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Bill Gates's email - about Linux
As we all know, Halloween is coming, and once again - we have a new Halloween document - this time from William Bill Gates himself. A Microsoft Employee sent it to Ryan C. Gordon, who published it here. It's a long one. Comments?
stop flaming me! Its a parody!
That e-mail looks like a hoax. I was an intern for Microsoft this summer and that is not the way an internal e-mail would read. all@microsoft.com is not a valid distribution list. I forget what the real ones are called but it is not that. Besides do you think a real e-mail would end with "We all remember what happened to Vinod, right?"
As we move from solving known problems to exploring new problems altogether, expect the effort not only to be duplicated, but repeated many times over with slight variation. You can see this in the desktop environments, Journaling Filesystems, scene graph libraries, and a high churn rate on sourceforge for some project areas.
Should hoaxes like this be posted on the front page of slashdot without any indication that they are in fact a hoax? (besides being obvious to someone who reads it and has a bit of a clue.)
It's funny and all, but doesn't it kinda border on journalistic irresponsibility or something?
You know what's odd. What's really, really odd? Almost 500 people have posted a reply to this article telling me that its fake but I'm not buying that. I think there's room for another 200, easy. That's odd.
The whole KDE/GNOME thing just sucks.
I disagree. His argument that multiple projects are bad was based on the idea of splitting limited resources between projects - a bad thing, right? But for many projects, adding coders doesn't help. Unless you have a task that you can divide up easily, extra coders just trip over each other. They wouldn't accomplish a whole lot more if they were all working on KDE (or GNOME, for that matter). And the two groups have different priorities, different goals. Competition is good.
On the other hand, the KDE/GNOME fanaticism is evil. I'm a KDE user, but I'm not going to for using GNOME. But it's very easy to overlook the fact that the KDE/GNOME fanatics are not the KDE/GNOME coders. The coders don't really care about bashing the other project. They just care about writing good code.
Competition good. Fanaticism bad.
The article didn't say that when it was first posted. I hope you feel like the idiot that you are.
I assume you made the suggested donation a while ago?
I think this is a hoax. It just doesn't seem as ... I dunno, professional as last year's document. BG just seems a bit too cocky. Although the document raises some legitimate concerns, many of the arguments are straw-men or flamebait. Like the whole mozilla thing -- mozilla isn't exactly a useless product. Yes, it has bugs and is behind IE, but mozilla is to IE as IIS is to Apache, or thereabouts. I dunno... this document is rather hard to swallow.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
Sorry about the errors..
Oh, about getting payed - I don't see a single dollar from posting articles to slashdot. No money, no shares, no options. ZERO. So bye bye to those dreams of being rich
Regarding the time of Halloween - my mistake. We have some time differences (I live in Israel), but now it's too late to fix.
Hetz (Heunique)
Be realistic, people. This is a well-crafted letter, written to make a point to the Linux community. But it's not Gates. Put your pants back on.
I think it would be _terrific_ if there were that many geeky, intellectually curious people in the world actually trying Linux- I do run into them here and there, but as for market share, even counting people who are just experimenting, I think the numbers are neither higher than MacOS or much lower than MacOS.
Want to impress somebody? Let's see some numbers on marketshare of people who are NOT dualbooting Windows. No Macs dualboot Windows (though some dualboot Linux). I have a hard time believing the numbers when an awful lot of people go use Windows anyhow and just try to seem l33t by dualbooting to Linux. I don't see a lot of Mac users dualbooting to Windows- they have to get all the software they need on their native platform or do without. Let's see more Linux people do that. Then if the marketshare gets to exceed MacOS it'll really mean something...
Posted by HeUnique on 06:58 PM November 1st,
2000
As we all know, Halloween is coming...
Looking forward to Halloween 2001 already?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Nope -- get a skilled reverse engineer and pay h{im,er} well and you'll get it. Won't be nearly as cheap as having someone write a filter from freely available code... but, well, such is life.
The entire GNU project that ultimately gave us the operating system we now use is a result of people being prepared to have the philosophical arguments you now abhor. If you don't like to hear people discussing these ideas, don't read Slashdot!
--
Xenu loves you!
Mr Gates very nicely sidesteps the question of Linux as a server, and condemns Linux on the desktop because of its dividedness, lack of support in the industry, and conflicting standards.
1) Linux as a server -- This question was left completely unaddressed in his email. He attacks Linux as a desktop machine only.
2) Dividedness -- This is both a danger and a benefit. Because Linux is divided, it is flexible. Flexibility, as we know, is an essential skill for survival in the market place.
3) Lack of Inustry support -- Ok, so there isn't a DVD player yet. Ok, so there isn't MS Word for Linux yet. But then again, does BeOS have industry support? Does the MacOS have MS MediaPlayer? One can obviously argue between the views that Linux lacks these, and also that the measure is irrelevant.
4) Conflicting standards -- I predict that the US economy will fail because MS and Sun were duplicating development time with conflicting Java standards. Did I miss something here?
Not only was that very funny (and if you didn't know it was a hoax you need to improve your reading skills) it is dead-on.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I have used IE2... it is quite horrible in fact. You can't even bring up Microsoft's homepage with it because of all their fancy formatting. It's really kind of ironic that to get IE5 on a freshly installed NT4 box I had to download Netscape, go to MS's website and then download IE5. :-) I'm sure there's an easier way but I had too much bandwidth to care. ;-)
It certainly is possible. Say Microsoft had a disgruntled employee who wanted to do some damage. He could insert some GPLed code into whatever he was working on as a way to frame Microsoft. Just because he's not supposed to do it doesn't mean he can't. What's to stop him from bringing a disk from home with the banned code on it? How would anybody at Microsoft ever find out that he had used GPLed code? If nobody there is supposed to look at the code, they would need to do something elaborate such as having a third party audit their code in order to guarantee compliance with this policy without looking at the code GPLed code themselves. Even that wouldn't guarantee that some GPLed code couldn't be snuck in (with a little obfuscation). Anyway, Microsoft is too big to control everything all of their employees do, so it's certainly not impossible that one of their employees might decide to disobey their official policies. (Note, I am in no way advocating that somebody should do this - this would be a very bad idea, in fact. I'm just pointing out that it is definitely possible.)
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
I can't believe anyone would take this seriously.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
There is no way Bill Gates would write a letter like this, if for no other reason than the style of the prose. Then there's the whole notion of him sending out an e-mail this large about Linux to all microsoft employees. Yeah RIGHT!
The "Halloween" tradition is not something that exists at Microsoft either. "Halloween" was just when the documents were leaked, nothing else.
sigs are a waste of space
If Bill Gates actually wrote this, I'd be very, very suprised. First of all, it belies too much detailed knowledge of the intricacies of GNOME vs. KDE. I doubt Bill Gates has spent the time to root down to that level of the conflict. It also uses the term FUD. Would Bill Gates actually, in a memo to his employees, use the term "FUD" like that?
Some of the things that are said are very true, fragmentation and competition DO have some serious negative effects in terms of dilution of resources, but what is the alternative? Monopoly. That also slows down progress. Yeah, I'd like to see Mozilla develop into a stable, non-bloated, fast browser at a MUCH higher rate, but the mere fact that it's a free alternative that cannot be destroyed by any denizen of the business world, be it a marketing department, lazy sales person, or hostile takeover, THAT is worth far more in my opinion, than a corporate-sponsored, closed-source, untrustworthy, non-standards-compliant peice of software designed as a weapon in a trade-war that IE is.
So whoever you were who wrote that document, BOO! I can't see who's underneath that cheap rubber mask, but you're not fooling us.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Not only that, but Microsoft BOUGHT Internet Explorer from Spyglass anyway.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
. . . . AND, the Microsoft engineers had access to the "secret Windows API" that makes stuff run faster and better and not crash all the time. Mozilla dudes didn't.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
My quotes mean I'm only half-joking.
Many, many times in the past, there have been other slashdot posters that have provided very credible evidence, and even links, supporting the argument than internal Microsoft Application programmers have access to information, including APIs known only to Microsoft, that allow Microsoft applications to perform better, and integrate with the OS better, than any independent developer could ever hope to. Even if you ignore that, you have to admit that it's probably competitively advantageous to be INSIDE the same company that writes the compiler and API - you'd be privy to all the latest changes. Any questions that arise from poor documentation can be addressed to the author of the API directly. No consideration ever need be taken with whether your developer support contract is paid up, how long you'll wait on hold, or whether the support technician will give you a meaningful answer.
But Microsoft HAS been caught with their pants down on this issue MANY times; special code in beta version of Win95 that detects DR DOS and errors fatally on the detection alone. Changes to SMB and Kerberos specifically to prevent interoperability. Changes to Java to prevent interoperability and multiplatform operation. Hotmail blocking competing e-greeting card vendors. Changes to SMB (applied through service packs) that break Novell networking clients. Windows Media Player breaking the file-registration for multimedia file types so that subsequent installations of RealPlayer or Quicktime (specifically 4.0, Apple worked around this later) caused the file associations to be set to no app.
And still Microsoft apps crash.
Actually, most of the berating going on is against Microsoft's OS, not it's apps. The OS design and architecture itself is fundamentally flawed, that's the argument I hear most on slashdot.
And this is why I believe that splitting MS will do no good at all, unless Visual Studio stays with the OS team. If Visual Studio goes with the apps team, they still write the API that 99% of the Windows developing world writes, and they'll still have this advantage, though they won't be so tightly bound to the OS anymore. They'll just be bound to their ubiquitous framework.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
It's funny, yeah, but some of the comments ring a little too true: for instance, the existence of the GNOME project. Harmony would have been tough, yeah, but would it have been as tough as GNOME? It's a moot point now (it is, admit it) but how hard would it have been? You would have needed:
1.) spec writers
2.) coders
Woohoo. I firmly believe that Harmony died out of sheer boredom, nothing more.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Just like the letter said - if you bring up the competing factions and the problems caused, people step forward and say that competition is a good thing.
Whether billg actually wrote it or not, love Linux or not, it was a chillingly accurate statement of the linux community.
The answer to this is quite simple. Pick one, and annoint it "standard." At least with the Free Software Office suites you have some chance of recovering your documents if you decide to switch later (open formats are a good thing).
Besides, for much less than it currently costs most large businesses to keep their Select agreements up to date they could afford to maintain their office suite of choice indefinitely.
Once upon a time IBM was the only safe choice, and then, almost overnight, IBM was a career limiting move. The little joke that was the PC had all of a sudden become the "standard." History will repeat itself, the less expensive solution will dominate, and those businesses that are slow to react will pay for their shortsightedness.
Hmm... The only Open Source product in your list is Star Office, and it has been open for less than a month, and the open version doesn't even print. In fact, only Star Office even has an open format (and that's only in the newest incarnation).
And yet there are import filters between some of these formats and open formats (Word, for example has several Free Software filters). On the other hand if you would have created your document in some sort of an open format (like LaTeX, DocBook SGML, HTML, lout, lyx, TeXinfo, etc.) you would find that you could almost certainly change it to whatever format you need quickly and easily. There are all sorts of software specifically designed for the conversion of one of these formats to another.
Just because it runs on Linux does not guarantee that the software vendor isn't trying to trick you into their own brand of proprietary software hell. If you were foolish enough to put your precious documents into someone's proprietary format then don't be surprised if the company in question holds your information for ransom. I write all of my non-trivial documentation in either LaTeX or DocBook SGML (depending on what exactly the requirements are), and I am quite confident that 20 years from now these documents will still be useable. At the very least I am sure that tools like text editors and grep will still be available.
Yes, these tools are a little harder to use, but that's why there are people working on things like AbiWord, whatever the KDE word processor is called, the new StarWriter, and LyX. Soon their will be an abundance of free tools that are easy and inexpensive to use, and which support truly open formats.
In the meantime, if you feel you must, just use Microsoft Word. It's a fine word processor, and it's almost guaranteed that the filters between Word and whatever piece of Free Software replaces it will be brilliant. After all, no new word processor is going to take over from Word until the Word filters are "good enough."
This reads to me like its fake, or planted. The irony at the end is just too much, too unlikely. It's certainly not what I would say to the employees if I were in the shoes of the real Bill Gates.
I wish there were some way to get verification. As is, this is just heresay.
-dentin
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
"That's my "Halloween document" for 2000. Nothing to worry about. And for crying out loud, don't leak this memo this year. We all remember what happened to Vinod, right? "
I rather suspect this is a forgery.
I just don't picture Bill Gates having the sense of humor that is behind this article.
Perhaps if it had come from Steve Ballmer, I'd believe it.
It also seems to have a lot of "inside jokes" which will dig into the Linux zealots, and I just doubt that either Gates or Ballmer are paying that close of attention to the Linux situation.
Besides Vinod no longer works at Microsoft, according to a slashdot article last year.
Pretty funny anyway, and I wonder if slashdot can hit 1000 responses of outrage.
t_t_b
Extra credit: who is supposed to have said it, and why is that wrong?
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Maybe you haven't been around here long enough to realize it, or maybe you think that sort sophomoric crap is funny...
Hell, it wasn't even well-written.
Rebut my points, one-by-one, if you can:
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Good points, assuming that the letter is legitimate. I am always amazed at how much in-fighting takes place whenever three or more Linux advocates get together. The KDE vs. GNOME situation is right on the money. The comment about HelixCode and profitability is ominously accurate as well: The dotcom implosion showed us that you can't have a company bleeding dollars for long (common sense had already shown us this; some people were too stupid to see it).
As for the politics of Open Source, I fully agree with ESR and completely disagree with RMS. The memo is right regarding the infighting as well.
I believe that Linux can be profitable and fun. I also believe that some of the forces that brought it to us may cause a downfall for our market share. That would be a Bad Thing(tm) for all of us.
Ehttp://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
In all honesty, if Bill were to write a manifesto concerning Linux as a threat to Windows, it would probably look something very much like this piese of satire.
--
"How many six year olds does it take to design software?"
dinner: it's what's for beer
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
By the way, I am happy that a divison brought forth GNOME. Would that all forks were so successful!
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I'll leave you with a question. What if all forks between projects were as successful as GNOME?
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
That was added hours after I read the original message.
Bruce Perens.
Yep. It's a hoax. Thankyou for sharing!
**>>BELCH
I just read the bit about the "...Satire" line being added hours after the message was first posted.
Itchy trigger finger. Scratch that last post!
**>>BELCH
Believe it or not, we're all geeks who love technology.
Do you remember this lie: "Windows NT Server and Windows NT Workstation are completely different operating systems."
In other words, I don't believe it. The Microsoft employees I've talked to in the past have not shown me that they are "geeks who love technology." They have been much more like arrogant, elitist people who think that Microsoft is the end-all, be-all of computing, internetworking, and technology.
I'm not trying to say that's what you are. I'm trying to say that's the impression I have of Microsoft employees and Microsoft's culture.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
People who generalize like you just did are a sad, sad bunch...
First, this is an ad hominem. Second, every human being on the planet makes generalizations. It is human nature to do so.
But perhaps you were merely objecting to the kind of generalization I was making. You did, after all, write, "...like you just did...." Would you share with me what kinds of generalizations are acceptable to you?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Hmm, if today were October 1 instead of November 1, I'd say that it was the southern hemisphere equivalent of April Fools Day.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Quite obviously you read the "this is a satire" line _after_ you posted your original comment. Your recovery was less than graceful, but at least you tried. :)
Jason.
.... Not April Fools day..
Good for a laugh though..
Your Working Boy,
Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day.
I hope everyone picked up on that.
I didn't notice it until you told me. I stopped reading after two paragraphs: "Bill isn't this stupid, he can't have said this".
Roger.
though given how many people took it as real it should say "satire" at the top too ...
It rules! :)
(Besides it doesn't get along with all the IE color codes I have in my game below - a lot of stuff comes up black on black, but that's my fault and I'll get it fixed ASAP! :)
Its fake.
How could he write that to "all@microsoft.com" and not expect _one_ person to leak it?
---
pronoblem
Actually, it seems that most people posting here didn't fall for it at all. Or are you somehow reading an entirely different set of posts than I am?
It is pretty pathetic that HeUnique (or whatever) believed it...
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
--- I do not moderate.
satire (str) n.
