Ballmer, Gates on Microsoft's Future

RoadFever writes: "At the Microsoft shareholders meeting, CEO Ballmer acknowledged they may have a popularity bug. "We understand, based upon the fact that our industry didn't rally to support us, that we need to change the way we interact and relate to our industry," Ballmer said. There's a summary article in the Seattle Times and more stuff on the Microsoft investor relations page. Will words translate to action? Well, the company might want to start by toning down the habit of taking credit for every innovation: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines," Gates said." The question-and-answer session near the end of the meeting has the most juicy quotes.

Comments

The Internet...

[bytes256]

So wait...did Al Gore or Bill Gates invent the internet?

Re:The Internet...

[famazza]

It makes me remember when Mr. Gates said that internet is too dumb to be successful.

Tell me do you remember?

It also remembers me when Mr. Gates stole Pen-Computing technology from a young-innocent-guy who thought he could trust a company like Microsoft

Yep, there are lots of stories about these things.

Driving people to open source

[90XDoubleSide]

"Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines,"

So wat he's saying is that the mass adoption of their inflexible software has driven people to create open products that will meet their needs, or am I misinterpreting him ? ;)

Re:Driving people to open source

[Ami Ganguli]

I was trying to figure this one out myself. My best guess is that thinks Open Source requires commodity hardware, and figures that Microsoft helped to create the commodity PC platform.

I'll grant that MS helped to create the PC (although it wasn't entirely their doing by any means - Intel and IBM certainly had a role to play), I'm at a loss as to why this would be relavent to Open Source. Free/Open Source software tends to be much more cross-platform than proprietary stuff, so it's a pretty bizarre statement.

Could it be that Bill still doesn't get this whole Free Software thing? Can he really be that clueless about the non-Wintel universe?

Re:Driving people to open source

[Exedore]

So wat he's saying is that the mass adoption of their inflexible software has driven people to create open products that will meet their needs, or am I misinterpreting him ? ;)

Yeah, that's kinda like Osama bin Laden patting himself on the back for doing his part to beef up airport security.

Re:Driving people to open source

[Null_Packet]

I think what Bill is saying is that he feels the Open Source movement is riding on the coat-tails of Microsoft's success. I think he is implying that Microsoft broke ground and created a standards-based system of software (Office, Windows, etc) and the Open Source movement is using some of his original ideas and yet claiming to be at odds with MS.

As far as Bill being clueless- remember any large Corporation's PR stuff is like a big card game. Bill and Co. are very, very smart no matter how evil they may or may not be. Don't think for a second that Bill hasn't thought through the whole OSS movement.

Re:Driving people to open source

[haruharaharu]

standards-based system of software (Office, Windows, etc)

Something in this sentence does not beling.

Re:Driving people to open source

[flacco]

I think what Bill is saying is that he feels the Open Source movement is riding on the coat-tails of Microsoft's success.

That is exactly what he's saying. What astoundingly large cajones on that filthy bastard. He must have his Armani trousers specially fitted.

If OSS rides on the coat-tails of anything, it's the global collaboration that the Internet makes possible - and we all know how large a role Microsoft played in that.

Re:Driving people to open source

[dcavanaugh]

I agree with your statement on commodity hardware, although I think Bill was trying to portray OSS as an imitation of Microsoft. As you say, it's a bizarre statement.

As most people would agree, it was the Internet that commoditized network service protocols, and OSS that built on that base to offer true cross-platform compatibility. Bill's products discourage the use of non-Intel processors, whereas OSS works on just about anything.

Of course, Bill neglects to mention that Microsoft was slow to adopt the Internet, at a time when OSS was already there. Who is imitating who?

When I hear Bill take credit for industry standardization it's like having Osama bin Laden take credit for world peace or Al Gore inventing the Internet.

