandnoble.com], by William Hoffman, gives the details. MacArthur introduced mail-order life insurance sold through newspaper ads, and his company, Banker's Life, was notorious for refusing to pay claims.
If it worked for them, it should work for Gates. Gates isn't even alleged to have killed anyone.
Why the personal attacks? (Score:5, Interesting)
Get over it. He doesn't have any alterior motives here. There's no smoke and mirrors. He's just continuing to do what he has done for decades.
Re:Why the personal attacks? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why the personal attacks? (Score:4, Insightful)
So if I stole people's ideas and fortunes, claimed them as my own, and destroyed an entire industry which was flourishing with brilliant ideas until I nearly single-handedly brought it to stagnation, you'd be okay with that so long as I gave 2% of my spoils to charity?
Pardon me while I don't just "get over it".
Maybe it has dawned on him... (Score:3, Insightful)
Naaahhhhh!!! What was I thinking?
Gates isn't the problem, Ballmer is. (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand Ballmer is also impetuous, and may lead Microsoft back to the law courts.
Remember those MS Word 2 Documents (Score:5, Funny)
Will future versions be able to read what he saved? And even if they could will it render the same?
Bill's Gains (Score:2, Insightful)
But now he is being generous. Should he be given credit for that? Maybe the donations should be made in the name of the public from which he has obtained his fortune while giving nothing in return.
Re:Bill's Gains (Score:2)
I would consider you a troll, but you currently have an "insightful" so I thought I would at least point this out.
I can't say what drives him today... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I can't say what drives him today... (Score:5, Interesting)
That line is just classic Gates, the computer time may have been worth $40,000 but Gates never paid for it. Gates and Allen did not even have authorization to be using the university machines in question, something Gates himself would probably liken to "theft". I don't think Gates has changed at all, he's still a liar. As for Microsoft, they still market vapourware and I believe the next product will be called "Vista".
Life is not 1-dimensional like that (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't we judge companies based on the company's behaviour, and judge individuals based on the individual's behaviour?
Why don't we stop imagining that somehow a multibillion dollar company is still largely a projection of one man's personality?
Why don't we acknowledge that contributing to charity does not absolve anyone of responsibility they may have for wrongs they committed in the past?
Why don't we acknowledge that a person's psyche is not one-dimensional.. that an individual can do good in some contexts and bad in other contexts?
Does that sound reasonable?
-Laxitive
company's behavior? (Score:4, Interesting)
How can a company behave any differently than its employees? Its NOT a living thing. It is a creation of the legal system and its demise is strictly a feature of the economics of the times. They can merge, meld, divest, split and otherwise morph in ways that human beings can't. (A large corporation can sell off a transportation services division and sometinmes, that even mares sense. Try doing that with your legs.)
Some companies in Europe can date their origin back hundreds of years, longer than any of the individuals working for them. I believe that part of ELF-Aquitaine goes back longer than that.
I'm so inspired (Score:5, Funny)
You are free to ignore me here, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
But to anyone thinks this way, I warn you: some people once thought Netscape and the World Wide Web might make Microsoft irrelevant. Others once thought Java might make Microsoft irrelevant. Some once thought Apple might dethrone Microsoft. Some once thought the Playstation would kill Microsoft. I am willing to concede that the verdict may not be in on the last two points yet, but the XBox 360 is sure making headway in that market, and the iPod, though still the most popular MP3 player, is clearly by NO means secure in its position at this point, as competing music stores AND players are continually nipping at Apple's heels.
But my point is simply this: In EVERY case but the last two, Microsoft successfully thwarted or killed those technologies, sometimes only after quite a while of making blunders. Though it may have taken a couple years, Internet Explorer ultimately killed Netscape. Java, though still widely used, appears to be stagnating, not growing, as
And to anyone who thinks Firefox is dethroning Internet Explorer, check again: last time I checked, Internet Explorer still has AT LEAST more than 60% market share, even according to some of the most Firefox-dominant survey samples out there, like the audience who visits W3Schools. And for all the talk about ActiveX and its security flaws, that doesn't seem to have put much of a dent in its use--there are STILL quite a lot of applications out there on the web that depend heavily on ActiveX, particularly at places like banks and corporate intranets. It's all very well to say Firefox is right not to support ActiveX because of its insecurities, but for anyone who is stuck with a bank or a corporate intranet that requires ActiveX, there is basically no real alternative to Internet Explorer.