1. a. A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.
b.The branch of literature constituting such works. See Synonyms at caricature.
2. Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.
--- I do not moderate.
If you're so sure Netscape stole, or somehow licensed, the Mosaic code base, please provide your source for this information. I've witnessed arguments between early Netscape employees and peope trying to say the same thing you are saying, and I've never seenm any conclusive proof that they stole anything.
Given that Netscape employed a lot of the original NCSA people, I do not find it incredible that they succeeded in duplicating Mosaic's functionality so fast. Any developer will tell you that even without actually copying any code it is much, much easier to rewrite something you have aleady written once than it is to write something new.
11 months to duplicate Moasaic ? I could do it ina week, mate. Ok, I'm being facetious, but IIRC web browsers in those days were a much simpler things than they are now. HTML 2.0, GIFS, HTTP 1.0, a plugin system, and thats it really, isn't it ?
OK; however, the C library is very emphatically part of the OS, given precisely nothing woould work (to a good approximation) without it.
Who's wrong?
> I'm the real billg, and after I read that, I was wondering if I actually did write that...
No you're not. If you were the real Billg, you'd be saying something like:
``Don't those (expletive deleted) know I invented the microcomputer??? Why aren't those little (expletive deleteds) glad I made the Personal Computer cheap enough that they can play their little masturbatory games with them??? This is random!!! Entirely random!!! Who uses Linux??? A bunch of (deleted)-know-alls who will be starving on the (deleted) streets because they aren't making any money from their labors!!!"
The scarey thing is that I can see him emailing all of his business associates this exact passage. And all of them would reply with ``yes, you are right. You have massive badwidth. These goobers don't know how much you did for them.
Then again, I've drank 4 Alaskan Amber beers. I could probably imagine a lot of things I'd rather not admit to. Like Steve Ballinger in a pink rubber tutu dancing over the floor, singign: ``I won't stop unless you buy 5 more copies of Windows 2000!"
]knowing I'll lose lots of karma down for this post[
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
He can be reached at icculus@lokigames.com
The author happens to be one of Loki's programmers, porting games to Linux. If I remember correctly, he was the lead programmer for Descent 3.
He's done several satirical pieces for Linux.com and his README for Descent 3 was quite entertaining for a technical document.
I'd say chances are slim and none (and Slim already left town) that this piece was intended to be "real" as in actually from Microsoft. On the other hand, the issues it raises are very real, and the context of a phony email from Gates makes a good stage for presenting those issues without need of industrial strength asbestos underwear.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.
The short explanation for it is that Microsoft Software leaves us programmers with a great number of itches to scratch.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
The fact is that competition should never have priority over unity.
That is such a Microsoft comment.
The GNOME developers should not be expected (nor should they have been) to put "unity" with the KDE group above competition. In fact, it's utterly ridiculous to suggest it. The two groups have differing views on both technical and philosophical matters. This is precisely why GNOME was created, and a lot of code has been written as a result. In case you haven't been paying attention, forking, competition and the sharing of code make the free software world go 'round.
Perhaps next you'll be suggesting that since KDE and GNOME are just competing with MS and duplicating MS's efforts, they should just "unite" with MS.
Competition is a good thing. Don't forget that.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
HAhahaha!!! You've obviously forgotten the fact that the GNU system exists PRECISELY because RMS decided to 'reinvent the wheel' on personal (and social) grounds. Oops, so much for that argument.
"Infighting", duplication of effort, reinventing the wheel, etc are all a myth in the free software movement. As has been pointed out in another reply to this message, these things are only issues to slashdot whingers, who are actually creating the issue. The coders don't worry about it, and just keep coding. Perhaps you should do the same. (And before you get smart, yes, so should I.)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
First off, I'd like to congratulate Ryan Gordon for this wonderful bit of satire. I'm sure you had a lot of your readers fooled on this one.
OK, so with that being said, here's how I would react if I thought this was a real letter from Bill Gates.
No Bill, GNOME is not just a reaction to KDE. It's also a reaction to Microsoft's COM, DCOM and COM+, and to Javabeans. GNOME stands for Gnu Netrowk Object Model Environment. The desktop is only one part of the project; the rest of it is creating a very large set of components to work from.
You should feel proud in a way, Bill, that the Open Source movement is borrowing heavily from Microsoft's techniques for system-building. And for that very reason, you shouldn't be selling the GNOME project short.
That having been said, Gates's broader point about redundant effort is well taken. If this revolution is going to be at all successful, then we have to stop eating each other alive and keep working together. Once we have an open source answer to a problem, we have got to stop re-inventing the wheel, and start thinking instead in terms of porting that solution to many different tool sets. (How many graphical libraries do we have?)
That's not a bad critticism, and it's extensible to pretty much any company that deals with Linux. When Oracle announced that they weren't going to support Sequent anymore, IBM (Sequent's parent company) announced a Linux emulator for Sequent. They could have had all those fancy programmers of theirs, including the OS/2 programmers, working on the Linux kernel and other bits, but no such luck.
One of the things that the Open Source community can do to counteract this is to adopt open hardware standards. SoundBlaster keeps their standards open; so has, for the most part, the processor developers, although I'm less certain about IA-64.
Well, at least you're decent enough to admit it :).
Part of the reason why the Open Source community is so fond of knocking Windows and Office is because we like having control of our software. Open Source gives us control; Microsoft, by contrast, removes control. It is healthy for us to provide this contrast if it helps to define what we're all about.
What's a counterculture worth if you can't act like children occasionally? Even you had to get a genuine kick out of Windows Refund Day.
Oh Lord, not this again. The issue in the Microsoft trial was never freedom to innovate; the issue was whether Microsoft broke antitrust laws. Please, for crissakes, stop believing your own press. I'm asking you this as a shareholder.
This brings up a good point. If you want the freedom to innovate, how about helping yourselves and everyone else out by joining us in opening up the patent process?
This should give all of us in the Open Source world pause. Look, we can like or dislike Raymond and/or Stallman all we like. Let's just remember that without them, and Linus, most of us wouldn't be here discussing the Linux phenomenon at all. Especially not Gordon. Excuse me. Gates. :)
But who cares about the desktop market? The future is the distributed market. That's why Microsoft is developing .NET, isn't it?
In any case, what do you want to bet that someone is going to misattribute this to ol' Bill in a few years, as an example of a collosally stupid statement? Personally, I'm still optimistic. :)
fearbush.com
Finding God in a Dog
Interesting satire. Very well done. I believe that BG would be very near to this position if he would use Linux...
The document presents one flaw. The author described quite well the position of the opposition, but only in relation to desktops. Sad that he didn't try the server side. There things are much hotter.
However there is one thing that scares me. As usual, in Slashdot, many voices started to arise against the KDE vs. Gnome, kernel diversity and other things. People that scares me. It looks like a "narkom"(people's comissar) agitation against the "damn, fat, piggy capitalists and their hordes of accolites".
Ok we have an enemy: Microsoft. But what are we doing here? Fight against Microsoft or building a system? If we go fight against Microsoft than it would be better to join the US states and push courts to split Microsoft. Make civil action and pirating software. It is much cheaper than writing billions of lines of code "for nothing". Why we should worry about them when we are "to get Microsoft"? Because, then, we either turn into another Microsoft or drop all this in the trashcan and join the dismembered Microsoft. Because, then, they may already give diversity to developers...
Today, Linux is what it is because it offers one thing: diversity. So much for the boo-boo shouters who cried that we are a bunch of communists. We are the market now. We can offer several destop systems. We can offer kernels with a variety of features for several tasks. Most of our software is able to run in several platforms, even on Windows. Now, even several Windows apps are able to run on Linux. And we reached what Microsoft was never able to do: we are multiplatform.
We were able to achieve this because we are the market. If we went on a "smash Microsoft" mood we would never be able to achieve the 28% of server market. We would never be able to be a desktop alternative. We would be another group trying to overcome Microsoft, by presenting a "great OS but a dumb user interface with very few cool apps". We win Microsoft now because we are a great OS, we have interfaces from the most to the least dumb and we have tons of applications, from lemons to works of art.
Yes, many applications double the objectives and tasks between themselves. However, it is exactly this that keep us moving. Close concurrence among developers. The most important is not to do the best program but the program that fits best to customers/users interests. Now pick me up a group of users and please tell me: does everyone has the same tastes, interests, necessities, requirements? Of course not! So why we should do the "ONE DESKTOP" interface?
For most end users, KDE sounds as a "ONE DESKTOP" interface. Or Gnome. But here we are already falling in the market tricks. People do not only choose objectively but also very subjectively. For the large majority, it would be good to have the "ONE". But not for all. And don't think they make 5% of the population. On my analysis I noted that WindowMaker or AfterStep reach the 80% among experts/developers. And again the subjectivity. Some developers argue that they do this to "push the machine" for other tasks like development. But why then people don't use the most simple wm's like blackbox? Because they like the art of WindowMaker... Which eats a good piece of performance...
Frankly in a study among 4500 people I was admired to note the following: >60% go KDE, >25% go WindowMaker (lot of developers here). Frankly I don't remember exactly the remaining numbers but Gnome/Enlightenment and Blackbox divided third place and 4th was AfterStep with a significative number of people. Last went ICEwm, the most Windows-like system. But I think this was due to its very early stage of development then.
Do not consider this as "who's best". Try to see on the point of diversity. Of freedom of choice. We have it here... And that is what people wants. Or else we would never make the shelves or have a golden place at major ftp sites. We would be one more OS among many (and how many they are...).
Does this hinder development? Yes it hinders. There are less developers in each project. But does this hinders development IN GENERAL? Absolutely not. Because there are many more developers working rather than if we were doing the "ONE DESKTOP". We go slow. But sure. Much like US in the first half of the century.
America then was not much better than some third world countries. In one point I would seriously risk to compare US then with Russia today. Sincerly, the only thing that made America big, then, was freedom. It was the most free country in the world. And it possessed a free rising market. Product quality was not a thing that americans could be proud of. But they could offer a lot more than anyone else and to anyone else. To europeans, asians, africans. Cheap and good enough to not be dropped directly to the trashcan.
This may sound like thunder to some american patriots. But remember. You had the Depression. Yes it was a Hell of a time. But Americans were not marching on 5th Avenue in front of their "Fuhrers". Americans did not pass the horrors of the "Working Camps" and the Holocaust or the Purge. America passed over this. It passed over the II World War. and it overcome Soviet Union in the Moon Race.
Why I am being so globally politized here? Because there is a parallel here with us, the Linux community. Today the quality of our soft may not be the best in relation to Microsoft. In general. Yes, we overcome Redmond on stability, performance, on Web servers and some other things. But, the general picture still shows that we have a long way to go. Specially on what concerns desktops. Here, today, we are a poor bunch of people who have only two big things: freedom & market. Can we live with them? We should. Because we may give more people a choice. A real one. We may overcome crisis more steadly. And we may overcome Microsoft...
To explain this let me return to global politics and its parallelisms. Remember the race to the Moon? What was America at the beginning? Nothing. Zero. Soviet Union had a program that was ten years more advanced than the US. They had already ballistic missiles in full work. They sent the first animals to Space, they sent the first people around Earth. By that time, America showed a sad picture of rockets banging, falling, a satellite that made miserable travel around earth and an astronaut that nearly got cooked on entry. However, this country, in less than 8 years, managed to do what Soviets were unable to do - put a man in the Moon. Not only one - several. How?
This was achieved because there was a market all around. America managed to reach its objective because tens of projects were presented, tested and scrapped. Because a whole industry ran against each other for the one only objective. The whole internal market boiled on the race. And they even managed to pick its allies on the madness... So, in the end a whole world was running to the Moon like people to the departing bus.
Americans at start presented a miserable perspective. But their diversity of choices managed to do what Soviets couldn't do. And here, the factor of failure was exactly the one that some people claim today among the Linux community: "the ONE..."
Soviet Union made a huge mistake - it sticked straight into only one project. They also had several initial projects and teams. However, the tradition of that time was to push everyone and everything into one project. Yes, this is typical of communist ideologies, but note that then Soviet Union had SEVERAL nearly independent organisations working on Space conquer. Unfortunately, it was decided that only one such organisation should care about sending a cosmonaut to the Moon - Kurchatov's team. Mr. Kurchatov was the one who sent the Sputnik and Gagarin to Space. However his Moon rocket was not the best of all projects he made. One point that he was surely wrong was, that it would be too hard to reach the Moon directly from Earth. So it would be better to build an "intermediary" Space station at first. Only later, he started to push for the "direct travel". However the rocket exploded on tests, killing more than 100 workers and specialists. A little later Kurchatov died, leaving his project completely orphan. The "everyone-on-one" push to the Moon ended as a fiasco.
By that time there were other people who had a much clearer view on how to reach the Moon. These people were later responsible for such things like Mir, Energya, Buran and Zvezda. Their more practical projects were refused because they were, by then, too ambitious and the the top bosses feared that resources would dissipate. So they choose one more conservative but more "unified" project. By doing only one, Soviet Union killed all chances of reaching the Moon if something went wrong. And that happened...
Well, let us return to our penguin. I am sorry for this long story about the Moon and global politics but I hope people see what I try to remark. It is variety and market that make Linux alive. I would even remark more specifically - internal market. It may sound strange to compare Space Race to our internal wars. But note, if you look well, the nature of both situations had exactly the same nature - one authoritarian infrastructure full of talented people - one democratic/liberallistic infrastructure based on no less talented but less resource centered infrastructure.
We are a democracy. An capitalist/anarchist/bolshevik/neo-liberal democracy. Here we have choices. Doing only KDE or Gnome for all is killing this freedom and variety. It is sending a good part of users into the marginal avenue. That one that created some of the main reasons why Microsoft started to loose developers to Linux in the middle of the 90's. They presented user/developers with one interface, one SDK, one policy and one very bad price. And developers, mainly, ran away from Redmond's Dream into a OS that barely could hold a web server up. Note that they ran to Linux when BSD was a much more viable choice. However, the restrictive nature of BSD made many people to pass nearby the red devil and leave it alone. At that time, Linux was even less restrictive in license terms. However, until now we have a kernel with a few dissonances. Because the market is working. People want diversity but also impose some limits. However these limits are clearly not "one kernel, one OS, one desktop".And it is not Stallman's dream of GNU/Linux but a full world of Free Source, Open Source, Half-opened and closed one. And Free/Open Source win here not because they are correct but because they concur. Concur with other software variants and concur even inside their conceptions. That what give the chance for software to be free. Stallman's dream of free software is a dangerous dream of the "brilliant future" of communism. Because if we get only free software than this stuff will not be free at all. It will be forcing people into things that they may not wish to do. GPL can only live on a free world. But not present that free world to everyone.
This may sound as if GPL is some sort of license "anti-licenses". I do not consider such. I consider that GPL is the nature that software should be presented in a form that allows progress to keep on. Because software demands integration, interconnection. Software is built on Software. To attain the maximum of communication and development we have to use GPL. However it is clear that we can use other software apart from GPL. Nothing forbids us of such if we abide to each license of each software developer. What developers should care of is first to beware of their personal interests that may hinder the community in general. Producing incompatible licenses, trying to overcome others or making "their own license" may result in a juridical jungle and clan wars that no one wishes to participate. Here it is the moral duty of the developer to eveluate his interests and the intrests of the community. And to consider not only the simplistic road of "direct reward" but other ways that may be much more rewardable than the first one. Personally I have noted that using GPL software, I managed to keep on my profession and get a much more reliable income than on Windows times. However I don't sell any software, even the one I develope. I use the strategy of "perfectioning" software to specific and high-grade tasks. Also I charge for support. But not the support of installing a Linux from a CD-ROM. That one goes frequently free. I get paid for computer supervision. security tasks, automatisation and several other things. And meanwhile GPL allows me to be independent of my bosses. If I do a new program, script of create a new form of software implementation, I can use my ideas where I think they fit best. And no one has the right to say "I paid you for making it, you..." because I term from start that any software not carrying private data is not private property of anyone specifically. This alows me to get working on three jobs at the same time and have 5-6 times the income I got a few years ago.
This may sound good for the private consultant and bad for the enterprise. However I believe that companies should revise many of its strategies, diversify the access to their software and try to offer its clients a more flexible and dynamic form of service. If NVidia would sell its cards with drivers under X license, they would be the monopolist of Linux market.
