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!

Comments

My responses...

[MAXOMENOS]

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.

So, a Linux effort has finite resources to start with. Eventually a good idea is concieved, and executed, and on the rare occasion that it produces quality results, there is a split. In this case, I am referring to KDE. For several petty reasons I will get into later, GNOME was started in direct response to KDE, and began duplicating its functionality.....To continue my example, GNOME was started because KDE, an open source project, used an open, but not "free" library of custom controls called "Qt". Qt was not acceptable to the free software movement, so therefore all of the work done on KDE was "tainted" in their eyes. Their solution? Rewrite the whole thing. As GNOME work commenced, another faction began work on "Harmony" with the goal of replacing Qt at the API level with a "free" implementation.

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?)

Let me dwell a little longer on the topic of corporate acceptance. Years ago, the "problem" with Linux was a lack of hardware drivers. Today, that problem still exists, and even though many people seem to think otherwise, I've yet to hear reports of a working, let alone robust DVD player for this "desktop" operating system. I hear horror stories about incompatible and difficult to configure 3D accelerators. Linux has not gotten to the point where you can walk into CompUSA and grab something off the shelf and expect it to work in any form with the OS. This is not a new story, but it is downplayed more today. I can not pretend that the Linux kernel has not improved, but it has not improved at the rate that Torvalds and his bunch of merry men pretend it has, and that's largely due to companies that will not release hardware programming information. They aren't interested in Open Source, and they don't want to be troubled by it.

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.

Officially, Microsoft has always kept at a safe distance with Linux. We leave the actually muddying to others, like Mindcraft.

Well, at least you're decent enough to admit it :).

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.

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.

This attitude is pervasive in the community: even the leaders of this counter-culture act like children!

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.

If they aren't making fun of our pleads for Freedom to Innovate...

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.

...(something they do themselves, when legal processes stop them; ask the people at linuxvideo.org what they think of their "freedom to innovate" with their DVD player)...

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 brings me to the next point: infighting. The primary spokesmen for Linux are Richard M. Stallman, a professor, and Eric S. Raymond, a (self-proclaimed) writer. I won't waste your time on each's inflexible opinion of what Linux should be, except to note that both have a variation on the messages of open source's charity and selflessness. Give away your source code to make a better product? Doubtful. Give away your source code to protect your freedoms? Hardly. Ironically, both need to defend their feel-good mantras for purely selfish reasons. And, while both desperately need Linux to thrive for shameless self-promotion, the two spokesmen spend their time trying to show that the other is not just incorrect, but downright evil. They probably do as much harm as good for their cause. How can anyone be productive when one has to expend energy to argue the fundamentals of such artificial concepts as "Free Software" and "Open Source?"

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. :)

In the meantime, I hope they enjoy their 5.6 percent of the desktop. It won't last.

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

This is satire

[Skeezix]

Read the preface to the article here
----

Good Satire...

[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

OK, it's a hoax. But he's *RIGHT*

[Tackhead]

OK, it's a hoax. But let's look at what it is saying: That MSFT is still winning, and that Bill, if he were to give his honest opinion, would probably agree with everything the authors have written in "his" letter.

"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),

• Less bitching about how much Micros~1 sucks. And more coding to make Linux rule.

Happy Day-After-Hallowe'en.

It's a real article!!!

[donutello]

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?

bill gates mentioning the cuecat?

[MattW]

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.

IE developers are fired for reading Mozilla code

[Carnage4Life]

The article had me going for a while until it started revealing to many Open Source factoids that only a regular reader of Slashdot or other Open Source tabloid would be aware of (intimate details of GNOME vs. KDE, Free Software vs. Open Source, CueCat hacks, Qt being "non-free", etc), the overly antagonistic attitude of the email also struck me as false especially if this was an email going out to the whole company when it is a known fact that several employees use Linux.

The real kicker was this phrase:

1. 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

Re:IE developers are fired for reading Mozilla cod

[nhavar]

where as netscape just stole it outright because Andreessen was "entitled".

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.

Re:yeah

[andyh1978]

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.

Re:I Work For Microsoft, And I Didn't Receive This

[atrowe]

"I work for Microsoft"

*angry mob approaches brandishing pitchforks and torches*

That's not something you want to openly admit to on Slashdot.

You've just become the Gay Black Jew at the KKK rally!

Actually - many good points mentioned

[yuri benjamin]

Note: This article is a piece of satire meant to brighten your day.

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.