Slashdot Mirror
The Tech Interviews of Yesteryear
nihilist_1137 writes: "Cnet has a collection of interviews with some of the 'biggest movers and shakers' of 2001. It focuses on their plans, ambitions and fears. Included is Sir Arthur C. Clark, Bill Gates, Will Wright, and Bill Joy, to name a few." It''s a fairly eclectic bunch of interviews collected from the last year, not ones done specifically for 2001 nostalgia.
They said "give", didn't they?
and have you sign equally daunting NDAs before you actually get to see the code.
So? It would still be fascinating. I'm not doing this just out of open-source altruism, you know: it's just always been a dream of mine to see the code for a part of Office.
Plus... I want to see if I'll get a reply. :D
For anyone interested, here's the email I just sent them:
---
Salutations;
I am a user of Microsoft products, Windows and Office among others. I follow various pieces of Microsoft press with interest and intrigue, and I recently read Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates' interview with C|Net.
Referencing the section of Mr. Gates' comments referring to open source software:
"I don't know that anyone has ever asked for the source code for Word. If they did, we would give it to them."
Taking Mr. Gates' comment at face value, I hereby request a copy of the source code for Word. I would be fascinated to learn from such a program. It has long been an ambition of mine to see exactly what goes into the Office suite's programs.
I am completely serious in this query, and would appreciate a reply in the same vein.
Thank you,
(My real name, which I decline to place on Slashdot thank-you-very-much. ;))
---
They said on the page that they would have someone get back to me within twenty-four hours using the email address I provided. Anyone interested in the reply can email me and request it.
Pain(n): when you're telnetting into a box doing somethin cool, and some luser calls for help with a 'critical error' ad
Dale Fuller: The new barbarians? is an interesting article about borland's resurgence as a real company in the marketplace, from thier slump for the past several years. The article doesn't really come out and say it, but the reason borland is doing well now, and wasn't before, is the personnel. I find it amusing that they don't just come out and say it, but they refer, again and again to the "departures of key staffers" when they started their decline, and now, according to Fuller, "one of the major indicators is the number of cool programmers who want to work here--and we're now getting people back from Microsoft, from universities, from all over the world." I guess what Robert A. Heinlein said is true: "brainpower is the scarcest commodity and the only one of real value."
I'm a concientious