Anyway time to end. Sincerly I hink people should revise their ideas on "one, one and only one". Let's hope diversity wins. And laet's hope that Microsoft finally gets the idea that this is not a "script kiddies haloween" and that it is time to come into the bunch. Even in full closed source clothes. But then they will have the chance to prove they are the best...
I mean, when was the last time Billy Boy coded
anything? College and I think that was BASIC.
Careful... The worst project manager I ever had confessed to me while drunk one night that he used to be shit-hot programmer... he didn't know an "if " statement from a freight train - but not to his mind!
'sapientia potestas est'
The article is rational.
It addresses what I think about Linux and
open source projects.
By the way, is Linux market-share higher than
Mac? Wow! Apple is that bad!
A company is doing worse than a community with no leader!!!
Apple should port their OS X for the X86 architecture!
My complements to the author. Although most of what was said was fairly obvious, the "From Bill Gates" point-of-view was a very refreshing way to try to get across an old point that the Linux community should pay more heed to.
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
Call me crazy, but I don't think this is automatically bad at all.
One can certainly argue (and I think many have) that Gnome and KDE, for one example, are a 'duplication of effort' (to develop a "user friendly linux for the desktop"). Yet the result is two different implementations to choose from, with their own strengths and weaknesses. KDE Developers can learn things from the way Gnome handles things, and Gnome developers can learn things from KDE's implementation (even if what's learned is "Gee, I'm sure glad WE didn't do it that way", it's still somewhat informative).
We have OSS and ALSA 'duplicating' their efforts to generate sound drivers. We have Koffice, The new "OpenOffice" (That's what Sun was calling StarOffice 6.0 release, wasn't it?), Applix, Corel, and who knows who else 'duplicating' the effort to create a 'featureful' Office application suite. I'm sure many others can add more examples.
From my perspective, this all gives us more choices, and a better view of what works and what doesn't for particular real-world applications. I, for one, like this. Choice good.
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Microsoft does this themselves. I've read several articles about M$ pitting different internal groups against each other, to come up with a software solution.
Well I am not to proud to admit that I was taken in. Goddam, I could have sworn it was April 1.
I was hooked right until the very end until "he" started mentioning that the document should not be leaked. Then of course is the note at the end about it being satire.
Thanks Slashdot, thanks alot. Now everyone on my ICQ list who got that link is gonna flame me for the comments attached to the URL I sent everyone.
Goddam. Hook Line and Sinker.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Read the preface to the article here
----
Celebrate the finer things in life
(incidentally, Mozilla is a classic example of mismatched goals - people were hoping for a browser, the Mozilla team wanted to create something else. I sure wish there'd been more duplication of effort there, we could have a lightweight browser that didn't need mozembed.)
;-)
Surely the point of free software is that you create what you want to, not what anyone else wants? Mozilla.org was set up to create many things, one of which was a standards-compliant HTML rendering engine. They also decided to build a browser on their technologies, as it happens. But they could have built something else. A mail/news client, for example
Gerv
It would be more funny if some of the things he says weren't painfully true. As an example, leaving aside their relative technical merits of GNOME and KDE, I'm sure everyone agrees that being in the position of "threefold duplication of effort" as he puts it, is not a good one.
Gerv
Yesterday was Halloween, not April Fools Day. Anyone who thinks this really is the pronouncement of the Satan of Software is on crack.
This is, phenomenally, the best thing that the Linux community could ask for. The position we want to be in right now is that of underdog -- the initiative that the companies secretly root for and the big dogs don't consider a threat.
A Halloween Treat, indeed.
However, it's worth considering that with all the propaganda and speculation, not to mention paranoia surrounding the whole bug thing, this may have been penned, planning on a leak. To let us get comfortable, and get our gaurd down, until they launch the newest propaganda media campaign.
And, it could all be hoax.
If it's genuine, rock. If it's not, total information gained still = 0. Cute, but overall, this attitude shouldn't effect us.
Much.
-- build a man a fire and he'll be warm all day. set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Fad, my ass. I'm glad 'ol William wants to sit back for the ride. I will not be fooled. If they branded their own distrib, wouldn't that be giving in? I will not be fooled. What is lost in Linux development productivity gets made up for in quality. I will not be fooled. I've never seen the strategy "first to market" work well for customers. I will not be fooled. Oh, and don't leak the memo? Bill, come on. I will not be fooled.
-Z
Technically, there's another one on the way.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
YHBT.
YHL.
HAND.
That was sweet. It says, clear as day, at the bottom, that this is a SATIRE, and yet Slashdot posts it as Microsoft news.
It's even sweeter once you realize that the letter contains a lot of truth.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
Well OMS isn't robust by any standard, but you have the three other comercial systems. They all demoed at LinuxExpo in Tiawan last month. I submitted this to slashdot before, but it wasn't posted. Intervideo, MGI and Cyberlink. They all seemed to have fully working systems up and running. Wonder when they will release?
http://www.intervideo.com/
http://www.mgisoft.com/
http://www.cyberlink.com.tw/
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
how many people actually think this came from Bill Gates..
scary
The author is correct in that there is a lot of duplication and not a lot of resources to exploit... err.. take advantage of... err... I'll let MS's spin-doctors take care of that one..
Anyhow, we _need_ more companies like (*ugh*) RedHat who are willing to hire programmers to work on projects and release the results to the community. The benefits are two-fold: the community gets programmer resources and a company gets a product to sell (and wareZ0r ala RedHat).
Besides, whats wrong with being proud of Linux? I mean, it's come out of pratically nothing to be widely supported, talked about, developed upon, and most importantly - used.
Linux is more than a toy... it represents a way of life.
Verbatim
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
The GNOME/KDE war has produced a ton of code. Why? Because it's a slashdot generated flamewar, and the developers are actually doing useful things like coding. So.. those that can really code are doing it, for GNOME, KDE, or both. Those that can't are left bitching and moaning and making both parties look like children.
magnwa (who posted this from Konqi, but could just as easily have posted it from lynx , mozilla, or Staroffice. Get the point?)
Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day.
So, whew! I thought I accidentally hit send.
Won't the real billg please stand up, please stand up.
BillG would never send email, let alone strategic email, to "all@microsoft.com". The bottom of the page also says "This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day".
cpeterso
> This satire was genuinely entertaining, but it does bring up some important issues, such as the ever-present forking problem.
Not all of us think even that is a problem. Forking is just a way of radiating into more ecological niches. That possibility is, IMO, a good thing.
And perfectly legal under most OSS licenses.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Halloween is for Halloween, not April Fools jokes...
Jeesus that was stupid.
WinNT/2000 and Win95/98/Me
According to his own page, Vinod Valloppillil is still working at M$, now on the Proxy Server team. Just one more thing easily checked if you look on a search site. Come on guys, it only takes a second or three...
John 17:20
Sure buddy. Microsoft bought internet explorer 2 (well some of it) and their dialup software for ie for win31.... Have you used ie2? Get an nt4 v1 install and give it a go. I'd be suprised if ie2 and ie3/4/5 share more than 30 lines of code outside of standard ms crap that all programs from redmond would share.
Gfunk
--Gfunk
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
And I didn't read to the bottom wher in clear english...
realkiwi
Did you read the article? It's not for real. At the end of the piece, there's a SATIRE WARNING!
I'm pretty sure this is a fake.
1 Bill would never use the word FUD, especially not the way it's done in the mail.
2 He knows to much about Slashdot, KDE, Gnome and even Harmony (raise hands, how many of you remebere that one?)
3 "MacOS never really concerned me" Bill is to smart to say such things about a living competitor.
4 No one but open source zealots use the word zealot.
5 "Any one that has programmed professionally knows that at the end of a long day of coding, the last thing you want to do is go home and program more for free. I am a programmer myself, and I feel I am accurate in that statement". I've read enough about Bill to know he does like coding.
6 etc. etc. etc.
If this isn't fake Bill should get himself a Slashdot account and become our leading Troll.
knee jerk idiots like you makes up for the "below average" population.
Seriously, the guy who wrote DOS must be a pretty big geek himself
Maybe, but what's that got to do with Bill Gates? He didn't write DOS.
Meanwhile NCSA stopped development on Mosaic and sold/liscensed the code to Spyglass from which MS liscensed (not baught, MS has to pay Spyglass royalties for several technologies)
Yeah, Microsoft licensed the code from Spyglass for a percentage of the revenue, then gave the browser away for free. Spyglass wasn't too happy about that.
And then there's the thing about Netscape creating proprietary standards...
That seems to get forgotten a lot nowadays - but then, that _is_ the past, and Netscape is no longer quite the same company that could add to the html standard at a whim simply because _they_ were the standard. That and IE 5 for the Mac are the only good things to come out of Microsoft's foray into the browser market.
Naked.
4. billg would NEVER say michael dell is 'babbling'.
5. the introduction says it's a satire.
IMHO, any licensing restrictions intended to preserve freedom are self-defeating. There's only one kind of licensing restriction I agree with, the kind Knuth uses: for God's sake, don't change my stuff and release it under the same name, as if I (and the people I work with, whose work I approve of) wrote it! It's just a matter of honest identitification, and could be based on trademark rather than copyright law.
Even so, there is some question as to whether even this license restriction is necessary (or legally binding on its own). Modifying someone else's work, and redistributing it as the same work could be fraud, slander, or any of another nasty things that can result from impersonating someone.
You still have some rights as the author of a public domain work, though you've waived your copyright.
If everyone would just release their code into the public domain we wouldn't have any of these idiotic license disputes. You could just spend your time coding, not worrying about whose toes you're stepping on.
Best of all, when you release code into the public domain, it can be included in GPL'd work, MIT license work, X license work, or anything. It's the ultimate in free software.
The GPL serves one purpose alone: to attack proprietary software developers, withholding the benefits of your work to the "Great Satan" (evil people who don't release their source code for software they're trying to sell; you know, programmers like John Carmack, Tim Paterson, Dan Bricklin, and Bob Frankston). Why bother?
I'm not complaining about people who really understand what the GPL is for - they wrote the software, it's their right to choose the license. I'm trying to talk to the people who just GPL everything because "that's the license we use for free software". It's not the only way to go; consider public domain, to avoid licensing headaches and release your code for the eternal free use of all mankind for any purpose (including the creation of GPL'd software), and without hostile intent (what else can you call cloning someone's proprietary product, with a license that is specifically aimed at preventing them from learning from your clone to improve the original?).
--------
This is obviously fake.
1. Bill's Display Name for email is "Bill Gates" not "William Gates"
2. I didn't get this mail, and it's addressed to "all@microsoft.com". Work that out for yourself.
Further postings about any comments in this fake are pointless.
Enjoy.
This is a hoax! (Now mod this up, like the other 15 messages)
/. mob. When you're posting a satire news story, even when it should be blindingly obvious that it is satire, SAY SO IN THE HEADLINE.
Seriously, something has gone wrong when the only modded up responses to a serious piece of satire are "this is satire". Possible solutions:
1. You can't underestimate the intelligence of a mob, even a
2. In the "preview" screen, put all the posts that have been posted since the user started typing the comment. That way if you're saying something obvious you can double check to see if someone else was thinking the same thing at the same time.
3. When a comment has hit 5, change its moderation box: add a (+1, Vital information). If it gets 2 or 3 of these points, add it to the story itself, so people don't have to read the comments to get something that changes the whole impact of the story.
Preferential Voting: easy as 1-2-3
This is close to the BSD ideal, except that under the BSD license the whole thing can be one monolithic binary--I can get A for free, and tinker with the source, or pay for either A' or A'' and not have any source, but have added functionality.
I do think that Stallman's original reaction was a tad incorrect, though. He could have argued, not that source should be free, but that source should come with every product. For example, were I to buy MS Word, I would get the source. I would be free to modify/correct that source. I would be free to give that modified source to other owners of said source. I would not be able to give it to those who had not paid for it. This would have enabled the good things he wanted, allowed sharing, but at the same time protected the legitimate intellectual property rights--and the ability to make money therefrom--of the code developers.
But that's not how things turned out.
You need to listen to some old Ministry. Everyday is Halloween. Now you will have to excuse me. I need to get out and grab a beer.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Notice the grammatical error here (capture instead of captured):
"...Linux has capture 5.6 percent of the desktop market."
I'm going to assume that this letter is real and that Bill created several versions with different typos in each one and distributed them to suspected leaks...
Now he knows who sent the email out to the world!
Busted.
load "linux",8,1
I seem to recall seeing in print when 100 developers were added to the IE developer team. I bet the IE team for the Mac alone has more than the 50 people the Bill Gates of the Halloween III stated.
have a day,
-l
Hold on. You say that you're not a programmer, but then assert that you know that duplication of effort is hurting Linux? How do you know this if, by your own admission, you've never worked on a free project before? The fact is, after having worked on the Worldforge Project (www.worldforge.org), which is the king of "duplication of effort", i've come to realize that there's a reason behind it, and competition actually does help keep projects moving.
You have to realize that there is no choice between 2 projects, or one project with twice the amount of contributors. There is only the choise between 1 project or 2 projects, each with a near equal number of workers. This is because most of the time, if a coder feels that there doesn't need to be a new project to achieve her goals, she'll go on to other projects, maybe even contributing a patch, but not becoming part of a team, but even when she does stick to a preestablished project, that doesn't mean that someone else won't see something that needs to be done that can't be done in the current project, which brings me to my next point.
"Duplication of effort" has an enormous positive impact on productivity. Everyone has a desire to see their project succeed, and so people want to make their project bigger (well, maybe smaller) and better than the competition. If there's no competition, there really is less drive. Then motivation hinges much more on "scratching an itch," which works, but starts to slow down as the project becomes "good enough."
I could go into more detail, but if you're really interested, i'd suggest checking out Bryce Herrington's essays on the subject at worldforge.org.
-benc
Answers:
3. No violation, program "C" does not depend on "A" or "B" to run.
4. If "X" is GPL'd then yes, it is a violation as the programs main function is to interface with "X", however, if "X" is not GPL'd but the user substitutes "X" for "A" which IS GPL'd, then no, however if you distribute "A" with "C" then yes it is a violation, however if you don't, but "C" downloads "A", then no.
5. The program is not distributing "A", the ftp or web server where the program gets "A" is, and since "A" is only a subset of the programs that "C" is intended to use then GPL'd software is not required for "C" to run and therefore it is not a violation.
6. Source Code as defined by the GPL is the "preferred form of the work for making modifications to it" and therefore no, instructions on how to make something are not considered source code under the GPL and therefore would not be a violation, however how do you give instructions on how to write a peice of software without peices of code?
-- iCEBaLM
Reading this really gives an interesting insight into how the Linux community thinks that Microsoft perceives them. Yes, I realize the email is a joke, but there are enough references that strike me as distorted thinking. But on to the main point:
"Bill" says:
"While 5 percent is not a threatning number to Microsoft, it is important to remember that Linux is sitting on more desktops than MacOS at this point."
Things to note:
1) "Linux sitting on more desktops than Mac OS" implies that Linux has a greater installed base, it does not. Apple has been building an installed base for 16 years. It sells approximately a million machines per quarter. Linux may catch up to Apple's installed base some day, but it has not yet. Market share refers to number of machines sold in a given time period. Even if Apple suddenly had 85% marketshare, Windows would still be the dominant OS for some time.
2) "Linux sitting on more desktops than Mac OS" also implies that they 5.6% number is purely desktops, not servers. Last time I checked, this is not the case.
3) The vast majority of Mac users only have one OS installed, or at least two versions of the same OS (OS 9 + OS X). However, many Linux users also a Windows partition. This is significant.
I'm all for seeing both Linux and Mac OS X succeed. I use both. I think choice is good.
Be informed.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
stands as a testement to all the bad things people say about /. and linux. Ill informed zealots who don't even read the whole article, wow.
/. are posting that this was real. lol.
/.'s growth in population has meant more smart or talented people catching on, just a different breed of cattle.
I read it first, and my first thought was, man I bet alot of people as
Gates will hav a copy of this page on his desk and he will laugh his ass off.
