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Bill Gates On Linux
King-of-darkness writes "USA Today had an interview with Bill Gates on june the 30th. Gates seems to be considering Linux as a passing thru competition just like OS/2., and That Microsoft are the ones that keep pushing new technologies."
BG: Are you kidding? I mean, let's be serious. That was IBM, a company 15 times our size. Name a bank that didn't use OS/2. OS/2 was IBM's product, and the IBM army marched behind that product.
Now replace IBM with Microsoft, and OS/2 with windows. Not so clever now Mr. Gates !
"I am not bound to please thee with my answers" [William Shakespeare]
OS/2... 1988-2002. This is shorter than Linux how?
The goatse guy for president. Win one for the gaper!
OS/2... 1988-2002. This is shorter than Linux how?
Oh come on! OS/2 was dead in not long after Warp got released, which was what, '95 or '96? The banks still used it, but nobody else did, everybody knew it was on the way out.
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
Given that UNIX technology has been around for almost 40 years now and the Linux implementation of that standard in particular has been with us for 12 or 13 years, wouldn't it be fair to call Windows, the first 32 bit versions of which have only been with us for 8 years, the passing fad?
What a lightweight interview, the interviewer should have pushed Gates on his desire to leverage DRM as an anti piracy measure to lock down an open hardware platform.
The other interesting thing to note is that the first two cited "yay us!" entries are for types of technology, and the latter three, NT, .net, and Longhorn, are all marketing terms. So, rather than focus on saying things like 'improving video throughput', 'improving hardware abstraction', or 'developing more rhobust parallel computing', they are descending into marketing bull.
What's scariest is that since Bill is at the forefront (even if Ballmer is CEO) and has succumbed to this, it's further demonstrating Microsoft's continued rotting from the top; no signs of abetting it.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Not to mention that NT is built on OS/2 Technology. Which means 2000 is Built on OS/2 technology. How else could a corrupted MBR cause an "OS/2!!" error?
Anyone remember those? hmmmmmmm
We bet on the 16-bit PC.
.Net
Yeah, that's IBM's thing...
We bet on graphical user interface.
Wasn't that from PARC, Xerox?...
We bet on the NT technology base.
That's VAX's thing, right?
Now we're in the process of betting on a combination of technologies called
Hold you bet cowboy! This time is different! That's YOURS thing to bet with!!
Think again!
You're kidding me right? The only reason I still have my Linux box is because it's a better PVR (using MythTV) than any Windows box is. I don't even use Linux as my primary OS (OS X fits that bill). But Linux rocks at multimedia for the enduser now, and because of that it's found a place on my LAN.
I mean, we've had to bet the company many times on big technological advances.
.NET, and they are essentially the company on that (well, that and the next version of Office) by making it the core of all their latest server offerings.
.NET, for all it's glory and marketing, is a hyperextension of what Java originally promised. Microsoft may have a lot of money in R&D, but they rarely push the envelope -- at least not before someone else has shown it can be pushed.
This is true enough; the latest big MS strategy is unquestionably
The fallacy is confusing "bet the company on" with "innovated the technology for".
I wouldn't say OS/2 lived to 2002... it certainly was not completely dead, but it was nearly non-existenet in the early to mid nineties except in specialized markets like bank computer.
linux had had about the same lifespan (1988-1994 = 6 years), but is still strongly growing and showing some ballz, and the community is much bigger than the OS/2 community was, at least online (a rought comparison, as OS/2 was largely before the internet wave).
not to mention that MS basically partered with IBM on OS/2, then back-stabbed them while secretly working on a competeting OS (windows).
Those who don't learn history (or choose to ignore it) are bound to repeat it, Bill.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. (Mahatma Gandhi)
This gives me an idea how far along Linux is in competing with Windows. No, I wasn't expecting Gates to bow down to Llnux, but there's many ways of claiming you're better.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Sure, but the last significant collaboration was OS/2 1.2. 1.3 was done primarily by IBM (and was considered pretty much the only usable 1.x release, which isn't saying much). OS/2 2.x was entirely IBM, and all MS code had been expunged from the kernel by the time OS/2 Warp came about... IIRC, the only MS code left at that point was in the file system (HPFS and FAT). OS/2 Warp was considerably more stable than prior versions.
Of course, IBM couldn't market its way out of a paper bag when it came to desktop systems, they had absolutely horrid support, fairly crappy and overpriced development tools (VisualAge was too little, too late, and too buggy), and it never garnered the support necessary to become a serious contender... and I say this as someone who was an OS/2 fanatic back in the day. And while MS was slow on the uptake when it came to the Internet, IBM was downright glacial... most people ran Netscape for Windows under OS/2, which sucked... IBM did finally release a browser (which was damn good for the day), but long after most had given up.