Re:Driving people to open source

[taniwha]

You failed the SAT analogies thingy didn't you .... he didn't compare Gates to bin Laden - he compared a real statement by Gates to one that bin Laden might have made in some parallel universe and then tried to point out that both would be equally absurd

You then totally misread his posting and used it as an excuse to attack "linux zealots" - maybe you come from that parallel universe

Re:Driving people to open source

[cworley]

What Gate's is saying is that he invented Open Source by opening the PC bios; which started the PC hardware revolution.

Until this admission, Compaq had been credited with clean-room reverse-engineering the PC bios. IBM had outsourced the CPU and OS thinking that control over the proprietary BIOS gave them comntrol over manufacture of the system.

Since Gates signed many NDA's with IBM, I wonder if this admission might get him into any trouble.

Anyway, a more complete quote:

"really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use, and all the extensibility should be there." -- Bill Gates

DUH!!!

[ackthpt]

We understand, based upon the fact that our industry didn't rally to support us, that we need to change the way we interact and relate to our industry," Ballmer said.

Like they haven't already killed off a lot of competitors, knifed in the back a lot of partners, and set their sights on other industries, which BTW could be customers of partners and competitors? The problem with being an 357.142851428 Kg. gorilla is, you can sit anywhere you like, but after you've done so, who's willing to be their friend and stick their neck out for you? Even some things PR can't fix.

Popularity bug?

[DrCode]

He's right on that. A local radio station has been running the following spoof of an XP commercial every morning:

(Madonna music in background)
Q: With XP, can I burn CD's?
A: Yes, you can.
Q: Can I send email?
A: Yes, you can.
Q: Can I create an internet virus?
A: Yes, you can.
Q: Can I download female-on-female animal porn?
A: Yes, you can.
Q: Can I install XP myself without help?
A: Not f***in' likely!

Pay a g**d damn dividend.

[FatRatBastard]

Forget all the anti-trust stuff and "we don't play well with other" crap for a minute. In terms of "investment relations" what MS needs to do is pay out a god damn dividend. They're sitting on a pile of cash, and the days of constant double digit growth are behind them. They are going to have to face up to the fact that they are a grown, mature company and their stock price is going to act accordingly.

That's what's driving their licensing debacle, BSA audits, etc. They've hit the wall in terms of market penitration on the desktop, they never achieved the "slam dunk/home run" domination of the server market they thought they would (not to mention where they do dominate there-- small print, file, web servers they've got linux/BSD nipping at their heels) and the X-box is going to put a hit on revenues for the next few years even if its a runaway success. Other than Web Sevices, which at best are a few years away, they have no room for massive growth.

So, if the stockprice ain't going up all that much they better start paying out on all that cash they're sitting on, or some investers are going to be none too happy.

(then again, I'm a code jockey, what the f**k do I know about finance)

Re:Pay a g**d damn dividend.

[FatRatBastard]

Companies that pay dividends are essentially saying "we can't think of anything better to do with this cash we've generated

Well, afaik MS can't think of anything better either. They're just sitting on a mountain of cash. So, if they're not going to do anything better with it then the investors should get it. An investor only invests to make money. MS is no longer on the rapid upward growth they were. That's not a bad reflection on them, they've just become "big." They're a big, extablished company, and their stock price is going to reflect that from now on. I'd wager the days of its valuaton doubling every 18 months or so are GONE. So, if I've got $$$ in MS, and their growth is at a pedestrian level (and thus their stock price) AND they're just sitting on a mountain of cash, then they better a) use that cash to rekindle double digit growth (which at their size ain't going to last too long anyway) or b) start handing it over.

Re:Pay a g**d damn dividend.

[humphreybogus]

I'm not much of a code jockey, but I know a bit about finance, having worked as an investment banker and venture capitalist.

1. Paying a dividend is not required by the IRS, the SEC or any federal law, as far as I know.

2. Paying a dividend exposes your money to double taxation: the standard corporate rate (paid at the time the profit was earned), and then your personal tax rate (including city, state, and federal). This is money out of your pocket as much as Bill's.