I doubt ANYONE in their right mind could seriously say the Apple, Sun, or Netscape are going to dethrone Microsoft anytime soon. Do *NOT* discount Microsoft. They might be down on this one round, but they are by *NO* means out. Last time I checked, they are STILL the dominant desktop OS, with over 90% market share, and the prospects for a successful Vista launch seem to keep getting better all the time. From the looks of it, Win Vista, whether we like it or not, is very likely to wow many people, and help Microsoft reclaim whatever ground they have lost to Apple, Google, Linux, etc.
I also warn you: Microsoft is clearing planning to move all of their MSN properties into Windows Live [live.com]. The next version of Hotmail will be called Windows Live Mail, in keeping with this. Their plan is to integrate Windows Live (formerly MSN) heavily with the Windows operating system, and to market it and position it as *THE* web portal, Web 2.0 widget center (upon which other web applications will be built), and THE gateway to the Internet. By integrating Windows Live into Windows and making it platform-dependent, Microsoft still has a trump card here that Google can only DREAM of having.
Do NOT discount Microsoft--they are STILL a force to be reckoned with, they are STILL in a VERY strong position, and they are STILL very dangerous... Do NOT be lulled into a sense of complacency.
Microsoft products commoditized (Score:5, Interesting)
At the same time, Gates no longer cuts the profile he once did as a high-tech titan. While he's still respected, he's no longer scary--and the totemic company he built from scratch seems increasingly ordinary, even irrelevant
What the article doesn't go into is why Gates and Microsoft are no longer seen as scary. It's because their products are no longer the only choice. It used to be that for many things, you had to deal with Microsoft, because all the stuff you wanted to do required Windows to run. That meant that you had to agree to whatever terms Microsoft cared to offer, and they could be pretty onerous (and expensive). These days, with the easy availability of open source alternatives and the shift to web-based services, people are no longer compelled to accept lousy deals from Microsoft. If they don't like what Microsoft has to offer, they are free to go with something else. That means that (a) Microsoft has to treat its customers better if it wants to keep selling product, and (b) customers no longer have to live in fear of doing something that would anger the giant in Redmond.
So yes, Gates and Microsoft are no longer as scary as they used to be. But it's more because of the actions of Torvalds, Stallman, Jobs, and Berners-Lee than any change of heart by Gates.
I really think it's Melinda's doing (Score:4, Interesting)
I, for one, am happy to see the Gates's speading their wealth around. Bill's motivation is more or less irrelevant to me - I'm just glad it's happening.
Intentions? (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem here may fall in line with the old saying: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
As people get older, (and many young slashdotters won't understand this yet, but they will - eventually.) how they think, act, and see the world changes. Most of us are so bent on seeing Bill Gates as some kind of extreme demon that we fail to recognize that people are dynamic, and he's no exception. We don't stay the same, things influence us, change our minds, and cause us to act differently all the time. The change is typically gradual, but it does occur in everyone.
Think about how you were 10 years ago - the things you thought about, how you acted. Compare it to how you are now. I'm sure most people will find that they are not the same people.
I can't say if this is exactly what is happening to Gates, but it seems plausable enough to me.
MS Isn't Dangerous? (Score:3, Insightful)
MS still takes every opportunity to attack open source software and open standards in general. Look, for instance, at the incredible attack that MS has launched, via it's pet columnists, at Mr. Quinn in Massecheusetts, who had the temerity to recommend that MA insist that the governement switch to software that used open document format, so that MS couldn't force the state to upgrade by changing file formats. Mr. Quinn has probably saved the MA taxpayers, like myself, untold amounts of money, and in return he's been attacked over and over in the press.
MS is patenting everything it can think of, obvious or not, in an attempt to preempt competition. Even if the patents are eventually overturned, they can be used to threaten software and hardware developers, retarding the advancement of technology in all the areas MS is getting patents in.
I think it's more likely that MS will become increasingly dangerous the more that Bill Gates retreats from management of the company. Ballmer has already shown that he is willing to do almost anything to increase the bottom line, legal or not.