AFAIK, even the banks are moving off of it now... OS/2 was long a mainstay in the financial world, especially at banks and ATMs. Most ATMs now run NT or a proprietary OS. There just isn't any reason to keep OS/2.
Heh, this is so fsckn funny...
Bill Gates bringing up OS/2 and comparing it to Linux is basically his way of raising his middle finger in the face of IBM. Gates and IBM had their rancourous falling-out over OS/2, and now that IBM has put much of its still-considerable muscle behind Linux this is his way of talking smack about IBM.
Gates' arrogance is amazing. Read between the lines here. He's saying "we killed OS/2 and we're going to kill Linux...the SCO lawsuit is just the beginning."
Thing is, you can't kill something that has no leaders and is not backed by a rival corporation. Even if Linux was temporarily crushed by MS action or government fiat, it could be revived at any time because the code is free and open and anyone who understands it can build on it.
Read your Greek mythology, Mr. Gates. Hubris goeth before a fall.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Huh? You bet on the 16-bit PC? 640k jokes aside, what other options were there at the time? GUI? Xerox/Mac beat you to it, and it was popular before you did it. NT tech? Hello, you stabbed 32-bit OS/2 in the back and used VMS as a model for the first NT, later making NT more like old Windows by incorporating more and more into the "microkernel".
Is it just me, or was he struggling? And I wonder if the reason MS licensing is such a low percentage due to the higher support costs for their buggy software. (Yeah, yeah, a flame.)
"At this point"? Very interesting that he seems to admit they might consider it at all. Or maybe I'm reading too much into a figure of speech.
I think Microsoft use the term innovation in a rather (semantically) different manner to everyone else. I don't mean to bash MS because that's been done to death, but it would seem that they use innovation to mean something along the lines of: Take existing ideas, streamline them, dumb them down and support them to the masses. Its rare that you see something new come from MS, although I'm sure it must of happened a couple of times (clippy anyone?). This isn't necessary a bad thing, but their not unique in doing such. They innovate by taking known idea's, and giving them to everyone. Of course this is how most things are done, it's just that MS have the audience to do it rather more dramatically than anyone else. Unfortunately that also means that the majority of the audience aren't CS graduates etc. And the innovation seems such that it's real innovation. Which is a shame.
I feel sorry for people who actually believe Bill Gates. I mean, I'm not saying he's not a creditable source or anything, the fact that he's a business man. His primary intrest is selling a product. When quoted on things like "no one will need more then 640k" was pretty much an accurate statement in 1982 or so. I did just fine on my atari with 64K of ram, steller with 1meg of ram. But times change.
So yea, anyone reading any interview with Bill Gates must remember the fact that he is selling a product. That's his job, that's what he does best. Not nessicarly true or false, just marketing.
As far as linux is concerned, it's in a much more unique position then OS/2. OS/2 is a closed source program, which roughly means as soon as it's no longer profitable to do so, they will not support it. An unsupported closed source product is about as useful as a condom machine in the vatican. Part of the reason I bothered at all with the *nix scene was the fact that some of my hardware was supported under OSS solutions that just didn't get win95 drivers. This I consider to be one of it's strengths, the fact that something contributed by just a small group of people can benifit me.
Even if Linux doesn't achive the level of use that microsoft windows for consumer grade operating systems, I don't think i'd give a shit. I'm not going to be like the OS/2 users out there and become a fanatic just because I have made a choice to use specific software. Works great for me, does it's job well, and so long as it's free i'll use it.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
1. It was a very short "interview".
2. Some of the questions had the tone of "devil's advocate", giving Gates the perfect opportunity to look like the good guy. (OS/2 question in particular)
3. There was no follow-up to anything, it was just question-answer, question-answer. So if this interview ever took place, it seems like it wasn't an interactive interview. (no big deal, just wanted to point it out)
My non-expert opinion? This was a canned PR interview that MS sent USA Today.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Not sure about server market share. I ran OS/2 Server on my support box when I was a L2 TCP/IP tech at IBM Austin. I liked it a lot more than NT4, but I'm weird. I like the underdog simply because they're at a disadvantage.
Mod me down if you want, but if Linux commands were a lot more like DOS (which I already know) I'd be running some sort of Linux on my PCs at home. Frankly, I haven't the time to try to remember all of the equivalent Linux commands for those I already know in DOS.
Not to mention - does Linux have plug & play support? I dunno.