3. Whether Bill Gates ownes 25% of MSFT is irrelevant to the decision to pay a dividend. If I own one share, I'd rather receive the full value of my 1/# shares ownership of Microsoft's cash assets, rather than shave off an additional percentage to go to the government. Paying more taxes is not in the interest of Microsoft's shareholders, no matter how large their holdings. If anything, more stock held by management is a good thing--it aligns the incentives of the managers with the incentives of the stockholders. In a company where the management owns very little of the shares, you are far more likely to see decisions made that sell out shareholders (the owners) to the benefit of the current management (with foolhardy acquisitions, for example). This is a classic problem in economics, and it's why you rarely see small, owner-managed companies being as stupid with their money as large companies often are.

4. If Microsoft can't find profitable uses for the cash, it should buy back its stock. That, as one poster wisely pointed out, will increase the value of each share, as the same pie is divided by a smaller number of shares. Besides, the value of the cash on hand increases the book value of a single share of Microsoft--in other words, each share of ownership now entitles you to your proportional share of each additional dollar in MSFT's bank account, a gain in value that cost you nothing.

5. For most stockholders, the capital gains tax rate is lower (often far lower) than the personal income tax rate. As a result, you'd rather get paid back for your investment in Microsoft in stock price appreciation than tax-affected cash.

6. People buy equities (shares of stock) because they represent a future stream of cash flows generated from a business. In this way, buying the stock of a business is no different than buying a bond: both represent a stream of future payments, and the price you pay now depends on the magnitude, frequency, and likelihood of those payments. Thus, buying the stock of a company that doesn't pay dividends is like buying a zero-coupon bond (a bond that doesn't pay periodic interest, but that reaches full face value at maturity). The net result is that market adjusts the price you paid for the stock or bond to account for the nature of the payouts. Instead of valuing the stream of cash payments you receive in the form of dividends, you value the discounted cash flows that Microsoft retains.

But Microsoft shouldn't just sock away money in a money market account. If it can't find opportunities that offer a greater rate of return than a money market account or bonds (both vehicles which are available to individual stockholders as well), then it should buy back stock. (Technically, the rate-of-return hurdle for new lines of business or new acquisitions should be Microsoft's cost of capital, the rate at which it can "borrow" money from the capital markets.)

I hope that helps.

Gates invented Open Source

[Pinball Wizard]

Gates also took some credit for the genesis of open-source software. He said Microsoft made it possible by standardizing computers: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines," he said.

Why, he's the Al Gore of Open Source!

Wrong again

[M_Talon]

Gates said: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines"

No, the reason you see open source is because people want the ability to customize code to their own personal needs without having to license said code from a monolithic company known for overcharging. Mr. Gates needs get rid of the god complex. Open source has nothing to do with identical desktops and everything to do with control of the code. This statement is just more overgrandizing and makes him look even more out of touch with the industry than he already is.

Developers!

[Tackhead]

Q: And Mr. Ballmer, what do you think about...
A: Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!

Q: Uh, never mind... please stop dancing around, Mr. Ballmer, and for god's sake, man, use some fuckin' anti-perspirant!

Re:Developers!

[ThatComputerGuy]

Blatant whoring link here for both of the videos.

I take no responsibility for any emotional damage you suffer from these videos.

Popularity bug?

[91degrees]

Surely he means popularity "feature"!

Ballmer sums it up...

[Rice-Pudding]

"Second, we know we need to continue to focus in on our relationship with our customers. This is an area where we need to be ever vigilant. Certainly, as Bill talked about, we have opportunities for improvement in security, in virus protection, in the way we license and sell our products, and the reminders on that are always in front of us." --Steve Ballmer

I think this pretty much sums up a lot of what is wrong with Microsoft:
1) Security
2) The way they license and sell products.

At least they are realizing that market opinion is starting to go against them, and are trying to change this. I don't love Microsoft, but if they started to change their licensing tactics, I would be more inclined to buy their products.

Yup, give credit to IBM

[sterno]

The PC platform that Gates is touting was created by IBM, not Microsoft. Sure, Microsoft software was running on all of them but what made it appealing was the low costs of the hardware which came about by IBM's rather loose licensing policies. It took a very long time for the PC to become vaguely usable, but it remained cheap and ubiquitous which is why it eventually came to dominate.