Sometimes i don't think that
a man, a plan, a canal, panama
It is not the "Linux community". I think that there are just alot of people who read slashdot because it is the "cool" thing to do. And apparently they aren't too bright.
a man, a plan, a canal, panama
or maybe you've already read the latest BOFH
~ppppppppö
Where is the line at which her app must be GPL'd? Note, she never distributes her app in any form, only the reports.
RTFLicense. The GPL doesn't apply to software until/unless it's distributed. There is no line at which her app must be GPLed in the scenario you just laid out, because it's never distributed.
How is this an example of the vagueness of the GPL? It's crystal clear to me.
Too bad I don't have points here...
I'm not gonna sit here and rag on Netscape all day... it's pointless, they were a good company and then they screwed up, everyone knows that by now... but I think people easily forget that MS had to make a lot of the right moves (right for them, anyway) to get where they are today.
This is what I didn't like about the DOJ case, and this is what I don't like about people who diss IE in favor of Netscape. Netscape, as a company and as a product, are NOT better than MS or IE - they're arguably much much worse. What Microsoft did to other companies can be described as just plain despicable, but you can't blame them for what happened to Netscape...
As a matter of fact, Netscape has a lot of life in them simply based on the number of people who still have their browser installed. Beyond this point, if Netscape slips any further in market share by a sizable margin, that's a big loss to them - and entirely their own fault. But that's considering that I'm thinking Linux users, corporate licensees, and IE haters are their main user base right now. If they lose THOSE people to IE, then that's sad.
Of course, I'm rooting for IE because it's the better product, IMO. But this is slashdot, and I can lose a lot of karma for saying that...
Now, I understand how the War of the Worlds incident happened.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Hey motherfucker,
I know it's fake. That's what I SAID.
First things first, as is obvious, the letter is satire, though the link provided does not indicate it. Given that, some people are saying that it raises some good points. As a work of "ha ha, only serious" it is little more than flamebait. Think the GNOME developers are wasting their time instead of working on KDE? You might as well accuse BSD or Hurd programmers of wasting their time (hope you like getting flamed). If you think it's a joke, fine it's a joke. Ha Ha. If you think the points raised are rational arguments, it's not. The message sent is "look how silly you all look, why don't you consider how Bill Gates would take it."
The fact is that competition should never have priority over unity (in my philosophical opinion).
So I guess you'd rather we were all developing Win32 apps, right?
"If you look 'round the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you." -- Quiz Show
1) Memo is fake
2) Memo was purposefully leaks to influence open source in some way
3) Memo was real
In cases 1 and 2, I think the obvious response is to disregard the memo. If 2, we certainly don't want to try to do the opposite of what the memo might suggest us to do. In fact, the best plan is to just ignore it, nullifying any effect it may have had.
If 3, then there are two subcases:
1) He's right
2) These are the ramblings of a king whose civilization is crumbling
In both of these cases we should probably reanalyse what we are doing and redouble our efforts, to reduce duplicating work, and to increase productivity. He's right: Open Source/Free Software cannot define itself by what it is *isn't*. Once the "what it isn't" (closed, proprietary development in general, Microsoft in specific) disappears, Open Source/Free Software still needs a reason to exist. For Open Source that reason is to create high quality software which is easily modifiable and customizable by users. For Free Software that reason is to create programs whose code is legally unencumbered so that the "freedom" of using said software is ensured for everybody.
I'd also like to point out "billg"'s comment:
I think Jefferson would disagree with billg's interpretation of intellectual property. In fact, selling and owning ideas are what is artificial, and only supported through artificial laws so that people have incentive to create and innovate.
Anyway, when is the Mardi Gras? I didn't get a flyer...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
From all the reports I've read, Bill Gates is apparently a very intelligent, and very well-spoken man, despite the alleged evil that lurks in his heart. This letter, while seemingly well written, and with many good examples, contains far too many sentences I've seen in Linux related articles. (Would Bill Gates really use the term FUD?)
I have a very difficult time believing that this message came from Microsoft, but rather from someone in the Linux community with the intention of spurring peace and harmony among open-source developers by trying to show them the error of their ways.
Anyone who believes this is real is also probably waiting for their checks from Disney and MS for forwarding their "marketing" email to 15 friends.
I also have an email tracker to rent to these people if they need one...
No way is this for real. Good gag, though.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
But it's true.
________________________________________
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Too big to fail? Does that make me to small to succeed?
"I [and 10,000 quatloos says, the real Bill Gates, too!] would probably be writing a different letter now if..."
- Less infighting. GNOME/KDE. Sun/HelixCode/Java. ESR/RMS. How much code has this produced?
- Less reinvention of the wheel on political or personal grounds. See above.
- Less trumpeting of the small wins (excellent dig on Slashdot and the
:CueCat thing) and more focus on the big stuff.
- More hardware support. Let's get real - gaming does drive consumer purchases.
And most importantly (IMNSHO),Happy Day-After-Hallowe'en.
He's got Slashdotters and Linux zealots nailed down perfectly. Meanwhile, we just blindly make fun of Microsoft. Anyone really serious about Linux needs to print out that email, frame it, and read it daily. Seriously.
Took me a while to get to the part about "satire," but it might as well have been written by Bill G. himself. It's dead on, especially the part about slashdotters having a Mardi Gras every time something insigifnicant happens. When I used to follow the Amiga world, one of the signs of desperation was when people would post about seeing an Amiga in the background of a TV show or movie.
The entire point regarding infighting is maybe the most important of the piece. Open Source vs. Free Software? KDE vs. Gnome? Linux vs. BSD? People who love X vs. people who want it replaced? Perl vs. Python? It's all draining and tiring and makes me want to run as far from this so-called community as much as possible. When a "community" is driving people away, that's bad. I get the feeling that you can't just use Linux, you have to be a wacked out zealot. Heck, even if you don't use Linux for anything, apparently you can still be a wacked out zealot.
Honestly, there are non-technical reasons for using other operating systems.
Its a fake, how can I tell? BillG can use the word "sophists" in the article correctly, oh and in it the "voice" is far too relaxed and too self aware, take "I wonder if I would be writing a different letter right now if all those developers could focus on one system", that is absolutely definately NOT BillG, in BillGs mind he is always right, Also why bother recounting the history of KDE and Gnome? Why not just note that there are competing desktops and this is a weakness, the only possible reason anyone would send such an email within M$ would be if all the developers where leaving to work on OSS. If BillG were to write an email to the whole staff (note the all@microsoft.com alegedly sent to) he would probably say something like "Heres a report by Mr. X who has been watching Linux for us, I'm sure you'll agree with his conclusions.". Not an utterly lame fake, but close.
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
Its obviously a hoax, scroll to the bottom of the article and see the fact that the entire thing was written for satire purposes.....
The fact that the Slashdot editorial staff were fooled by what is too painfully obvious to even be called a hoax? Or the Slashdot regulars who cannot figure something false unless it's spelled up front to them with a 'It's funny. Laugh.' tag?
Harping on about the Qt licensing issues after it has been released under the GPL is most certainly petty.
I understand your distaste of the GPL. But if I, as a coder make something that's successful, wouldn't you consider it my right to demand that my code not become part of some proprietary system that makes someone else money off of my work? By the same token, don't I have the right, as a coder, to waive that expectation? It seems to me that this is what the GPL vs BSD licensing thing boils down to. What you (the coder) wants. Does the GPL restrict freedom? Yes it does. Are you free not to use it because you don't like those restrictions? Yes you are. Really that's all that needs to be said about it.
It seems to me that you're making the subtle suggestion that not only do you find the GPL distasteful but everyone else should as well. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but if that's what you're saying, I think it's a mistake.
The GPL exists because it meets the needs of a certain set of people. The suggestion that it is inherently bad seems a bit much to me. That would be like a GPL zealot saying that the BSD license is evil (like that's ever happened ;-) The reality is that each serves a different purpose. BSD serves a set of coders who would prefer that their software be distributed as widely as possible. Whereas the GPL serves the set of coders that want to ensure that their work doesn't get exploited by someone with profit motives.
I say to each his/her own. Different strokes...
IANAL, but if I accept your claim that the boundary is not well defined, shouldn't I expect lots of legal tests of that boundary to push its limits? It seems to me that the fact that the GPL has never been legally tested suggests that the boundary is not only defined, but defined so strongly as to discourage any sort of exploitation.
I can't imagine that no one has thought to try and exploit the GPL.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
10) Fed to sharks and then used as fertilizer for Microsoft Campus Lawn.
...and as I wandered into the slashdot post page, they all yelled "Karma Whore!"
9) Boiled in oil
8) Exiled in a Klingon excommunication ceremony
7) "Would you like fries with that?"
6) Tech support for hotmail
5) 1000 lines by tomorrow: "I will not leak memos.."
4) Working at new Microsoft sattelite campus in Siberia
3) Tied down to a bench and had his pants run up the MS flagpole
2) killed slowly by... Snails....
1) Forced to debug Windows 2002
At the bottom of the "Halloween Document" it says..
"Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day."
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
But still, I can't beleive that so many people would be duped by this letter. I was actually coming back to Slashdot to point out the fact that this CAN'T be real, and then I read comment that says that at the end of the article is written "This is SATIRE." /. . In fact, it's a shame that Linux.org didn't add to their article "This is a SATIRE" when they originaly posted the story. I'm gald they finally did. Otherwise, if they never told anyone this was a joke, it would have been a very nasty move against Microsoft, knowing they are currently in court.
I can't believe that people needed THAT to know it wasn't real. It seemed pretty legit, but the use of "FUD" and the end of the email pretty much gave away the fact that this letter wasn't real. "And for crying out loud, don't leak this memo this year. We all remember what happened to Vinod, right? "
Come on!! Think whatever you want of Bill Gates, he knows that these kind of comments would make him look like a fool, and that some employee would post it to www.linux.org or
... or am I the only one who saw the disclaimer at the bottom of the article that read:
Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day.
Nah, I must be seeing things.
Maybe the page was updated after it was slashdotted?
Also, does Bill share is deep thoughts and concerns to every peon at MS? Does the accounting department, maintainence, secretaries, give two shits about Linux?
It's a big load...
- I like pudding.
Now very likely this article was written with Journalistic License. But one way or the other, the points about the GPL and Competition are real concerns for _me_ as a professional and hobby developer.
About boundaries, consider this scenario from a legal perspective (this is for you GPL gurus out there - it was part of an email conversation between myself, a developer who released some GPL'd software, and a legal person at the FSF):
> My other example, about a professor using a tool, comes at this question
> from the other side: professor produces some reports using X software
> which is GPL'd. Obviously she has access to the source by virtue of its
> license, but those reports need not be GPL'd - they aren't software.
> One day she realizes that she is doing the same thing over and over again
> and writes a little script to help automate the process, and do some
> additional post-processing. Then she decides to write an application (in
> the same programming language that X was written with) which puts a nicer
> front end on the whole thing (GUI vs. shell). Then she finds out that
> many other professors would like copies of her reports (but they don't
> want to do the work of using the software - or perhaps they don't have
> access to the source data) so she starts a web distribution of those
> reports. Then, and this is probably the "fatal" step, she realizes that
> both X and her application would be better off if part of her application
> was re-factored into X (say its a web-scalability issue). Finally, she
> just goes willy-nilly making changes in both X and her application (but X
> always compiles without any dependencies on the app). And then she does a
> programmer-bad and makes X' dependent on the app. Where is the line at
> which her app must be GPL'd? Note, she never distributes her app in any
> form, only the reports.
If the her modified application, X', is never distributed to anyone, then
the GPL (version 2) does not come into play, and she is not bound to do
anything in particular because of that license in this case.
The GPL (version 3) may try to address this scenario.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
the desktop market will help us get that. Windows NT didn't get popular because it's the most robust server solution out there. It got popular because it integrates so well with the desktop software that is used by almost every consumer in the market.
Now, wouldn't it be nice if we could have a BSD that is ultrasecure, runs on anything you can put 110 volts (or whatever popular voltage your region supplies) through, and works as a great all-around desktop/server unix?
I wonder...what did happen to Vinod?
Vinod (designation 4 of 12) has his conection to the collective severed.
Being over the age of 25, and therefore demonstrably senile, I don't want to vouch for the reliability of my wetware, but when the "e-mail" was originally posted, there was no mention of it being satire. I'm pretty sure the note at the bottom was added later when too many people either completely missed the joke or (like yer humor-challenged author) treated it as a hoax message being passed off as a genuine treatise from His Billness.
j.
I'd like to do a Letterman top 10, but the egg timer is running and I'm not going to have time to come up with 10 reasons. Let's do four.
4) MS got raked over the coals for e-mails from top executives (including billg) in the anti-trust trial. I suspect that any information of this nature would be disseminated in subpoena-resistant format (i.e. conference call).
3) Lots of comments tweaking the nose of open-source proponents. Would this be done in a document intended to remain internal? What's the point?
2) "Relax. Do nothing. Let them enjoy their 5.5%" I have never met Bill, but I have met people who have met Bill. I haven't heard anything indicating Bill is a relaxed type of guy.
And (drum roll) the number one reason why this is a hoax.
1) "Don't leak this memo this time!"
you mean - like - we are supposed to READ the articles linked ? No way - you can't read some huge text and still do a First Post...
--
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
Uhhh no it runs on Windows 2000 server.
This doesn't read like something anyone would write to an entire company. This reads like well thought out flamebate.
"Bill" isn't taking a buisness look at things, he is sort of mentioning buisness related things on the side, but spends most of the time calling people idiots and advising people to check out mozzila.org and laugh. If he really thought all this, would he bother spamming the whole company?
You can do it boys and girls! Say it with me now,hooo-aaaxe, hoax! Very good! One more time together...
Whoever you are, you completely brightened my day!
Thanks!
Please moderate this up!
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
>maybe Bill Gates is a Slashdot regular
The grits boy?
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
It's a well-written and interesting piece, but I'm almost certain that at some point in the relatively near future, it's going to be revealed as being a hoax
Well, we might as well get it over with sooner rather than later.
If you scroll down to the end of the 'forwarded email', you'll see the following:
Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day.
--
What the hell? Conspiracy theorists unite. But, riddle me this, Batman... How can you guys in one breath berate Microsoft programs for crashing every five minutes then in the next breath say that they have access to TOP SECRET APIs which make it so that programs don't crash? Of course, your use of quotes leads me to believe you're probably just joking. I hope you are. Please be joking; my faith in humanity has all but slipped.
I found it it was fake by the note on the bottom saying 'This was a piece of satire meant to liven your day'.
Is ok, i probably would have done the same if i didn't scroll down to see what more there was at the bottom of the page. :) Hope i dind't offend you, didn't mean it like that.
Options need to be explored, it's the genetic algorithm, it's very powerful, in the long run. It's why we're all here, and not still some primordial ooze.
Excellent Satire, BTW.
--Mike--
Almost no one sees his own actions as evil, and certainly there is no evidence that Bill Gates does. Yet this paragraph uses the terms FUD and proprietary "standards" in a way that implies that they are underhanded while admitting that they were seriously considered. These are not the words of a leader who believes he is right rallying his troops.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
I think it is meant to be a wake up call to the Linux and open source community. Whoever did write it, had many good points. Minus all of the, "Bill Gates really didn't write this" posts, there isn't much discussion of the content. Maybe that's because it is frighteningly true.
Linux.com Feature Story: Another Halloween
Document
Ryan Gordon strikes again with another work of satire! Another
'leaked memo' from Microsoft on Hallowe'en, to celebrate the
infamous 'Halloween Document' of years past. While clearly a work of
satire, this one is sure to inspire some heated discussion. Check it
out! By the way, that's Ryan juggling in today's Photo Of The Day.
Tue, 31 October 2000 - Ryan C. Gordon >> more!
-motardo
No, not everyone does. (apologies for the slightly anti KDE bent, I like neither C++ nor Qt, and it tends to show.)
1) KDE is bound to C++, GNOME is (albeit more loosely) bound to C. Development language choice is a *massive* difference between the two.
2) Qt licensing issues were most certainly NOT petty, and the apparent lack of concern from the KDE team tarnished the whole project.
3) Putting all effort into one project is a big mistake, since different projects have different goals. Take Mozilla vs Konqueror for an example. If noone had bothered with a browsing component in Konq because the Mozilla project had a browsing component, where would we be?