I *can* tell you that a lot (all?) ATMs ran OS/2 (showing a DOS window to the user) and that large companies (Traveler's for one) and even the FBI were OS/2 users. Why? More secure.
Ever seen a virus for OS/2? Nope. Ever see a rootkit or other exploit for OS/2? Nope. True, market share was a lot less than Windows, but this doesn't mean that since it had a smaller userbase that it was any less secure. I realize it doesn't mean it was more secure, but since Windows and the Linux flavors are built off of common files (that is, common between the versions) this means that they are less secure.
Microsoft even stole from IBM - NTFS is a modification of OS/2's HPFS (High-Performance File System).
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
I think Billy uses "I mean" and "Lets be serious" just a little too much...and as for "He is not considering porting any MS Apps to Linux" I am not sure he would know how.
Bill Gates just doesn't "get it" does he? Microsoft doesn't push ANY new technology in terms of actual innovation. Now if he means "push" in the sense of a drug dealer, then he's being truthful.
Can you mount an ISO image with a plain vanilla instllation of Windows XP? No. But you can with the BSDs and GNU/Linux. It's built into most ditros as support for the ISO filesystem and loop devices.
Can you set up encrypted secure tunnels for specific ports, execute remote commands (encrypted again), and also transport remote desktop displays over the same mecahnism that does the tunnels and remote commands in a default installation of Windows XP? No. But you can with any OS that supports OpenSSH. Again, most distros come with this by default.
All the Windows XP wankers have been railing on about the Fast User Switching that Windows XP introduced. But you know what? We *nix users have had this feature for over a decade. Both at the command prompt and within the GUI by way of virtual terminals. I can have many users logged into their own desktops on the same machine with apps running and easily switch between them using Ctrl-Alt-F(n). Nothing new to us.
And as far as Remote desktop goes, *nix users have again had this since the earliest versions of X. Again over a decade. X was designed with this in mind from the start. And with Xnest, you can actually run a different user's desktop within your desktop on the same machine. You CAN'T do that with Windows XP.
Microsoft just got the "RUNAS" command. Hmmm... anyone familiar with su? And now with GUI alternatives, *nix has innovated much farther than Windows has. And still kept security job one.
What about the idea of not using drive letters and instead mounting to a folder. Windows 2000 introduced this. But Linux, the BSDs and other *nixes have had this from the very start.
VNC? Still came from the *nix world first since it is based completely on X. And we've had it longer than Microsoft.
What about things like esd (The Enlightened Sound server)? While you can share a remote desktop in Windows and even share the sound associate with it, you can't easily reconfig it to FOLLOW you from one machine to another one. I use VNC and esd together so I can log into a running desktop at any machine on my network and the audio will follow me. Again... how long has Open Source had this? for almost a decade (the lifespan of esd). Does Windows have this feature? No.
Need I point out anything else? I'm sorry, but the innovations all seem to come from open source first and then Windows plays catch up 5-10 years later.
Windows does seem to be a platform that does a lot of innovation. I've seen the betas of Longhorn, they're really doing some awesome architectural change to the OS.
Ok I call your bluff....
what are they doing? are they changing to the linux model of kernel modules so we never have to reboot again for every little thing?
have they change to microkernel?
you mention architectural change... something that cannot be verified wothout viewing the source code. and is NOT just changes to the pretty icons or how you input things... architectural change is at the OS level, something that Linux has been way ahaead of them for years....
Windows XP, built on the same crap that is NT3.51... in fact I found a couple of bugs that are STILL THERE from the 3.51 days....
they want changes??? look at BSD or linux for innovation not the crud that MS gives us every 2 years with nothing more than new icons and some idiot moving the tools around in the menus...
>>>>Since MS is the 900lb gorilla, they have a lot more freedom to do the pushing than the following.
Well, how can you take down a 900lb gorilla? Simple; 1,000,000 mosquitos. Each one just takes a small drop, but they eventually add up. And each drop of blood equals food for its youngin's. Then you get more and more mosquitos. They feed off of each others success.
In a way, thats the way open source works. We're all blood suckers. We just give it freely.
Since it was a short, horribly done interview, it *must* be that the horrible evil corporation fixed this up and sent it off, right?
Let's make it clear then, a short, horribly done interview with the richest man in the world, printed in a newspaper with world-wide distribution. Let's move on...
It couldn't be that the interviewer just didn't know his a** from a hole in the ground?
For the above mentioned newspaper? Not likely. What kind of newspaper would take an opportunity like that and blow it? Who would assign such an interview to someone who knew nothing about technology?
It couldn't actually be someone elses fault that something is messed up could it? Nope, must be Microsofts fault. Come on man.