But Microsoft's position in that domination was, at best, an accident. They were in the right place at the right time and did a good job of screwing IBM. Credit to them for that, but not much else.

Just one thought

[jd]

I don't know if it's "normal business practice", but I have never seen such artistic dancing around the questions.

If you were to distill the -essence- of what was said (especially on women on the Board and in the company), you'd end up with exactly nothing. Sure, they may be concerned about this, or feel strongly about that. I'll allow for that possibility. But feelings don't equate to action. They're just feelings, the same as "happy" and "sad".

Even the sweeping apparently-grandiose statements made wrt "Open Source" and "Free Software" really reduce to nil. Sure, they may have been a factor in the popularity of "Open Source". But there are probably as many coders inspired by a rainbow, or a fascinating geological formation.

In short, I have to give credit for an amazing non-statement, which said exactly nothing and offered nothing. However, the credit has a value of $0.00.

Q&A: Open source, women, and China

[WillSeattle]

Yes, the Q&A was quite revealing. I think the open source question appeared to be basically ignored, politely.

The issue of women execs was also something you could tell they weren't going to address, which is very strange, in that most of Bill Gates foundation work has focussed on educating women and providing contraceptive measures for women in third-world countries.

As to China, this again was something that didn't seem to be that interesting to the execs.

Very disappointing responses, overall. One related news item in the Seattle P-I business section today noted that many MSFT employees have picked up their purchases of stock recently.

Does this mean we're nearing the bottom of the market, or that they know something we don't?

-

Why there is no g**d damn dividend.

[WillSeattle]

In answer to the question of why MSFT doesn't pay a "g**d damn dividend", it's pretty simple.

Look, MSFT is a shell company, one that permits Bill and Paul and a few other major shareholders to buy other companies. By maximizing the capital growth and having no dividends, they reduce their effective tax rate to 8 to 10 percent. Then they sell off a few shares and pay the 5 year capital gains tax on them, or sell the high purchase shares and keep the low purchase shares, thus getting a capital loss.

That's why there's no dividend.

Until MSFT becomes more like GE, where no single shareholder owns more than 20 percent of the stock, this will never change.

This is their way of avoiding taxes. People like me buy a mix of stocks - some dividend and some non-dividend - we use the non-dividend stock to go long on capital gains and thus reduce our tax hit (realized income) and use the dividends from the other stock (or bonds, PERQs, SPARQs, money market) to provide enough cash flow for expenses.

Thus we pay less tax than the working poor do. My realized income is very small. And so is Bill's and Paul's.

Unless you change the tax system, we'll keep doing things like that. There is no incentive to realize earned income, under the current system.

-

Re:Why there is no g**d damn dividend.

[FatRatBastard]

The lynchpin to all of this is, of course, the ever rising price of their stock. As long as folks' stock prices were rising no one cared that MS issued new stock like Charmin issues toilet paper. And there in lies the rub.

Once the price of the stock no longer goes up and levels off its a whole new ballgame. Those institutional investers are going to want to see some return on investment. MS has a killer revenue source due to their entrenchment of Windows/MSOffice. But stock price is corrolated with growth, and there's stagnation in the market where MS dominates. If the stock price also stagnates then large investors are going to demand a piece of the revenue pie (in the form of dividends) or are going to get the hell out of dodge.

Interesting question:

[psyclone]

QUESTION: Is there a way that shareholders can get more information about [what effort is there to ensure that Microsoft is complying with its own business practice standards, and compliance policies]?

MR. BALLMER: We don't have a published document. But, I feel very good about where we are, there are no violations, none known to any of the executive management team, and I feel like we're in very good touch.

Microsoft has grown so large, even it's shareholders want to know if there are checks and balances within the company. Anyone have information on what other companies do for compliance of their own standards?

Bill's Right

[gdyas]

Gates also took some credit for the genesis of open-source software. He said Microsoft made it possible by standardizing
computers: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's
identical with millions and millions of machines," he said.