4) Your life long dream may be for Linux to be a user friendly desktop usable OS, but my desire is for Linux to be an OS I can use to do what I want to get done. I don't want GUI admin tools to config files I'm comfortable with. I don't mind if other people want them and make them, but I'd be pissed off if, to save duplication of effort, we stopped providing those config files.
(incidentally, Mozilla is a classic example of mismatched goals - people were hoping for a browser, the Mozilla team wanted to create something else. I sure wish there'd been more duplication of effort there, we could have a lightweight browser that didn't need mozembed.)
So the not terribly funny (come on, it's an old old story) "joke" exposes a serious lack of understanding of why choice is so good.
--
bje
As bizaar as some of this letter is, one must admit that a significant amount of time is spent simply arguing about how to pronounce 'GNOME', and it must be difficult for those outside of the OSS movement to be attracted by the rampant infighting that does occur in some arenas. We would to well to agree to disagree and get back to writing code.
There are a dozen or so misspelled words in the e-mail (i.e "concieved"). If Gates really wrote it, he'd use Outlook, which does the annoying underlining thing. And even if he didn't use that particular feature, I can't imagine sending a memo to 20,000 people without spell-checking first...
Hey lets keep in mind, this article is a joke. DO NOT TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. dumb intel people...
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
I work for Microsoft, and this supposed letter is an obvious hoax. Not only is the content of the letter composed very poorly (BillG and any other upper management types use spelling and grammar checkers before sending their mails and never make such grotesque and obvious mistakes), but it is addressed to "all@microsoft.com", which is a non-existant e-mail alias. Additionally, no internal Microsoft employee would address an e-mail to "alias@microsoft.com" because that would cause the mail to travel unnecessarily outside of the corporate exchange servers, across internet pathways, and back into the intended recipients. All corporate e-mail is sent to other users on our corporate network, so you never see mail addressed like this from one employee to another.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
This is an absolute modern day story of Tortise and the Hare. See you at the finish line Bill.
Read the bottom of the page:
----------End Forwarded Message---------
Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day.
Check out www.linux.com:
Ryan Gordon strikes again with another work of satire! Another 'leaked memo' from Microsoft on Hallowe'en, to celebrate the infamous 'Halloween Document' of years past. While clearly a work of satire, this one is sure to inspire some heated discussion.
Please read the whole article! it's satire!
PPPPLLLLLEEEEEAAAAASSSSSEEEEE read the article BEFORE commenting on it. Notice at the bottom where it SAYS THAT IT'S SATIRE??! Even better, this exact same 'hurry up and post' mentality has generated a ton of posts on that site as well with people doing this same thing, and also ignoring the posts about 'hey read the article first'. You realize this means that i don't ever believe you read articles now, you fall into the post for post-ings sake group.
Watch 'Pirates of Silicon Valley'. An excellent geek movie, and does a good job of showing the maneuvering microsoft did to buy DOS from someone else and then turn around and sell it to IBM - right after they'd promised IBM that they had a great OS.
may i suggest we start with your head? c'mon!
even if you didn't finish the article, which clearly labeled itself as satire, didn't you see the hundred posts about it being a fake in this discussion?
Here's a ripe one:
"I am sure everyone agrees that competition is an ideal that is not as glorious in reality as those sophists make it sound. In reality, competing projects serve only to split a finite resource further."
I fell for this one.
anybody else? - or am I the only Idiot!
It's just you. Sorry.
And the brethren went away edified.
Quit points
I'd say it's a fake...
--
From: Aaron "PooF" Matthews
Thanks for the quick bio. I agree with you, but many people on /. seem(ed) to think it's real (maybe they didn't read it? :-)
--
From: Aaron "PooF" Matthews
Do you really think that bill gates would send a memo like this to every microsoft employee? Especially considering the anti-trust trial; it's to MS's advantage to show that linux is a clear competitor.
/. editors would fall for this bait, the quality of submissions has dropped measurably since Taco sold out to andover.
Even then, the writer uses terms like FUD, and makes references to ESR and RMS. This was obviously written with the intent of angering and rallying people in the open source community.
I can't believe that
Now Microsoft and its cronies may make things more difficult than they should be in many cases. They can tie up "standards" in patents and make it next to impossible to get hardware specs. They can go after key open source developers for "Patent Violations." This method of attack is much more dangerous and likely to be successful in the long run than the MS standard of spreading FUD. It's doubtful the DOJ's going to put the kibosh on that sort of thing for us, either.
We should pay less attention to the FUD; it's always been a worthless attack on Linux. Instead, we should concentrate on what Microsoft is doing behind the scenes to make it harder for our programs to interoperate. There's where the real danger lies.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Take, for, example the "all@microsoft.com" e-mail address. Do you really think that Bill Gates would send such an e-mail to every purchasing clerk, secretary, and human resource person at microsoft?
I could go further, but I don't think it's necessary.
So why post this kind of story with a headline that makes it seem real? It seems kind of sensationalistic to me. If you want fake Microsoft vs. Linux stories, I'd be happy to write one for you. But if you want real news, check the story before post it!
Abe
I believe it completely. Everything it says is true. I'm sure Bill wrote it himself.
The only thing that bothers me is the line just below the forwarded message where it says:
- Note: This article is a piece of
satire meant to brighten your day
I wonder what they meant by saying that?Mmmm.. Donuts
devil's advocate
Sorry. If BillG was a devils advocate, the letter would have mentioned BSD.
Yes, and GNOME started off as a "linux project" and has become a real UNIX project...amazing how that can happen....portable code forced out a project.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
If you bother to read to the bottom you will see that this email is clearly labelled as a _SATIRE_. That's right, it doesn't claim to be real, it's not even a hoax, because there's nothing fraudulent. It's just a joke, a satire piece, intended to offer insight into some possible lines of criticism that somebody like Bill Gates could throw at Linux.
/. eds don't bother, at least read the story linked to before replying.
Check your links before you post stories. This is pure SlashTrash. And if
Well come on now... When I posted there were only 3 posts, and they were all going on about how they could easily believe Bill Gates would write such a thing. I was incredulous at how ridiculous the whole thing was. Calm down.
So if I'm working for MS and am programming IE, and i go home and figure out how mozilla does this one thing, and I come back and throw that into the IE code, how are they gonna know? :)
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
Lots of people seem to have been fooled, its a good read, but not true.. he even says so: "Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day." Just thought I would throw that out.
It's not real. Check http://www.linuxgames.com/ and scroll down to an article entitled "Another Halloween Document ". It is a work of satire.
This article, although fake, made perfect sense. Just because we use linux doesn't mean that it's better than W2K or whistler - MS will learn from our ways, embrace them, and extend them into Whistler. We are a strong group but irrelevant. Don't kid yourself that your Linux knowledge will mean anything in twenty years. Our market is fuelled my CEO's who watch MS commercials. I know I will be moderated as flame bait but how many of you have a boss that doesn't think that Novell or MS is the only solution and Linux is a fad????
Anyone who believes Bill Gates wrote that, please, sign over your bank accounts to me before someone more deserving cons you. It's pretty clearly satire, expressing a Linux advocates justifiable frustration at the 'ideology over productivity' attitude that tends to taint Linux development. Unfortunately, the writer isn't quite up to the levels of Swift or Lewis (thinking of the Screwtape Letters here), so the humour falls a bit flat and the justifiable criticism is dulled.
even if this is from Billy's hands I'm doubtfull it's not "PR we as an open-source community should not be reading".
guess Bill has WAY to much time on his hands to write a peace that takes over 30 minutes to read about Linux.
Maybe, thinking of the time it took to write, Bill is a little concerned(that is, if it IS him!!) about people writing stuff just to get things working :)
regard,
vvk
You must type slow. Your post was #29.
Pete
Can you even call it a hoax when it's not meant to be taken seriously?
Seriously, the funniest thing about this mediocre satire is the fact that so many people have commented on its validty.
Comments like there is no 'all@miscosoft.com', or a number of other reasons why this can't be true... It's a joke! Bloody naive Americans
Better to stay silent, and let people think you're an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt
I was thinking of visual studio 6, which was retailing at fryes when I saw it for at _least_ $800, if not $999. I think I paid $79 for it, through the Microsoft store. (through a friend, not myself ;))
Why don't you READ before you type? I saw the price tag for Visual Studio, which is not just the visual C++ compiler, but the whole integrated suite, including interdev, for $800 to $1000, locked in a glass case, at Frye's. I personally paid like $70, through a friend who bought it at the Microsoft store as an employee. Is that clear enough?
Agreed. The moment the CueCat was mentioned, it became absurd, because he referred to it as though everyone would know what he was mocking. The intended audience really wasn't M$, but /. readers.
I wonder...what did happen to Vinod?
Anyhow, whoever did it DID make a lot of interesting points, from the beer vs speech holy war to Gnome vs KDE.
I did think of something though - we owe a lot to the young people contributing. There's a lot of people with a lot of ability who can't afford to pay $1000 for a compiler, who are contributing a lot of labor to various OSS causes, and largely, I imagine this is because their careers haven't handed them a full plate; personally, they don't have a lot of life's hassles yet (kids, etc); they thrive on better technology, and enjoy it; they have a lot of energy and not enough stimulation (especially for talented students in unchallenging CS programs and the like). And as they go, there will be a new crop, and with OSS much more ingrained on the way now, I think they may keep it as a hobby as the community grows. There's certainly a truth in the fact that OSS suffers from mythical man month problems just like everything else, except that sometimes the most important things are big ideas wrapped in small packages, and so genius can be spread out among more projects with the implementation being done by others. The best techies I've ever known spend more and more time just telling other people how to do things right, rather than doing it themselves.
I seriously doubt Gates would denounce the concept of competition, especially via a semi-public e-mail. Especially considering the trouble e-mail has gotten him into before. "And for crying out loud, don't leak this memo this year. We all remember what happened to Vinod, right?" I'd say that's a pretty strong hint that this is fake.
I work for Microsoft, and I have yet to receive this e-mail. Plus, it doesn't sound like a Bill Gates e-mail at all. Just my $0.02.
Satire, right?
But the worst (or is it?) thing is that he's right. Linux and OSS suffer from severe Versionitis, at least on the client and application side. Come on, version numbers like 2.11.13b! And if you install FooBlag 2.11.13b you have to have libfnutz_3.141, but that breaks GrumpfWM if you compiled that from source without --withblag; make dependencies on any given Sunday.
Whereas on the server side... A Windows server crashes if you look at it funny.
Ask yourselves, all you who blurt out "Will it run Linux?" when some company launches a pocket calculator or "It really doesn't scale well on Alpha processors with less than four LEDs" when some company launches a piece of software for distributed cow-tipping, ask yourselves: Would you, even if you could?
It's its. They're their, there. You're your. Who's whose? A looser loser, though those two too threw through the trough.
But all M$ products are closed source, so nobody would find out.
>You can not get eight, let alone ten or twelve, hour days out of open source coders.
Ummm, right...I hope these twelve hour days include lunch.
come on? this is news? nothing more important happened today?
/. intro to this letter clearly states that it is "from William Bill Gates himself". The letter is posted under microsoft and not under it's funny, laugh. anyone who glances at the article header and does not check out the facts (presumably trusting /. has already done this) will think this thing is for real. but no, in truth /. has taken to lying outright to its readers.
besides all that, the
what a sham (and i'm not talking about the letter).
--
This satire was genuinely entertaining, but it does bring up some important issues, such as the ever-present forking problem. On the bright side, all the points which M$ usually disregards as "pointless" are exactly what has made Free Software so important. Think about it: in 25 years, all M$ has is a mediocre (even POS) OS line which gives users only minor flexibility. Linux, in less than 10 years has met or exceeded most of the features and usefulness that Windows employs. Just think where we'll be by Kernel 4.8...
-----------------------------------------
Perversely greped and groped by PowerPenguin
When I worked at Microsoft, I never met the man personally, but I did attend mass meetings where he would give a lecture on the state of the company. All the Microsoft management were consistent in the way they discussed the competition -- it was always "don't feel we are safe, don't count them out." I remember when it was first becoming clear that Borland was no longer any sort of threat to Microsoft, someone (I think it was Steve Ballmer) said "But Borland is the 'comeback kid'. We still need to watch them."
BillG has his blind spots -- he didn't see the Internet coming, nor did he see Linux coming. But I guarantee you that he considers Linux a threat and he is watching it. The ridicule in the essay rings totally false.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Bill Gates himself sent it! I saw him put it in his gold-plaited mailbox and send it! I'm surprised he was able to send it, as he was being gored by the Loch Ness monster, from whom he stole the Hitler diaries. It's also surprising that a letter was able to magically turn into email. Alright back to the alien autopsy I'm performing...
In the first case, the proffesor only distributed the product of the programs she was using. Though I would hope that she would share her little modifications with her peers, no one would force her. People would only force her to open her code if she tried to distribute a modified version of OTHER PEOPLE'S work as her own. As a proffesor she would know that this is called plagerism! It's an attempt to garner credit for other people's work. In this case it could even harm the original work's reputation because the modifications were not visible and the modified version could be mistaken as the orignial version she enjoyed using so much.
The same problems exist in your second multivariant example. Give it up! It's easy to tell the difference between using a tool to create something and modifying something else. The details of your convelouted cases are hardly worth getting into.
The fact of the matter is that the GPL is much closer to traditional views of intelectual property than modern copyright law especially as applied to software. A quick review of any accademic honor code will confirm this. They all hope and pray that you will make good use of all the information that is out there and site it in publications. Information has always wanted to be free. It is those who would close off those freedoms and keep knowledge to themselves who are strange and perverse. Who, before Gilbert and Sullivan, would think that they owned a song? How strange it was that the Girl Scouts of America should be sued for singing "America the Beautiful" around the campfire! Fine, they won't sing it. The GPL uses the force of law to ensure that code released under it will remain free. So long as the law is consistent, the wishes of RMS will have to be respected and the considerable intelectual capital that has been put into the GNU projects will never be used to limit anyone's freedom to use, modify and share code.
Do as you will with your code and your liscences, the GPL is here to stay and I like it.
Obviously a hoax, but funny nonetheless. Anyone else get a kick out of the Slashdot references?
Here's a couple of juicy tidbits...
"Turn your Internet Explorer to http://www.mozilla.org/, and laugh."
"We'll make our own proprietary version of Linux, brand it with our trademark, and improve it until people would rather use our flavor than any other. At that point, we can lock everyone else out of the market."
"The poor zealots need to celebrate every small victory. This is a community of self- proclaimed "hackers" that are still celebrating the successful reverse engineering of those silly CueCat scanners. Therefore, as soon as a company mentions Linux in a positive way, regardless of how insignificant, the slashdot.org crowd throws a virtual equivalent of Mardi Gras."
This seems to have been written with every intent of becoming a Slashdot link.
Let the flame ware begin!
The real kicker was this phrase:
-
Turn your Internet Explorer to http://www.mozilla.org/, and laugh. This is the product
of "thousands" of hard working open source coders. We did that same work, and
more, in-house with less than 50 people working on the codebase.
This is simply not possible. I have friends that have worked at MSFT and they state unequivocably that viewing source code from competing Open Source projects is expressly prohibited so that there is no risk of GPLed code making its way into MSFT products either accidentally or intentionally. The thought that Bill Gates would request that people look at Mozilla source even as a joke is highly unlikely.Second Law of Blissful Ignorance
People getting together and doing things for the community 'for free' has been around since before the days of money. It was a normal way of doing things in the era of the pioneer, and it's been the way of doing things on the internet since it was usenet (and before that, when it was simply "the academic community").
People enjoy contributing to each other. More often than not, we tend to ignore the contribution that other people wish to make to us. The Free and Open software movements simply re-awaken those instincts in us and allow us to contribute to the community at large. Human nature will not die out as long as human beings exist.
As for the collapse of the Free/Open Source community under it's own weight, that prediction has been made of a similar user-directed and controlled system that we now know as 'the net'. Those predictions were common as far back as the early '80s. -- Notice how the 'net' collapsed in the mid-90s. Chances are that the same sort of 'collapse' may occur for the Open/Free Source communities at some time in the future (we can only hope so!).
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Such is life.
That's why we have the moderation system. You can always up the moderation threshold and only read from people who've managed to finagle a 2 or 3 moderation level. -- they're much more likely to be of the level of writing that you're hoping for.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
The last 2 lines read:
Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day.