MS still needs to be split up. It is still a monopoly and still defies the courts in the U.S. and Europe by continuing it's monopolistic practices.
As I've Said Repeatedly, Morons (Score:3, Interesting)
Gates' "Foundation" is a stock laundering scheme to allow him to control other corporations through the investments of the Foundation and to make him look good to offset his convicted monopolist status.
If you look at the Federal philanthropy rules, the Foundation is required to spend at least 3% of its assets. It barely does. A couple years ago, when the Gates's were donating another $3 billion, it was around 1.18% IIRC and the article I read said they'd have to pump up the issuance to meet Fed regulations.
If you look at those "huge" sums given to charity listed on their Web site, almost everything over one million dollars is usually handed out OVER MULTIPLE YEARS - sometimes over ten years or more - meaning the impact on the Foundation's income is negligible.
Do the math - they have nearly $30 billion in assets, and they hand out maybe a billion a year. Do you think with those assets, they can't get at least ten percent return on their investments?
That's THREE BILLION more bucks under Gates control PER YEAR. And he hands out less than half.
Obviously the people who DO get money from the Foundation are benefiting, and presumably that's a good thing for them - but it's not done because Gates is a fucking philanthropist.
It's a stock-laundering and PR scheme - nothing more. Anybody who believes differently is a moron.
Can't pay for the damage that he caused (Score:4, Interesting)
Gates and Microsoft are responsible for poisoning software development, creating a culture of a complete disregard of quality, turning intellectual pursuit into mindless race for features, destruction of countless good projects, technologies and ideas, turning software development industry into a mix of a Microsoft fan club and a slaughterhouse, and nearly complete destruction of all research that is in any way related to computer science. This will take decades to reverse -- likely our grandkids will still suffer from consequences of this.
If Microsoft declared Windows to be free, and refunded all its customers, this damage would be still done -- and it's not like Gates has that much money on hand. So there is absolutely nothing Gates can do to go into the history as something other than a bloodthirsty monopolist, and a man who caused a massive noosphere pollution -- what is worse than John D. Rockefeller who is also the first but at least not the second.
No one but some panderers to the rich consider Rockefeller to be anything but an evil man who caused massive amount of misery, and the same will apply to Gates. How much of their shitty money will be paid for whatever causes, is irrelevant because the damage done is beyond anyone's capabilities to repair it, even if some of that money went into such repair.
Re:LINUX (Score:2, Funny)
this post is not funny. it's informative.
Re:Trying to ease his mind? (Score:2)
Yes, because we all know that impeding the development of new browser features harms mankind far more than finding a vaccine for malaria could possibly help.
Re:Trying to ease his mind? (Score:2)
Re:Trying to ease his mind? (Score:4, Insightful)
I actually was around before Microsoft seriously entered the computing market. I remember computers costing $10k (the Apple Lisa). I recall small Unix boxes costing $15k, with the OS adding another couple thousand to that (Sun). I remember dozens of machines with no interoperability (TI 99/4, Atari, TRS 80, Exidy Sorcerer, Apple...)
Microsoft, love it or hate it, established a defacto standard. No one was forced to buy Microsoft products- even counting the "Microsoft Tax", anyone could have easily purchased a Macintosh or a small Unix box. But they didn't, because they were generally over priced and provided little or no advantage for all their extra cost. Every vendor back in the '80s was desperately trying to steal their piece of market share, and the concept of open common standards was effectively non-existent. If anything, Microsoft's dominance encouraged sufficient standardization to make it necessary for company's to actually compete on features and price: if this hadn't happened, I imagine we'd be buying $1200 operating systems for our $8,000 computers today.
I'm truly sick and tired of the people who can't unscrew their heads from their rectums long enough to realize that Microsoft and Bill Gates are no more "evil" than any other company out there. Don't like Microsoft products? Great, use what you want, but shut the hell up about it already.
As far as Gates' generosity being a "new" thing...no, its not. A decade ago, he said he intended to give away 95% of his wealth by the time he retired. This is nothing new. And he sure as heck isn't doing this to impress any of the people here on Slashdot.