Well Bill, you're right. You are the reason for open-source software. Just not for the reasons you think you are.

Dick.

Microsoft invented the PC?

[astrosmash]

MR. GATES: Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use, and all the extensibility should be there.

So, is Bill "Stop stealing from me" Gates now saying that his company is responsible for the open architecture of the IBM PC, and therefore open source in general?

How very droll.

Re:Juicy Excerpt

[pubjames]

This is so funny. These guys really don't get it at all, do they? Dangerous for them.

In the pre-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion.

Well Bill, all of those things can still exist under an open source model, but it's a different model to yours. Can't you see that?

If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software,

So, Steve, you're saying you're older and wiser than IBM? Than HP? Than Compaq, Sun, Dell, Intel and all the other companies that are contributing to the Open Source community and releaseing code under the GPL? I think not. They get it, you don't.

It's still in the early phases, but we are massively mobilizing to try to stimulate communities, support communities, and really, if you will, borrow one from their playbook.

Can anyone point me to any evidence of this? Really? I've honestly tried to find it. Are there disussion boards where developers can openly discuss Microsoft technologies, and MS engineers will chip in with comments? I've looked for that, couldn't find it.

The clock is ticking Steve, Bill. Let me spell it out for you: YOU DON'T GET IT! If you don't get it soon, you're going to slowly die. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

Future of MS

[briggsb]

Here's a different look at Microsoft's future.

Ultimate summary

[Ogerman]

"MR. BALLMER: I just want to add one thing, echo what Bill said, but encourage you to go to our web site. If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software, it's kind of inconsistent with the goals of most people in the room. We recognize it, it probably doesn't fit in most of these people's mind's eye, so we're not going to embrace that."

It's quite simple really. They tell shareholders what they want to hear and their shareholders don't want to hear about free software.. Yet! I've said it a hundred times: the free software revolution is in its infancy. When the 'critical mass' of OSS code base is reached, which is inevitable, Microsoft is going to have to innovate or die. Free and proprietary software are not complementary and they will not peacefully co-exist for much longer.

Re:There really is credit due, but...

[dinotrac]

Microsoft has had a significant hand in creating a common PC platform, and their biggest "contribution" came first.

That contribution? Convincing IBM to license PC-DOS on a non-exclusive basis. That left Microsoft free to sell MS-DOS to clone makers.

With the same OS available, only the BIOS needed cloning in order to produce IBM compatible machines.

No noble intentions, but a very powerful coup.

Re:Juicy Excerpt

[JeffL]

we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use

I kind of see what BG is saying here, that the free software movement couldn't have taken off without open, commodity hardware. This is wrong. The free software movement, as it came out of RMS and the MIT AI lab was a direct response to proprietary, closed hardware and software. The free software movement grew out of the tradition of open access to software and tools on very non-standard mini computer hardware.

In the early 80s when the FSF was founded, it was not clear yet that the IBM PC would be such a dominant force in the computing world. Commodity home machines aren't even mentioned in RMS's initial announcement. In fact, he is talking about replacing the system on very expensive, practically custom built machines, which were only found in universities and big businesses.

Sure, the pervasiveness of computing has been a major boost for free software, but this is a base rate issue (i.e., there are x free software users out of n*x computer users).

Hard to install? Hah!

[Redline]

XP has one of the easiest installations I've ever seen, and no distribution of Linux has ever succesfully installed on my box!

Are you sure you don't have it backwards? For me installing Mandrake 8.1 or RedHat 7.2 is like a warm and pleasant dream. I honestly believe a total Linux newbie could manage it.

When I protestingly installed XP on a friend's machine last week (me: "I don't wanna touch Windows, I'm a Linux geek!" him: "But I want it *professionally* installed!") I was floored by the requisite 3 reboots and by major portions of the install being in text mode. It brought back a dusty old memory of installing NT4 before I discovered the Goodness of the Penguin.

No modern Linux distro would be caught with such a clunky setup. It would *immediately* be flamed for being too hard to install. I think it is time to have the "Linux is hard to install" FUD declared obsolete. Anyone who can install XP can certainly install a current Linux distro.