You all tend to sound 'stoopid' when you start saying 'this must be a hoax' and 'this can't be real'
It's not real. What is real is that you're all gullible and 'believe everything you read'.
I know it is not true, I know it is satire. But this is not even good satire. Its dumb! Whoever wrote this just wanted to write something that ended up on slashdot or wherever this guy gets his positive feedback from. If Bill Gates writes/talks like he did in that e-mail then he is stupid. And Bill Gates is not stupid. Evil maybe, but not stupid.
..whoever wrote it (not all convinced it was Gates himself) is a pretty good author. He interjects items that are blatantly incorrect or ignore obvious details in a move to aggravate the reader, but inserts just enough truth to keep the boat floating. It keeps the reader fairly well engaged (and pissed off).
;)
Me, being suspicious, almost wonder if this memo wasn't INTENDED to be "leaked", that is, if it actually came from Microsoft at all.
It's the sort of writing where you disagree with it profoundly, but can't really pick a place to start responding because there's so many conflicts and things to disagree with.
Were that email to appear on usenet, it would be lauded as a troll. And a damn fine one.. just wait for Slashdot readers to devour this one if you want to see truth in that.
You really don't have a clue, do you?
Since when were compilers part of the OS?
Look, you and your pal Richard can scream GNU/Linux until you're blue in the face, but you're still wrong.
The tone of the letter is that their customers are suckers, not to mention stupid. The "PC or Mac" debate comes out in this letter too, but is instead the "Linux or windows" debate. We must be convincing when we talk of the advantages of linux. We must also take any oppertunity to spread the word about Linux Another thing that's critical is to be conservative in processing power yet powerful in what an OS can do. Many ofice managers would be very excited to learn they can get another 4 or 5 years use out of their old 486 or pentium machines. This saves them money, which motivates them to go to Linux at the same time. He is right in one critical thing however. We all must be one, or we will be none. We must become a single organized force, lose the bickering about which GUI is best, which distribution is best or else his prophecy of Linux causing it's own destruction will be true, and it will go into obscurity as did OS2. We must make one distribution with one GUI that is so powerful it is like nothing the world has seen before. We must also support our bretheren the reverse enigeneers and people on other open source projects. With their cooperation we will be able to make drivers that are even more efficient than Windows drivers, and make projects that are higher power than windows, and only with their cooperation. To have the best software to accompany the OS we need these people to have as much understanding of how the OS works. This is a key flaw in the closed source system of Windows and the similar. Even though they do release APIs, these aren't as good as the source for designing programs around. We must even support other non Linux opensource related projects such as OpenBSD, FreeBSD and the similar. If we help these devolpers, the favor will be returned in the long run many times over when they devolp software that is ported to Linux and other OSes, and that we will trade ideas and make both operating systems better in the long run by such an information exchange. Information exchange is critical and goes hand and hand with unity. We will surely fall without the exchange of ideas and code. and for crying out loud, don't leak this memmo =)
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
I just can tell you one thing: the moment I shall be able to get all functionality out of Linux which I normally get from Windows you will have one customer less. For the information of your financial dep.: I used to buy every 2 years at least 3 versions of Windows + Works, Word, Excel and many others.
Have a nice Halloween,
the skunk, lonely and emotional
The nice thing about Windows is: it does not just crash; it displays a nice little dialog box and let's you press 'OK'
I'd Like To See:
More Linux
More Trolls
More Flame wars
More Licensing Stories
LESS HEMOS
"In years past, we've discussed various ways to stop the Linux wave; we have considered everything from FUD to mud slinging to benchmarks to proprietary "standards" to force them down"
Okay, doesn't that sound just a tad-bit illegal to anyone? Microsoft using their huge market share in the desktop market to squash their competitors. Just confirming from the "man" himself their illegal practices.
Any hey, Bill Gates, read my sig.
Turn your Internet Explorer to http://www.mozilla.org/, and laugh...
Nowhere is Bill saying to view the source code to Mozilla, but more he is referring to the compiled project that the Mozilla group has created. Essentially, the feeling that he is after is for people to download and use Mozilla and then laugh at its look, functionality and features as compared to their very own MSIE.
Netscape could still pull itself together and do something right. Even Gates has admitted that MS isn't a forever thing especially with today's markets. Worse companies than NS have made surprising come backs, but then again better companies have been wiped off the face of the planet.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Check your history both NS and IE are based on the Spyglass/NSCA Mosaic code base. Andreesen worked on the base at NCSA with some other coders/students. After he left he continued to use the code in his new venture "Mosaic Communications Corporation" (which later changed to "Netscape Communications" due to trademark infringement over the name 'Mosaic'). Meanwhile NCSA stopped development on Mosaic and sold/liscensed the code to Spyglass from which MS liscensed (not baught, MS has to pay Spyglass royalties for several technologies)(which you might also note that IE displays all of this information openly in it's about box along with other liscensed technology). NS was sued by NCSA, changed it's name but was allowed to retain use of the Mosaic code (details of the settlement were of course not disclosed).
Now of course Netscape claims that none of the original code from Mosaic was used and that they just got half a dozen developers from NCSA and rewrote the whole code in a few months (a feat they have yet to duplicate). But really now... the truth, come on... NCSA was charging about $100,000+ for liscensing and how do you think Andreessen would have felt about spending that kinda cash on code he helped create.
A Funny read is this article on Wired. Some of the predictions made and assumptions are pretty funny. Like the talk about how Netscape wasn't going to get sold in a box but shipped with Internet enabled PC's... hmmmmm... where have I heard that before... oh yeah MS does that... oh but Netscape says that's bad now. And then there's the thing about Netscape creating proprietary standards... isn't MS getting in trouble for that now too... hmmm. Sad that MS just seems to copy Netscapes bad ideas huh?
Good reading at wired
I think it's a hoot that this piece of satire so elloquently nails every issue with Linux and the opensource movement. Of course they could have made it slightly more believeable but then all the zealots would have attempted to proclaim it as authentic.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
technically, halloween has come and gone, but oh well....
This post has been encrypted in several of the most advanced ROT-26 algorithms
Sure, Gates' points look great in theory, but the thing is they are not true. All kinds of clothing companies compete with each other, there are about 8.56 * 10^8 brands of pants you can wear, and according to Microsoft theory we wouldnt be wearing pants because of that. Helix Code is doing well, the hackers who work there are very happy with their employment and enjoy sallary and spend full time developing open-source. There are also those who do not work in Linux-only companies, but nevertheless write great deals of Linux software, such as Donald Becker, type dmesg | grep eth | grep becker and find out contribution.
This is such a troll. It pushes all the perfect buttons for slashdot.
Insults open source
Mentions slashdot and sourceforge
Insults RMS and ESR
CueCat
DVD on linux.
One of the many things I hate. thingsihate.org
No, Gates' writing is much more insightful. Go read something Gates actually wrote for comparison. The guy has a genius for finding non-obvious weak points in the competition.
There is no way Bill Gates wrote that email. Im sure that behind the scenes Microsoft uses muscle to affect what goes on with linux and enterprises. Also the jab at Mac OS seems relatively out of place. It seems more like a linux user trying to feel good about himself: "ohhh, we have more market share than Mac OS! blah, blah," Not very constructive. However the critiques of the infighting within linux are interesting. Part of the whole linux problem is that people who chose to use it chose so so that they can find solutions to problems that are more to their individual liking. This makes it pretty hard to maintain standards, create a more seamless experience, and keep the systems compatible. The main users of computers in the desktop market place more empahsis on different values than the the average linux user does. Ease of use and compatibility are the two most important issues not "power" (really control but people here seem to prefer to refer to it a power) and stability (stability is important to end users but they dont need a computer that can be left on for 30+ days in a row just one that will crash only once a few hours). If linux wants to cater more to the average desktop user it will have to sacrifice some of the things that make it so beloved by the people who mostly use it now. Such is life to get something you have to sacrifice something else.
Maybe, but what's that got to do with Bill Gates? He didn't write DOS
Laugh with us. That's a joke, too.
Though, give the writer credit, he/she is right on the money. Infighting and ridiculous/arrogant posturing by the Open Source & Free Software "leaders" is retarded. Why did I force myself to read this drivel?
Today is November 1, not April 1? Right?
Got to the Microsoft website and do a search on "Linux". You'll get a hundred references. Wouldn't billg mention in his memo some of the points they highlight in their website, such as using the strong Linux growth as evidence for the existence of "true competition" in the software marketplace?
Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day.
Did you people forget to read the article to the end and find this little bit of debunking? or were you all just to incesenced by what it said and that the Evil Bill might have said it to be able to make an educated response.
Personally I found it hilarious. And its not a satire against Bill... its a satire of us.
This is letter is a complete hoax.
It is the time of year where we review the Linux operating system's position again, so I thought I would sit down and pass on my thoughts for this year.
Does anyone think that Microsoft, every year, evaulates the position of Linux in the marketplace? I would be suprised to hear if they did this evaluation in any smaller period than once a month. This industry moves too fast to do an annual evaluation.
We leave the actually muddying to others, like Mindcraft.
There is no way that Gates would say this, even internally. This is just not a comment one would make.
That's my "Halloween document" for 2000. Nothing to worry about. And for crying out loud, don't leak this memo this year. We all remember what happened to Vinod, right?
You've got to be kidding. This is the nail in the coffin as far as I am concerned. There is no way that Gates would bring up the previous document, and then egg someone on to leak this one. Just wouldn't happen.
-k
-Elendale
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
Don't forget...
3. It ends with the comment: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day.
>Too many Linux community in-jokes
On the other hand, maybe Bill Gates is a Slashdot regular. Seriously, the guy who wrote DOS must be a pretty big geek himself. And what better way to get to know his competition!
So, which one of you is he?
Jeesh! It says its a fake right on the page! How much brainpower did you waste figuring that out?
poor Vinod - we know what hapenned to him. He got hired by Linux.com! so now the poor bastard has both MSFT *and* VA stock! must be rough.
NASDAQ is back up. Big time.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
...and is obviously that - there are some truly valuable lessons to be learned in this text.
BlackNova Traders
But, as many have pointed out, NEARLY ALL OF HIS POINTS ARE VALID!
One thing that the Linux community needs to keep doing is looking at weaknesses and eliminating them. The author of this "email" has done an excellent job of not only pointing out a few of open source weaknesses, but he also managed to position the information as if to appear that Bill Gates himself was the one who found it.
Excellent. If people take it seriously, they will look at fixing the problems in an effort to "prove him wrong" and even if they recognize the true source, they will still take a more objective look at the points mentioned than if some average joe had written the same article, to the benefit of everyone.
I love it.
whoever you are, I know you are reading this, and enjoying every respons, you have 2 thumbs up from me. Excellent writing.
________
The reason the *BSD's are successful is because each team still has enough core talent to reach 'critical mass'. Ditto for KDE and Gnome. If a project forks and neither side has enough talent, both die.
The orginal letter is pretty good. It's clear WHGIII didn't write it; but whoever did really does bring up some very valid points about the open source community's shortcomings. We have to admit to ourselves that open source ISN'T perfect. The first step in solving a problem is admitting that you have one.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
This is so blatently fake that it's not funny. Must be a slow day at Linux.com ... not to mention Slashdot also...
"Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day. "
[Connection closed by foreign host]
What do you need rubber chickens as a background to clue you into the fact that it's a work of satire. p.s. if you where wondering the big yellow thing in the sky is the sun
I want a gmail account. Can someone help me
he's NOT ticked. he didn't even write that document. if nothing else, the spelling errors should tip you off. no ceo would ever release a 'raw' document like that. he probably has a team of folks checking his outgoing email text before mailing it.
otoh, maybe it was MSWORD doing the spellcheck, so I concede it COULD have been from him via Word ;-)
at any rate, how can someone SO rich be annoyed or depressed AT ALL? answer me that, will you. someone who owns half the free world (and part of the other half, too) cannot, in the least, have any reason for being ticked off.
I can only hope that I should be so 'unlucky' and ticked off as Billy boy...
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Bottom of the mail. "This is a piece of satire."
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
If you are open minded enough to listen to both sides, they both sound good by themselves. I see the same thing here. Mr. Gates's memo explained some well pointed flaws in Linux and the open source community, and obviously he has done his research on sourceforge.net and various other sources. However, Mr. Gordon's response to Gates's article brings up some positive qualities about open source and freedom. But focusing on Gate's memo, the man has a point, contrary to how much every open source person hates him. IMHO, the whole thing about KDE being 'tainted' by QT is just ridiculous. It's going to be this kind of 'It all has to be free as in speech' attitude that will tear the open source community apart. Linux is great, I use it a lot, but I also use Windows. And lately, I've encountered more bugs in X Windows such as windows not redrawing correctly, than blue screens and screen anomalies in Windows. And just to prove my point about the open source mentality, I can almost GUARANTEE that this post will get mod'ed down. Sure, when Microsoft goes and writes an negative article about Linux, we all get huffy-puffy about it and slam Microsoft, and then we turn around and point out all the problems with Windows. Is the Linux/open source community so dillusional that they see Linux as the 'perfect OS'?
Yea, it's NOT posted as AC, because it's what I believe in. If anything, I can always for lowest possible karma.
---
Well, infighting and disagreements over philosophical issues have created the entire gnome project for one.
Care about freedom?
I'd rather be lucky than good.
I must say it's not a bad portrait of the state of Linux affairs at the moment. But it's obviously a one sided view of the situation and is meant to be taken as such. It's kind of a troll basically. It's just a way for the guy to vent behind someone elses name(like that Anonymous Coward guy does here on Slashdot:~). This part is what crosses over the objectivity line though:
I think that sooner or later, these Linux fools will self-destruct without our influence. We'll see who has the Mardi Gras celebration then. In the meantime, I hope they enjoy their 5.6 percent of the desktop. It won't last.
Oh, I think it will last. Even when the zealots wake up and go back to using windows the fact that Linux is a superb piece of software will remain. A LOT of techie people use it for serious business reasons and otherwise and it's only getting better. I'm not impressed with KDE and GNOME. I think the real advances will be in infrastucture. Stuff like browsing into an ftp site by simply cd-ing into /net/someftp.site.com/pub or a library for retrieving/setting all the possible system properties in files like named.hosts, httpd.conf, ..etc so that persistance is abstracted from the logic. Then some _real_ configuration tools can be built. I just totally made up two(possibly stupid) examples up off the top of my head but I think it will be clever infrastructure stuff like that that will really make Linux shine. I don't wan't KDE or GNOME. Does anyone find it ironic that the're writing Windows 95 for UNIX?!
KidSock
Yeah, like it *cough* says at the bottom of the page.
I'll give the Slashdot folks the benefit of the doubt as far as posting it with a straight face and still nominate them for a dopeslap for having the chutzpah to do it that way anyway.
Though! Though, though, though. There is more to this than simply uninspired satire. I think it's a great thing for any open source developer to read because it gives great insight to the mindset of the closed source community -- They (the Open Source developers, i.e. we) can't make a difference because They can only put a drop in the bucket. This is what we're up against, my fellow Slashdotters. What's being written here in Uncle Bill's name is not merely wishful thinking but a mindset that needs to change before Open Source becomes completely accepted. IBM (who you'd think would be mentioned prominently in this document if it was authentic) is the big example -- Open Source is the future of their consulting business. Apple and Sun sort of get it, leveraging peer review as much as possible. Microsoft is the prime example of a company that sees it but is trying to fight it because they can't really get it -- this sort of denial permeates the Halloween documents (VinodV has a few choice comments about the power trip inherent in the Open Source debugging process if I remember correctly).
So this isn't a canonical Halloween document, and its cluelessness is a bit on the contrived side (not to mention it being a bit too glib and sarcastic -- I can't picture Billy Boy being that coherent when it comes to something that threatens his baby's fundamental business model). The numbers were probably pulled out of thin air. But make no mistake -- this is something everyone who believes in Open Source should read, just to get an idea of what we're still up against.
Yes, 90% of free software projects fail. It may seem that this is bad, but it isn't nessesarily. The authors that start the little redundant projects destined to fail do it mostly for fun. They probably wouldn't have been working on the other project to begin with, so we don't loose any man power. Instead we gain a wider perspective on how to solve the problem at hand.