Re:Trying to ease his mind? (Score:5, Insightful)
Me too! In fact, I was around before MS entered the computing market, period.
> I remember computers costing $10k (the Apple Lisa).
And you can still spend that (or many times that) if you want. And there were computers that only cost a couple of hundred on the market at the same time. As there are now. So whatcherpoint?
> I remember dozens of machines with no interoperability (TI 99/4, Atari, TRS 80, Exidy Sorcerer, Apple...)
Yup, those were the cheap ones. And I was writing cross-platform apps for those machines with supposedly "no interoperability" at the time! And we did it basically the same way it's done today, with compilers to hide CPU differences, and libraries to hide other system differences. Sure, the overheads associated with cross-platform work made it a non-starter for, say, video games, but for business apps and such, it was clearly, even at the time, the wave of the future.
> Microsoft, love it or hate it, established a defacto standard.
No, IBM established a defacto standard. And, in the process, managed to kill of a lot of the existing market for cross-platform support (anyone remember UCSD Pascal or Fig-Forth?), and, arguably, set the industry back by a decade or more. Microsoft just happened to be lucky enough to be in a position where they were able to hijack the standards created by IBM. People didn't go with Microsoft because it was better (or even very good); they went with Microsoft because it was "IBM-PC compatible".
And, in fact, by the time the PC came along, the small business computing market had already pretty much standardized on CP/M, and Digital Research was already looking at porting CP/M to a new generation of sixteen-bit chips. All the indicators, at the time (before MS came along), were pointing clearly in the direction of cheaper, more powerful computers with more standardized interfaces and APIs. What bucket you were hiding under to believe otherwise I can't imagine!
> Every vendor back in the '80s was desperately trying to steal their piece of market share, and the concept of open common standards was effectively non-existent.
Complete, utter hogwash! How many vendors were supporting CP/M at the time? How many were supporting Unix? Dozens, if not hundreds! I call shenanigans! We even bought one of those Apple Lisa's you mentioned around that time, but we didn't buy it to run LisaOS (or whatever it was called)--we bought it to run BSD! Gee, there was already a FREE cross-platform OS even way back then! Kinda makes you go "hmm", doesn't it?
> As far as Gates' generosity being a "new" thing...no, its not.
No, but Gates' personal generosity towards humanity in general has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with Microsoft's role as an evil, predatory monopoly! My feelings for BG are completely separate from my feelings for MS, and my feelings for MS are that I haven't used any of their software since '98, and hope to never do so again.
Re:Trying to ease his mind? (Score:3)
"Computing as we know it" begins with the IBM PC in 1980, no company was better positioned than IBM to market the PC as an office machine as essential as the typewriter.
Gates understood that perhaps more clearly than anyone, and, as anyone with an old Remington Upright will tell you, it is not a great leap from there to adoption in the home and other markets.
Re:Trying to ease his mind? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is plenty of evidence of this. There were far better GUI systems that Windows when it started (anyone who tried to program under Windows 1.0/2.0 as against a more rational system like GEM would have realised this). Even as Windows as developing, it was intended to move to a more stable and secure system (OS/2). Microsoft abandoned that effort, and moved us back to buggy Windows 3.0. There were plenty of ways Microsoft could have given a robust and usable system on the desktop, but they were still shipping (carefully hidden) DOS-based systems (Win95/98) until the late 90s!
Combine this with their proven abuses of monopoly in an attempt to supress competitors, and there is no question Microsoft has held things back.
Re:Iam stunned ! (Score:2)
O M G
Like they said in the article - the intentions does not matter
How much are you willing to receive to preserve the Status Quo? How much would you be willing to spend?
Considering that Open Source can make a significant impact on the development of poor nations, that money Gates has given away has no comparison. It's like giving a man a fish, instead of teaching him to fish. Oh yeah, and making sure nobody fishes without using your fishing poles.
Sigh, people are getti
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This doesn't cancel out the source of his money (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone can sell open source software. Many have business models involving selling and servicing repackaged open source software.
If you aren't paying that way, then you pay by contributing back to the efforts of the developers so that improvements may be made, rather than just leeching off their hard work. If you can code, then you code. If you find bugs, you report them. If you have found innovative ways of using the s