Billy is Afraid of the GPL!!

[DG]

Take a gander at this excerpt: (emphasis added)

MR. GATES: Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use, and all the extensibility should be there. And so it was very predictable that once we had gotten the PC going, and going and gotten hundreds of millions of machines out there, that it had always been sort of free software and the universities would flourish and there would be more of that. We certainly accept free software as part of the software ecosystem. In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together.

There is a particular approach that breaks the cycle called the GPL that is not worth getting into today, but I don't think there is much awareness about how so-called free software foundations designed that to break that cycle

In terms of getting people excited about software and building communities around them, yes, that is a key to success. Nobody has done that more effectively than we have with Windows. Are there ways that we can do that better? Are there aspects of this where we're actually learning from all our different competitors out there? I think it's fair to say yes.

In the free-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion. So I certainly don't agree with the full sort of free software foundation view that there should be no jobs in this area, and that the kind of commercial advances and risk taking that we've been able to do you can't get that, you can't get things like speech recognition on a tablet computer coming out of that kind of a paradigm. You can get things that follow along, you can get some smaller software, and so we embraced the idea of the free software paradigm and the commercial software paradigm moving forward in really a self-reinforcing way.

Sounds like ol' Billy has seen his doom coming, and it's the GPL!

Take a good hard look at that rambling morass of a quote, and you see the strategy (and the enormous depth of self-delusion) that will be driving Microsoft forward. Free-as-in-Beer, Good! Free-as-in-Speech, Bad!

In Bill's world, Free Software is fine as a toy, an interim solution, and educational tool, but it takes a company to turn it into something useful! Nothing good ever comes out of the commons!

Except, of course, the "Microsoft Commons". Funny, when was the last time community work became part of Microsoft, except by force?

And gee, where have we seen this attitude before?

How about in the actions of every tin-pot political dictator who tried to buy off the goodwill of his oppressed subjects with free goodies! The barbarians are howling at the Gates, and Bill is offering Microsoft's shareholders bread and circuses!

Funny thing Bill, those dictators don't have much of a track record....

Stallman (for all his faults and foibles) is the Martin Luther of the information age, and bill is the Pope. Quick - who can name the Pope who was in service when Luther nailed his manifesto to the door of the cathedral?

Me neither.

Re:Billy is Afraid of the GPL!!

[WolfWithoutAClause]

>We certainly accept free software as part of the software ecosystem. In fact, there's a
>very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and
>turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the
>commercial software existing together.

I'm sure that Bill Gates thinks the idea of selling software he obtained that was written by the sweat of people that he doesn't have to pay is extremely virtuous. But let's put that to one side for the moment.

He also seems to be implying to politicians that they should outlaw the GPL licence so that Microsoft can steal open source software and charge for it, and pay more taxes- this would be a good thing- right?

Of course the fact that this would allow him to sack quite a lot of Microsoft and would end up reducing the taxes that he pays.

>In the free-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no
>taxes paid, or anything of that notion. So I certainly don't agree with the full sort of free software foundation view that there
>should be no jobs in this area, and that the kind of commercial advances and risk taking that we've been able to do you can't
>get that, you can't get things like speech recognition on a tablet computer coming out of that kind of a paradigm.

Actually, this is extremely not clear. There's nothing to stop companies financing software that they need for their business and paying for it; and having the software remain open source. After all if one company has the software that it needs, it doesn't mean that its competitor can even use the same software that they use; and to the extent that their competitors can; they both benefit, and each can end up contributing improvements back.

That's where IBM is coming from- the fact that their main competitors SUN and Micro$oft can't use Linux much doesn't hurt.

New Windows "Community"

[Kiaser Zohsay]

and I encourage you to go up to Microsoft.com and check out our community areas. It's an area where we have sort of massively mobilized. It's still in the early phases, but we are massively mobilizing to try to stimulate communities, support communities, and really, if you will, borrow one from their playbook.