Whose exactly? I have given good reasons why I think what I think, what are your reasons?
In response to your second question, if I had interviewed the richest man in the world in such a poor fashion, I wouldn't want my name on it either.
This is an argument? You are a reporter for the USA Today, and you have the chance to interview Bill Gates. You then decide, "ahh, that interview wasn't very good, I think I'll take my name off of it." Have you ever even heard of journalism? Thank you for supporting my point of view through your childish and poorly thought out ideas. Just because I pointed a critical eye at this interview doesn't mean I am out to get Microsoft. The only thing worse that zealots are people who try to classify everyone as a zealot.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Actually, KDE and Gnome, along with other GNU applications put together, is much more than Windows. A couple days ago I convinced one of my friend to switch to Linux, after I showed him Mozilla with the popup blocking and tab browsing, KDE with multiple desktops, OpenOffice.org opening MS Word documents, and all the configurations that can make the GUI smoother for daily usage. Most of those functions (tab based browsing, popup blocking, multiple desktops) are not present in a default Windows installation, and the other functions are certainly not Free in the Windows world. My friend stared in awe when he finally did notice all the default applications (The Gimp, Xine, all the games) that came with Mandrake 9.1, whereas Windows comes with, Windows itself.
Linux is certainly not like Windows, and when Microsoft starts to clone functionalities in KDE/Gnome, wouldn't people say that Windows is just like KDE/Gnome/Linux?
Please direct all bug reports to
Yeah, but it does make me really curious about a few things.
You only have to look at the leaked MS memos that get publicized on Slashdot to see just how seriously MS treats Linux. Without too much speculation, MS views Linux as the most serious threat to its dreams of dominating the data centres, you can assume that their top technical people spend a lot of time analyzing the capabilities of Linux to find weak points (witness the carefully chosen MS vs Linux benchmarks they have sponsored) and there is no way that MS is ignoring Linux where it really matters - on the sales pitch. The frantic flying of top MS executives to wavering MS houses (such as governments) is evidence enough. The memo to Sales executives to "not lose a sale to Linux under any circumstances" is further proof.
So don't ever assume that MS takes Linux lightly. There are a lot of smart people employed by MS - Lioux is the single biggest threat to MS today - they know it. That should also be a wake up that we should never get complacent simply because Billy G. isn't publicly endorsing Linux.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Google to the rescue
At the risk of feeding the house trolls, how does Linux "obviously" kick MS's ass on the server side?
At the risk of getting trolled here myself...
* Linux distros cost in the same order of magnitude now of what winows installations cost.
Umm.. When did Windows installation become free?
* Linux requires more expensive support personnel, which generally swamps the cost of the OS.
This is a myth. It may have been true during the dot-com boom, but these days even your experienced Linux/UNIX admin are cheap and ready to work right away.
* Microsoft offers a reasonably clear roadmap for the next five years for which a CIO can plan, Linux does not (before the knee-jerks respond: the fact that you don't read ms whitepapers doesn't mean that they dont exist).
This has very little to do with comparing two server operating systems.
* Giant websites run both Linux and Microsoft successfully. At the very least, it's not "obvious" that linux is better per se.
For running websites, Linux tends to be much easier to maintain. Yes, Linux is easier to use than Windows for many server tasks. This may come as a surprise to those who haven't used Linux much, but its true. And the admins who have experience in both Linux and Windows (and UNIX) will back me up on this.
--Drunk as in Beer
Really? Hotmail -- crap. Slow, crap. Most people have ISP's, and can get e-mail through those ISP's, as well as web-access. MS Passport -- privacy-violating crap. MSN -- more crap, with moderators who act like little nazi's. IIS -- crap which I don't need and never will. Intenret Explorer -- crap. IE does not remember forums like Phoenix, and if you go forward/backward, it forget anything you entered in a forum; furthermore, it uses non-standard's compliant web-rendering. Outlook is ok, but hardly innovative. There is little logic in bundling a calendar, daily plannar, etc, in with an e-mail program. They should be separate programs. MSN IM is ok, I suppose; though it was not the first, and offers nothing of significance over any other IM's.
There are better browsers, chat-rooms, e-mail progs, and IM's out there than the one MS provides; and MS hasn't been a leader in any of these areas, but simply a follower.
Internet browsers and e-mail programs have been around for many many years. Chat-rooms -- them too. It's called IRC. IM's are relatively new, but not an MS creation.
Outside of IM programs, the real great apps on the internet are things MS has nothing to do with, and seems to have no plans of getting involved in. Look at the internet radio stations (see Yahoo's radio station). Look at P2P programs and other file-sharing programs. The FreeNet. Distributed computing to spread parallel work out accross the internet (see SETI).