What tends to happen is eventually one of those emerges from this "natural selection on crack" system to be better than the rest. Somehow one of the programs will just grab other developers attention and it will succeed. Basically, this is an automatic way of selecting quality of software engineering, as there is no authority there to say "you will work on this project". If i am going to devote my free time to something, i want it to be fun. Working with egotistical, stubborn or short sighted coders is no fun, so i will naturally gravitate to the project that is best suited to accept my help. I think those open projects will tend to be worked on by a more broad base, and will serve their users better. If we arbitrarily chose one to suceed for political reasons (KDE was here first, therefore we should drop GNOME! Mozillia is mozilla, drop Konquerer! Sun is Backing GNOME, drop KDE!) rather than letting the market powers chose which is more apt, then we will end up with worse software.got drum'n'bass?
http://mp3.com/vitriolix
Gnu/Linux is not a threat to M$. It is simply the act of the people taking back control of the software that should have been theirs from the very beginning. All the infighting in the Open Source crowd is the very stuff that Democracy thrives on. It is the IT Agora (The Bazaar) and we should remain damn well proud of that feature.
It would *really* have helped if the person who posted this subject mentioned it was satire... Slashdotters seem to read 85% of the article before running back here and shooting their mouths off... Who here saw the large black print at the end of the article that said "This is satire"?
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
Sorry, but it screams hoax.
News for nerds? I think not...
Want more concrete examples? At LinuxWorld in San Jose only a few months ago, SGI had to find a way to explain how Linux is great while they showed off their IRIX technology. The magician they brought helped, I hear. Michael Dell can not stop babbling about this exciting new Linux while meanwhile, Microsoft operating systems power the computers that keep his company afloat. It is always good, in a truely Machiavellian sense, to pay lip service to industry buzzwords like "Linux", but most companies will not bet their payrolls on it when push comes to shove. That's why we avoid future bad press in our standard manner; when we announced that we would port Internet Explorer to Solaris, we always used the term "Unix" in our press releases, to give Microsoft a safety buffer. I think that's wiser in the long run.
LIP SERVICE??
Lets not forget that hotmail runs on BSD!
When push does come to shove, Microsoft does bet a portion of their payroll on the BSD Operating system.
Right at the bottom of the article : Yet right after that are comments from readers about it being a hoax. Astounding. At times like this the terms "A new order" and "Swept clean by fire" spring to mind.
The comfort you demanded is now mandatory - Jello Biafra
"Can't you motherfucking morons learn to fucking read? It's a fucking satire, and you report it as God's-truth NEWS. Slashdot fucking sucks anymore. Go to .5e instead. Stupid fucks."
Can't you fucking read? This is like the 1,000th post stating that the letter was fake. Give it up. Read more comments before posting!!
The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.
Perhaps this is an attempt to generate more than a 1000 posts on an individual slashdot article.
Bibo Ergo Sum.
It's already the second of November.
--
--
no sig for you. come back one year.
Most of the posts about this are denouncing the article as fake, with several replies confirming it by pointing out the tagline at the bottom.
More importantly - move on, look at the points that were made. The satire here was used as a creative and effective vehicle to communicate an insightful perspective of the current Linux phenomena. I'm not qualified enough to start soap boxing here about solutions - but I would like to learn from the discussions of others.
If only there were any.
Private signature, do not read.
Any spoon would be too big.
that you cannot or did not read the article and its identification as a peice of satire.
I will bear this in mind.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
I don't believe Gate would write that kind of email and send it to ALL at MS. The whole thing is troll/flamebait.
"It is also important to consider that Linux is still a 'fad' at this time, and that number will probably drop back to less than one percent. "
Fad, huh? Since Unix/Linux has been available before DOS, I would consider that QUITE a long 'fad.'
In fact, since MS-DOS/Windows came along after Unix, shouldn't we consider Windows a 'FAD'?
Linux.com front page:
Linux.com Feature Story: Another Halloween Document
Ryan Gordon strikes again with another work of satire! Another 'leaked memo' from Microsoft on Hallowe'en, to celebrate the infamous 'Halloween Document' of years past. While clearly a work of satire, this one is sure to inspire some heated discussion. Check it out! By the way, that's Ryan juggling in today's Photo Of The Day.
Next please.
I am sorry guys, but I am having a hard time believing this is really authentic. Look at the last line; he basically thretens all MS employees. Come on, do you guys actually believe this? I'm supprised Slashdot even posted this load of BS.
I know Bill Gates. Bill Gates is a friend of mine. The person who wrote that memo is no Bill Gates.
It's good for academics -- what would happen if Bill Gates addressed all of his employees on the prospect of a competitor (not bloody likely) -- but as a "legitimate" email it falls far short.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
There is none.. its probably not real.. I mean, logically, why would Bill gates write a Halloween memo denouncing Linux, and specifically KDE and Gnome? It doesn't make sense.
But...
Then again...
Nothing Micro$oft does makes a whole lot of sense in any other context than economic$.
~ The Irony is, The only reason I'm not at Berkeley right now is because I was on acid during my SAT's..
I would like to make a few points on this nice satire done:
1) KDE vs GNOME. While people might argue which one is better, the point of the two projects IMHO wasn't always a matter of GPL vs the QT licence, albiet now that is irrelevant. The fact is, choise is good. GNOME personally is my favorate because of the customization of the UI, where with KDE, there aren't any open TCP ports mysterously open. (This isn't a big deal especially with a firewall but opens speculation to any possible expolits that are known or unknown. Albiet that there probably isn't anything to worry about, I still would raise a little speculation.) Of course, the satirical Billy G. is of course overly arrogant over this in itself.
2) Linux's desktop prevlance. "Oh, it's just a fad." it says in the article. Much like the average luser that can't figure out what a right-click is, the Billy G. in the article is denoucing the desktop. Maybe he himself is a luser? (Duh; anyone with that poor design would be.) I doubt that the opinion of a "fad desktop" will last. And no, the payroll doesn't mean a thing. It's in the SDKs, which of course are usually low-cost anyway to implement a full Linux enviroment with SDKs all over. Besides, it says even at the GNU, "We're not saying you can't make money with free software..."
3) The author of the satire perhaps is challenging us to promote Linux's strong points (aside from not sucking unlike windows, but how else do you explain it to a CIO or an average luser?) instead of always ripping Billy G. a new one. It also shows that the author, like IMO, sees M$ very arrogant about the open source movement. If this is the case, more Halloween documents are to come as it's unlikely the movement will die as time goes on.
Karma whorin' since 1999
you're all missing it. Several people have already pointed out that this article is satire. It was clearly marked as such on the Linux.com page, and I'm frankly surprised that the /. news team thought it was real. But that's not the sad thing. The sad thing is that Ryan has pinpointed all the negative aspects of the Linux community... things we should be working to IMPROVE. But instead of seeing this, you're all busy patting yourself on the back for figuring out that it's not from Bill Gates. Congratulations to all, you've successfully missed yet another point. It's okay though, I've learned not to expect much more.
yeah, obviously
i kinda knew before reading it was satire. even quite crappy one. uh. segfault has usually by far better satires, in case you didn't know.
ound the message used repetitively over and over still nothing grows silen
-- dR.fuZZo
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
Because this story was presented as being an email from Bill Gates, more than half the posters have spent their time saying "It looks like a hoax to me" (No kidding !)
The author raises a few excellent points which could have generated some interesting discussions. Unfortunatly this will not happen as any discussion of the authors points will be drowned in a sea of "I don't this Bill Gates would say that/I don't think he would send it to all@MS"
Great article! I had read more than halfway through it before smelling a rat :) ...
;)):
:)
The issues raised are very valid ones. I use Linux myself (mostly command line, KDE occasionally) but I know we have a long way to go in (before, say, Linus' parents could use it
* a universal clipboard
* drag and drop
* a modern components-based architecture
* and apps (instead of the toys bundled with the window manager) actually *using* these features!!
That said, with KDE 2, we're gettin' there!! Uh, in the interests of siblinghood, I'll admit that GNOME *might* be getting there too... but more slowly
*And* with the flexibility of open-source, Linux will be used in a lot of places where your one-size-fits-all OSes can't be. Imagine BadRAM running on NT...
A lot of people betting on Linux today (IBM comes to mind) do it *because* of the flexibility and choice it offers, and not *in spite* of it.
Allright! Woohoo!
It's time to get the party started! Linux rules!
I say slashdot implements a user jpg option so that we can all show off our costumes!
UBU
Once you get to the mention of /. you must realize it's a fake. Bill G doesn't have that much insight into the technical world around him.
It would be funny if that all@microsoft.com address was real, and they didn't have the necessary security on it.
This discussion has done more to damage my belief in the basic intelligence of people than anything on Slashdot yet.
Ummm.. hello.. did you read the last line of the article..
Said something about "This is a piece of SATIRE brought..." (not exact quote..)
Come on.. Use your heads, and read the article! OBVIOUSLY IT'S A HOAX!
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
OK.. So I'm a dumb ass, and missed this post...
/me sits on stupid couch...
Please mod down my other comment..
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
Not really: I don't see what in this is clueless.
The "he" in the first paragraph refers to the author of the document, whoever he/she may be. It's pretty clear it's not Gates... but I had to address the point the author was trying to make.
The comment about Gates after is genuine.
What did you find clueless?
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
*sheepishly*
Well, yeah. Thanks for giving me credit, tho.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
He talks about a fracturing of programmer resources: three sets of programmers working on three window managers isn't wasted effort. What it means is that the software consumer has a choice. If Linux was a monolithic entity like Windows, he'd be right; but the fact that I can install a kernel and console, or kernel and X and Window Maker, or kernel, X, GNOME, Sawfish, Helixcode and Eazel is a benefit not a hindrance. The fact that KDE and GNOME coexist and are getting more stable and full featured by the day is proof that neither team is losing anything by not working together. Maybe there is some duplication of effort - but Linux I'm sure has more real programmers working on it (as opposed to people squeezed out of your MCSE mill who couldn't do anything without a drool-and-drop Wizard if you threatened them with a loaded pistol) than you could ever hire, so it balances out. The biggest problem Linux has is not programming resources, it's getting hardware manufacturers to part with technology without demanding usurious licensing fees and the right to own and patent everything in sight.
I guess Bill is just ticked because Linux has come up with actual innovations, like Arne Gangstad's exponential timeout value trick (kernel)... whereas Microsoft tries to take credit for inventing the symbolic link and the GUI.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
There's a big difference between duplication of effort and correcting something to do it right. Sometimes you have to take a step back to make progress. MS would prefer to break the law.
It's a well-written and interesting piece, but I'm almost certain that at some point in the relatively near future, it's going to be revealed as being a hoax. Why?
- Too many Linux community in-jokes.
- Focuses far too much on how to improve Linux
- The writing style just thoroughly doesn't match Bill Gates' columns or book -- not that this is a deathblow, since I suspect most stuff issued by him these days is at least partially ghostwritten for time reasons alone.
ian.This article is a nice bit of satire but points out some home truths for the Open Source 'Zealots'. Everyone may hate Microsoft and bitch about them, but it still comes down to the fact that Joe Average wants software on his computer that he can type his letters, play some games and load software he gets on magazine covers. He doesn't want to worry about what Window Manager to install or what version of the kernel he has. I am a supporter of Open Source, and in the business I work for we are evaluating Linux as an option for some business functions. When it comes down to running our business though, we stick to Microsoft since everyone in the company can use it and we have enough experience to keep it running despite the numerous bugs. Even when we do move to Unix, we'll play safe and go with Sun/Oracle just to make sure we have a reliable upgrade path in 10 years time. If open the Open Source movement could work together (and I mean TOGETHER - the forking of Samba is another example of this) then we would see more stable distributions of Linux with ONE graphical front end being the standard plus proper applications like Word, Quark, etc. Then, and only then, will Linux move properly forward to challenge Microsoft on all fronts.
Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day.
-rev
Only a few additions:
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
Next time, could you mention that it's satire? I want those five minutes of my life back.
Aren't ESR and RMS a duplication of effort?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
People can structure organizations and licencing agreements in many different ways. Different structures encourage different sets of behaviours. With that in mind, can anyone think of a structure that could (as an example) attract enough resources to sustain a long-term full-time collaborative effort, while still maintaining what is attractive about open source?
Oversimplified Example: Many structures are designed to be competitive. Competition encourages secrecy, bottlenecking the flow of ideas, stifling creativity and innovation. Open source seeks to overcome this. But how many people can make a living writing open source software? I suspect that for some, writing open source is a hobby financed by a 'day job'. This seems to me, as an ignorant observer, like fertile ground for an innovative approach.
It says it's satire at the bottom.
Bill Gtaes wouldn't write like that.
I am sooo smart. You all got fooled
It's a hoax, just read what the guy wrote
You Linux people are so silly
You poop your pants
You think Windows sucks
You smell like a goat
You post without reading
You use Linux
You put your finger in your crack and wipe it on your upper lip
You think boogies are delicious
You're all like "Hey everyone it's fake, I figured it out and I need to let you all know how dumb you all are by showing you how smart I am!"
You think Open Source is way cool
You chew your toenails
You could go on and on about DeCSS and Napster and CueCat and Legos
You think girls would be neat to hang out with
You have your mommy make your bed
You use VI or Emacs
You eat acid and stay up all night
You can't do shit without a computer
You call all go to hell!!!!
"It's all right, it's ok. There's something to live for" - Uncle Bill
I'd say by looking at the message, it's an obvious fake. What self-respecting executive would allow such a poorly composed email to be sent?
/. is always looking for MS dirt, but c'mon. Let's try to be a bit more selective.
I know
Maybe it was written by a Slashdot editor!
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
You see, I was just getting ready to post my thoughts on Bill Gates officially coming out against Linux, when I happened to glance up to 200 "It's Fake" posts in a row.
Boy, would I have looked stupid.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
There should be a moderator evaluation description reading "Idiot" to go along with Funny, Interesting, Informative etc, for those who failed to read the bottom line
Plonk
I don't think this is a real Bill Gates letter. I think that it's a fraud. Someone is laughing at us.
Since when is he an expert and an analyst in OpenSource and Free Software ? Has someone heard him before to talk about RMS ? Or ESR ? Or KDE ? Or GNOME ?
Bill Gates would never send a letter to "all" and prentend to keep a secret. Microsoft has 40,000 employees!
Is he so psycho that he has to threaten all hes employees by mentioning Vinod ?
Forget this fraudulent email
MOD THE CHILD UP!
Mr. Gates, I hope to see this error fixed by the next next Halloween, Ok?
It's obviously fake (IMHO). Not that I have proof, but the tone sounded like 'if I was Bill Gates, this is what I would say'.
But I think we still can learn from it. By playing devils advocate, and trying to picture how the enemy sees us, we are able to better expose our own flaws. There are many points, while twisted to fit a somewhat propaganda type arguement, do have some truth in them. There is a need to stop some of the 'infighting' between the different desktops, and there is a need for better device drivers.
Yes you blood my boil when you read it, or you may laugh at it as a fraud, but what ever you do, just try to learn.
Do "end users" know the difference between MIcrosoft Windows GUI and the MAC OS GUI or even any GUI for Unix/Linux and all clones of the type? Yes they do know the difference, but the difference they see is very little all they know if goin gfrom a windows machine to a mac is that the mouse has only one button. That difference is very small and because of the adapability of the human mind to changes in the enviroment (i.e. the computer you are using) the end user learns how to use the 1 button mouse very quickly. The same applies to going from a windows box to a linux box. They see the GUI looks differenet, but it still has the basic things the "average end user" needs. Netscape for internet browsing, a terminal window for non-gui things, Staroffice or any other "office Suite" that can read or write to the most popular office application in use, and games. NOw we all know that some games just won't work on linux very easily, but some people have mangaed to "port" them to the linux operating system and even to teh mac os. But still there are your basic games like nibbles and solitarie for the users to use. The point I am trying to make is the end user does not care what operating system they are using or what hardware platform they are using. I am a 17 year old network admin. at a community computer center in Vermont and we have very little money and did not want to spend it all on Microsoft product and would rather have spent it on computers capable of allowing users to do what they need to do in a computer lab. To do this we got 10 computers each with a 2 gig hd and 64 megs of ram with a pentium 233 cpu running redhat 6.2 and staroffice donated to us from people around the community and from local computer stores. THe people who use these computers don't even know what GUI they are using all they know is it is a pain to mount a floppy disk sometimes or they can't play unreal tourny. on them. But for the most part they are content with it and they can do their homework, and check e-mail, and waste time with basic games. The only problem with linux that i see is its only free if your time is free. For the computer lab i do all this for i am doing this for free and i have another job at a local computer store and my boss just doesn't see why i do anything for free. I do it for free b/c i like the fact we have a cable modem down there and a great bunch of people who come down there to play chess with or watch a movie with or to goto parties with. To say the least the end user just wants to be able to use a computer and do his/her homeowrk for school and play a game and check e-mail, they will learn how to use any platform to be able to do this and linux has made it very economical (sorry bout the spellin) solution. Big-Moose chevy2001@hotmail.com
I for one don't have a working DVD player. Hardware support for my Logitech Quickcam and other USB devices is very shaky, and don't even start on 'the open sourced' SBLive! drivers.