I can see it now... Microsoft meets Slashdot... Microdot, news for sheep, stuff that we think matters

Re:Bill Gates on the usefulness of open source

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Actually its worse than that. That bit about paying taxes is trying to throw a line to politicians to change the law so that GPL is no longer legally binding on Microsoft; that way they can extend and embrace Linux, charge as much as they do for Windows, and sack lots of their development staff...

Of course there's the inconvenient fact that they would end up paying less taxes that way... but perhaps your average politician won't notice.

I've always disliked Gates, but here he is so unbelievably slimy.

Internet virus?

[SecurityGuy]

There are no internet viruses. That's Microsoftese for MSTDs (MicroSoft Transmitted Diseases). These "internet viruses" are, for me, nothing more than academic interest as I watch them bounce harmlessly off software which isn't both bug ridden and misfeatured to the point that any script kiddie can run their code on your box.

Repeat after me. MSTDs. Lets get it to catch on. Just imagine how pissed Bill will be. :)

Microsoft and Open Source

[einhverfr]

I think that Microsoft HAS been the seminal power behind open source in a very strange and obscure way. So yes, Microsoft IS the reason that Open Source as a movement is able to compete today. People will disagree with me saying "Look at GNU. It is designed to be a UNIX killer, not a Windows killer. Look at Linux's effect on UNIX. It is not about Windows at all!"

However, let us look at the economics for a moment. Microsoft is a company with very little technical innovation but one world-shattering contribution-- the introduction of a multi-vendor OS manufacturer. This really does not seem like much but it really is. Microsoft's contribution really HAS resulted in lower prices for the consumer because they were able to help more companies sell their products hence spreading more of the cost of development around rather than letting it land on a comparitively few customers. This has allowed many more people to use computers because they can now afford to do so.

The ubiquity of the computer which really IS Microsoft's legacy is the driving factor of Open Source and Free Software because it allows a much greater number of developers to work on projects. Open Source has an economy of scale too. Would Linux have existed if Linus had not been able to afford a 386?

BUT: Open source then takes Microsoft's edge and makes it sustainable. It is a market innovation which beats Microsoft's market innovation. In this war, Microsoft cannot win.

Rhetorically impressive, most impressive

[kannen]

You have to admire the man's rhetorical skills. He says its not worth getting into what the GPL is, but in so doing, he implies that the GPL is a mysterious, evil force that is going to keep people from making money. Gates states that the normal business cycle is one in which companies hire people and pay taxes. But the GPL tries to break that, so now you won't be able to feed your family and there won't be any tax money to pay for public schools and neighborhood patrols. Its a terribly insidious idea that the he has planted into peoples heads, and yet he avoids making a single factual statement about the GPL.

It occurs to me that maybe he should run for public office. His debate skills are most impressive. But then he'd probably find some way to oust the Chancellor, hunt down all the Jedi, and disband the Imperial Senate. (Can't you just see Ballmer jumping up and down in Vader's outfit? Tee hee hee.)

The Open Source comments

[shanek]

From the meeting transcript:

Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines,

This is laughably wrong. RMS made the GPL and the Free Software movement in the early 80s, when Gates was still piddling around with DOS and saying that 640K should be enough for anybody. The actual movement started even earlier; the concept of open source predated commercial software.

In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together. There is a particular approach that breaks the cycle called the GPL

Gates apparently doesn't know what a "cycle" is. A cycle, by definition, has to link back up again with its origins, in this case, free software. Microsoft breaks the cycle by incorporating open source code into, for example, its TCP/IP stack. The GPL restores the cycle by requiring developers to give their changes back to the community.

In the pre-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion.

Tell that to Red Hat.

Here's a telling quote from Ballmer:

If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software, it's kind of inconsistent with the goals of most people in the room.

In other words, Microsoft is against freedom in software. Remember, we're talking free speech, not free beer. So all this stuff about "Freedom to Innovate" is nothing more than a thinly veiled apologetic for Microsoft's business practices.

Maybe what really happened was this...