And as for the duplication efforts - Linux needs to get it's act in gear if it wants to be a real threat. Ranting endlessly about everybody else is so childish.
I hope everyone picked up on that. :-) ).
Great points about in-fighting etc. Also great point about Linux users (Not all of us, I realise) defining what's great about Linux in terms of comparing to Windoze ( like my sig
I wonder if ESR and RMS have read it.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
Linux prides itself on the "open source" model, which counts on programmers around the world contributing to a product. In theory, the idea of free labor is wonderful. In reality, there just are not that many skilled programmers willing to work for free.
We "count on" programmers around the world? Is he implying that it's better to rely on one company? Bill honestly believes this? Let's just suppose that I wake up tomorrow morning and find that Bill Gates kidnapped everyone who had even worked on the Linux kernel. I would certainly be shocked (although I would suspect about that much from them), but not entirely alarmed. Why? I've got the source code on my system.
And, about the fact that everyone hates working... This is simply not so. Ever gotten addicted to a project? This sounds vaguely familiar. And besides, who cares if Linus spends exactly 8 hours a day working on the 2.4 kernel? Who is to dictate how much time is appropriate to spend on a "hobby"? And is "Bill" implying that all of his developers, himself included, are eager to go home every day? Like I really want to work here now...
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
As much as I think this is just a hoax, I can't help but agree with this statement:
"Officially, Microsoft has always kept at a safe distance with Linux. We leave the actually muddying to others, like Mindcraft. The average Linux user has a much more direct response. Generally speaking, if you were to ask a Linux user the benefits of Linux they will not tell you about its merits, but rather Windows's flaws. I am generally distrustful of anyone that defines themselves by what they are against and not what they are for.
Many do not know exactly how true that is. Many, many people in the Open Source movement like to tell you about what other systems lack, rather than what they have accomplished. Something to think about anyway.
-----
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
It's real. Who else except Bill Gates can write like Hitler so well?
I see your point, and in the case of many apps I can see this as relevant. But when a desktop environment is started strictly to spite another, it's a waste of effort. I have no problem with variety and choice, in fact I do believe it's one of the greatest strengths of Linux. But the desktop sucks (I type this from within KDE 2) and maybe if we focussed all of the energy on building 1 environment we could come up with one that would truly best the Windows environment. The whole "scratching the itch" argument holds little water, the only thing that scratches alot of I.T. pros itch is $$$. Just my opinion.
To fail is human, to blue screen MS!
good points. And one paticularly sad point, that so many people here debated whether this was real? So much for the astute geeks of slashdot. The whole thing was brilliant and spot on. I have spent the last 6 months working exclusively in Linux, but last night at my wife's request I set up one of our machines with Windows 98. The bottom line, while flawed and not as stable as it should be, Windows is a lot closer to an ideal desktop OS than Linux is at the moment. KDE2 is a step in the right direction, but there is a long way to go. I have established a number of Linux boxes on my floor at work, and when used on the limited fashion that my data entry people apply the desktop is funcitional, but I can't even start to approach pushing it on more advanced users. And don't throw around Gnome/HelixCode, when the simple act of copying a file forces 2 dialog boxes to pop, it just sucks. And please don't reply that I should do something about it, I am not a programmer, but the points regarding wasted energy concerning desktop development are more than correct. And while I do like much of what Raymond has to say, both his and Stallman's posturing will do much harm to the cause as a whole. I actually work hard to keep rants from Stallman from my boss, a few lines of Stallman rhetoric will have Linux off of my network for good. And while the 2.4 kernel is quite exciting, it wasn't until I popped Windows on a machine last night that I recalled why I bought a Sound Blaster Live in the first place. Or how easy 3D card set up can be. I love Linux, and I am more than aware of Windows many shortcomings (and I will be glad to jump on the MS bashing bandwagon when they deserve it), but Linux is still suffering from many of the shortcomings it has had from inception, and it doesn't look like they will be fixed soon. I have found myself caught up in the same thing the author mentions, using Windows shortcomings to justify a need for Linux, but the truth is that I can't whole heartedly recomend Linux across the board because we still haven't addressed some of it's most fundamental flaws. Oh well, I await your brilliant retorts with fire extinguisher in hand.
To fail is human, to blue screen MS!
Is Slashdot now a joke news site?
Sorry if I'm mistaken, but I clearly recall that about the same thing happened a year or two ago? is this some very bizarre coincidence with the exact same thing happening, or what? help me out guys. and im not imagining the halloweed documents from a few years ago, either. the proofs at http://www.opensource.org/halloween/ it states this happened at October 1998, so wtf
from the article:
"Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day. "
end communication
How tragic. This article, through combination of /. poster laziness / inattention to detail and /. reader gullibility, has succeeded in proving the satiric point it made about the slashdot institution. It's embarrassing that so many readers didn't get suspicious enough about the nature of the "email" to check it out before posting their anti-M$ tirades or conspiracy theories about how this was a "planned leak." It's also embarrassing that only two or three of those posting messages seemed to read the entire article, including the line where it says:
/. before the article was written, clearly they do now. The irony is unbearable. If we want people to take our opinions as a group seriously, we can't afford gaffes like this one.
"Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day."
If Bill and M$ didn't have reason to celebrate the ineffectiveness of communities like
Bill Gates would have a spell checker. :)
Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
I don't know if the email is true but it's normal procedure for a boss to attack the competition no matter how small if he thinks this will render his employes more productive.
way too inflammatory, even if BG3 is a major league asshole
----
Your mind is squeezed by a blast of pain!
I AM BILL GATES.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.........
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
Thomas jefferson didnt want universal manhood sufferage because he was afraid that the uneducated, illiterate, mob could tooo easily be controled.
I have now come to teh conclusion that he was not only right, but that the overeducated masses can just as easily be controlled. In case no one noticed, the linux.com mainpage had this article and clearly states its a satire. Yet, many people still believe that it has some credibility to it, or are giving reasons to why it is probably a fake.
There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.
It was sort of funny reading all that (My bogometer ticks were just annoying, so I turned it off).
Then I see that the message is bogus too! Would that make BorG innocent of all charges?
-------------------------------------
I see 57005 people
Microsoft is the software equivalent of a fast food chain. They make a lot of money selling the equivalent of food that neither tastes particularly good nor is particularly healthy. Most of the people who work there don't know much about fine cuisine, and the few good cooks they hire don't influence the menu very much and are heavily influenced by commercial considerations.
Like fast food chains, Microsoft isn't going away, and like fast food, it's a way to get fabulously wealthy for a few. But why should I care? As long as I'm not forced to use their stuff, it really doesn't matter to me, and I don't think it should to you either.
Anyway, I think is also important, to get one's facts straight, even in satire.
- Richard Stallman is not a professor, and to most people who know him, it would seem unlikely that he started GNU for self promotion. In fact, Stallman has sunk a lot of money into GNU.
- Stallman is not the primary promoter of Linux; I suspect he'd be happiest if it just disappeared and people started using something based on the Hurd instead.
- Gnome traces its roots to before KDE, and the two are just very different projects with different goals; it's not just about licensing, although the licensing issues are (still) very substantively different (LGPL vs. GPL).
There are more problems with the message.More generally, however: face it: evolution, even of software, is messy. There are going to be lots of false starts, lots of oddball projects, etc. And there are lots of those inside Microsoft as well--most of them just never see the light of day, or Microsoft's PR machinery covers them up. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to dig up Microsoft's long string of failures.
And Microsoft is hardly immune from this. It has the original C API, C++-based MFC, and ActiveX. And those are only the major APIs, not even the internal or failed trial-balloons.
Microsoft is as messy and unintegrated internally as the free software world is. They just have a better PR department.
What i found most disturbing was that an article clearly marked as satire and which raised some interesting points, had over 500 responses, the vast majority of which were confined to a discussion on whether it was real or not. Were the replies satirical as well?
Slashdot readers will believe anything, as long as it has the word "linux" in it at least once.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
as soon as a company mentions Linux in a positive way, regardless of how insignificant, the slashdot.org crowd throws a virtual equivalent of Mardi Gras
If you don't want to code for the Linux community then don't say nothing... It's just that simple.
From Zero to Hero... Starbuck Zero
Of course this was not written by BG, it even says it wasn't. It was written by someone who understands the problems that open source has right now... it was written by one of us... and addressed to us... and we should heed those admonishments because right now we're opening quite a few important eyes with some seriously useful Open Source software products and while we've got the momentum going, we should not slack off, but rather shift into a higher gear and roll past the competition rather than only jeering at them. It's time to get off our collective duffs and start cranking out the code. We've got the big boys of the closed source proprietary software world quite nervous about Open Source. Now let's make them downright terrified ( petrified? :-) ) about it. That's what Halloween is really supposed to be all about, eh?
Therefore, as soon as a company mentions Linux in a positive way, regardless of how insignificant, the slashdot.org crowd throws a virtual equivalent of Mardi Gras I like Mardi Gras
---> suck it
you idiots....it says IT IS A SATIRE RIGHT BELOW THE ARTICLE...god learn to read dammnit. anyway that article was great and remarkably true. whoever wrote that brought a lot of good points up. like this: linux is not a desktop operating system, it is more for servers. compare GNOME or KDE to the Win32 operating system's user interface. In terms of User Interface, Linux has a looooong way to go. In terms of ease of use, Linux has a loooong way to go. Not to say Microsoft is perfect, their stuff is a bunch of shit many times, but if Linux wants to compete with the "Evil Empire" its got to streamline its efforts into making a truly easy, consumer based system. Other wise shutup.
I agree completely with Billy on this one.. Windows 95 had slews and slews of bugs implemented immediately. It also had the "unstable as crap" feature. And how could we forget the need to buy a new computer to run it requirement.. Too bad windows just keeps adding more and more crap features with loads and loads of more bugs.
Ennui
Ennui
"I walk in the air, between the rain, through myself an
This is obviously a fake.
Although he can't design software worth sh*t,
Bill Gates is an intelligent business man and
everyone knows the first rule of business is
never directly attack your competitors, you
only piss off their customers....
Secondly, in this so called letter, "Bill"
states that whole "I never trust anyone who
only talks about the benefits of one product
being the lack of bugs that exist in other" crap,
yeah, and then he is going to write an entire
email saying garbage about open source.
"I think Not"
Nice article about the reality of Linux world. I don't think that Billy would really care for KDE vs. GNOME nonetheless.
You know it's fake the instant you read "I am a programmer myself..." I mean, when was the last time Billy Boy coded anything? College and I think that was BASIC.
Damn sheep....
There is no chance in hell that this is from the pen of big willy. No chance in hell. The idea of sentances like "In theory, the idea of free labor is wonderful." and " I am a programmer myself, and I feel I am accurate in that statement." coming from gates' mouth is just flat out funny. This doc. is nothing more than a good joke.
anhinga http://www.eatscience.org
am i the only one that read all the way to the bootom where it said it was all BS? good BS though, i really enjoyed the end.
That was neat, I clicked on the link to view the document and Windows gave me a BSOD...
It seems to me that the author of this piece is attempting to wake some of the Linux community up. Too much of it is really the painful truth. Even his (or hers) comment on /. was accurate... let alone the fact he/she pinned it on the "average" linux user perfectly ... they don't point out why they use Linux, but instead only point out why no one should use windows.
y
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Spoken like a true communist.
---------- You are not the contents of your sig.:-p
as a profressional programmer myself, i also like to see some money - so, i agree there. nothing comes for free these days.. time is money, and you gotta pay the bills. but at the same time, i know heaps of people working in a "large" company sitting on their butts doing NOTHING all day but playing Unreal Tournement! i am really sure, there are a lot of lazy bastards sitting at M$ desks.
getting paid + open source = the way of the future, where is this dream? somebody please show the way :P
ok i'm no expert on bill gates, but i've read a few of his depositions and this doesn't sound anything like him... someone tell me it's really april 1st and not november 1st please
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
... there's *way* too many accurate statements in it...
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
--
The most valuable commodity I know of is information. - Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, Wall Street
It's interesting to see how the e-mail critiques the inability for huge groups of programmers to actually be productive when it also mentions how arguments are unfounded because Linux people supposedly just insult Microsoft. This letter is doing exactly that. It can laugh at the creation all it wants, but it doesn't say anything about what capabilities are actually lacking.
All the things said about linux is false, fibs, untrue! I mean like about the... and that thing....... how bout......... and that........ he was right... :(
WinnieTheShit
Many of the points that were made in the article were true. But its the kindof truth that you could use presenting Adolf Hitler as a good man, bringing Germany out of economic hardship. In reality, Gates is missing the better sides of the Open Source and Linux movements.
This blatant propaganda seems downright ridiculous, and I find it hard to believe that someone as bright as Bill (like it or not, the man has most of us whipped in the IQ dept.) would right something so easily criticized.
Especially the last line, about not leaking the memo, makes the memo look even less credible.
My general suspicion is that the document was forged by some manner of Anti-MS weenie, in an attempt to rile us up. Until I get confirmation that Billy G wrote this thing, I'm going to keep quiet.
There are some relevant points in that essay though. What does the community think about it? Specifically, how can we avoid the problem of code duplication?
Captain_Frisk
Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day.
Come on, he has a buttload of spelling mistakes all over. I'm sure that "billg" uses Outlook and its built-in spelling checker, especially if he is sending an email to the entire company.
Also, I think a microsoft intern posted something elsewhere about this not being good form for a M$ internal email...
S'all pretty silly to me.
Come on, even B-Gates isn't that naive.
Bill Barnes
Well, I see a bright future for Linux.
Without seeing the address, I could've told you that this was from a microsoft.com addy. It's such a skewed view of the Linux project. While it's entirely possible that the projects will fizzle due to finite resources, it's not likely. How could KDE and GNOME have survived as long as they have if they didn't have the resources? It's already well on it's way to one of the greatest open-source projects out there, and obvoiusly has garnered a large contingency of prorammers who are willing to work for free. Why would the coders already interested in furthering the project quit now? Just more pandering by a MS employee trying to dispel the rumor that Linux is growing in popularity, and could some day rival the popularity of some of MS's software. Maybe not in the near future, but some day.
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I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
no, that wasn't a troll...
Now, I won't even believe that Ryan C. Gordon wrote this without seeing a PGP sig.
A-OK \A-O-'kA\, adverb or adjective, very definitely OK.(Websters http://www.m-w.com/)
Somehow, I don't think Bill Gates sends emails like this too All@Microsoft.Com. Either its completely fraudulent, or he is trying to publicly announce to everyone, through a leak he knows would happen, that linux is competition and they are not a monopoly. What does halloween have anything to do with this? It was yesterday anyway.
"Turn your Internet Explorer to http://www.mozilla.org/, and laugh. This is the product of "thousands" of hard working open source coders. We did that same work, and more, in-house with less than 50 people working on the codebase."
Good to see 'ol Billy has a sense of humour ^_^
"The good thing about Alzheimer's is that you can hide your own Easter eggs"
Bill gates wont publicly address linux as a threat like this, and if he where to send it to everyone at M$, you know it would be all over... nice try though... next time wait till april
If you are going to post a hoax, at least make it believable. sheesh.
This tripe just makes me sleepy!