[opkool]

I interpret what really happened in this other way:

BALLMER: After 20 years of backstabing, copying other's innovations, playing Mafia-games with IT companies, abusing our consumers and stealing children's bubblegum, we have gotten a slap on the wrist by the DoJ. Surely this means something.

GATES: If I might add a few words...

BALLMER:, Sure, Bill, go on.

GATES: Our impressive innovation Laboratories -MS-iLabs , (c) (R) - show that actualy being nice to customers can help selling our product...

AUDIENCE: (gasps, mutted comments of surprise, a few horror screams)

BALLMER: Be quiet back there! It is true! You can get the results in ExcelXP format at dubya-dubya-dubya-microsoft-dot-com-slash-ilabs-sl ash-results

GATES: In fact, in a demo-test carried over at Poukeespie-upon-Avon (Yorkshire, UK) with a cautive population, we discovered that WindowsXP-SE was being bought by people that had no history of verbal-and-phisycal abuse by part of our marketing representatives.

SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE: Don't you think that having both legs not-broken could help? I mean, last year, in the ASF file that you showed us about training methods for Microsoft Certified Marketing Representatives , they were being trained in "MS-Leg-Breaking-As-A-Buying-Stimulous 101". Maybe we should change this module to "MS-**ARM-TWISTING**-As-A-Buying-Stimulous 101" instead of playing nice...

AUDIENCE: Yeah! yeah! that sounds more sensible!

GATES: Please! Calm down! I personally worked with the MS-iLabs environment definition and I can assure you that the results are true!

AUDIENCE: but... but.... We Want Blood! We Want Blood! We Want Blood!

CATS: All Your Base Are Belong To Us!

CATS: Make Your Time!

BILL: HAHAHAHA

BALMER: Take Off Every ZiggyXP!!!!

Human Rights Abuse - Microsoft Complicit

[Grail]

The things that bothers me the most from the minutes of this shareholder meeting? The fact that only 8.9% of Microsoft shares (how many shareholders is that?) agreed that Microsoft should avoid engaging in deals with the Chinese Government that would result in further human rights abuses by the Chinese Government.

The attitude at the meeting seemed to me to be that "as long as we make a buck, we don't care."

Re:Microsoft wants to destroy Open Source!!

[Mad Marlin]

... More proof that we need to mobilize the power that is slashdot to write more GPL software. I love the BSD license as much as anybody, but it's obvious that Microsoft will hijack BSD licensed software, and use it for their own negative purposes ...

The perfect example of this is how Microsoft hijacked the TCP/IP stack from BSD. However, I argue that this is a good thing. If they just take the code verbatim, then it most likely is going to be very compatible with everything else, unless they specifically go out of their way to break compatability. Notice that Microsoft is not planning to introduce a new .TCP/IP#, their use of the BSD code has shifted the issue to other things. They won't release any improvements back to the community, but they won't go out of their way to break a working system either.

Take the primary example used by most people against the BSD licence, that of Microsoft `stealing' an entire BSD system (whether FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, or whatever) and releasing it as their operating system. I argue that this would be a good thing, both for Microsoft and for everybody else, although I seriously doubt that it would ever happen. A few people who work on the BSD stuff would be annoyed, but most would not mind, only the Linux crowd would raise a real stink about it. Think about it: Apple is doing it (MacOS-X) and all that is going to do is help the BSD software community. Sure, OS-X has a lot of unnecessary differences from any standard BSD, but nothing that isn't just a matter of minor re-configuration, small shell scripts, and carefully placed symbolic links. If Microsoft were to release Windows-X, or MS-BSD, or whatever stupid name their marketing division thought up, while they would make a lot of stupid changes just to be different, it would still fundamentally be a BSD system at its heart, and that would be a good thing for Microsoft, a good thing for the purchasers of Microsoft software, and a good thing for the BSD community.

The BSD license is not about insuring that oh-so-evil Bill Gates finally gets his company destroyed. It is not about insuring that I can read the source code to every single piece of software on the planet. It is not about world domination. It is about insuring that quality, compatible systems exist everywhere.