So, we've established that MS isn't really an innovator, nor really a leader, in any categories of significance (nope, not even office progs...they're just standard and ordinary). MS is not good at innovating and creating superior software. They have yet to do either so far.
What MS is good at is getting people to accept crappy product over better ones: advertising and behind closed-doors corporate agreements.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Fortran is FAR from dead. It is used extensively in high performace computing. Computational chemistry, biology, CFD, ... most of this is still Fortran.
See what simulations people run on top500.org computers. Most of that code will be written in Fortan.
First (and I'm not trying to be a smart ass here) wasn't Windows a direct knock-off of Apple's interface? That alone would make it more appropriate to complain nothing much risky or new has been done in an even longer time.
But thats not really the case. While the basic KDE and GNOME interfaces do seem to be trying to ease users in, there have been plenty of alternatives that look nothing like the standard Windows interface. Blackbox is my personal favorite, nothing but a clean desktop and the applications I'm currently using. For convenience I also use the KDE kicker (example) to provide clickable links and additional eye candy.
Sites like kde-look.org provide great examples of UI enhancements both conceptual and implemented (see SuperKaramba or Slicker). Of course freshmeat.net is an excellent resource for just about every imaginable interface. If theres one thing Linux is good for its developers being free to experiment with new ideas.
Quack, quack.
I was a member of Team OS/2 and coincidentally an IBM contractor. A lot of us (Teamers) and a few (About 4 IIRC) (real) IBMers went to the '95 COMDEX on our own dime and our own time to do the grassroots advocacy there. All IBM provided was some OS/2 install CDs and some exhibitor passes to let us get into the show before the doors opened. Oh yeah, and some really gay pink OS/2 shirts...
The astroturfing that year, as I recall, came from Microsoft. They brought a bunch of their own employees to try to counter the efforts of Team OS/2 and make it look like they had a grassroots group, too. We saw about a quarter of the number of "Team Microsoft" on the floor and someone suggested that they be waylaid and left duct-taped in a booth back in the skid row... Oh wait, that was me...
Anyway, Team OS/2 was not an astroturfing effort. The Team's relationship to IBM was always an uncomfortable one and many of the teamers inside the company and out have since moved to Linux. Linux already has far more momentum than OS/2 did. It runs on more platforms (Including the IBM mainframes that OS/2 was SUPPOSED to be ported to,) enjoys the support of more big companies and offers a platform that can not be killed by a single company.
Moreover, Bill Gates knows this. He didn't get to be the world's richest man by chance or luck alone. He didn't technically lie in his first statement; no doubt Linux is no different from OS/2 in his view in that he has to find a way to kill it as quickly as possible. Just as he did with OS/2 by providing discounts on his software PC resellers (including IBM's PCCO) who didn't offer an OS/2 pre-install option. OS/2's installation process was one of its weak points, and Microsoft made sure that every potential user of the operating system would go through it.
Microsoft's only open methods of attack against Linux are legal and in marketing. SCO's threat to sue every Linux user on the planet has already caused several companies that I know about to back away from the operating system. Expect to see more legal attacks from Microsoft or their minions and possible lobbying in Congress to make the OSS method of application development illegal. I expect a huge marketing campaign attacking the credibility of Linux as well. Don't put anything past them, they're protecting their monopoly here. You don't stay the world's richest man by luck or chance either.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
So tempting to mod you down like the troll you are but why not bite instead.
If you just go to this little link right here you'll find a very easy to use Office app that you can install in a few clicks on Windows, Solaris or Linux. And not only does it not have to be compiled, it doesn't cost your money or freedom either!
Or perhaps you'd like the entire linux OS, free of licensing, without having to compile a single thing. Here are just a few examples.
The Anti-Blog
Bill Gates just doesn't "get it" does he? Microsoft doesn't push ANY new technology in terms of actual innovation. Now if he means "push" in the sense of a drug dealer, then he's being truthful.
Can you mount an ISO image with a plain vanilla instllation of Windows XP? No. But you can with the BSDs and GNU/Linux. It's built into most ditros as support for the ISO filesystem and loop devices.
Can you set up encrypted secure tunnels for specific ports, execute remote commands (encrypted again), and also transport remote desktop displays over the same mecahnism that does the tunnels and remote commands in a default installation of Windows XP? No. But you can with any OS that supports OpenSSH. Again, most distros come with this by default.
All the Windows XP wankers have been railing on about the Fast User Switching that Windows XP introduced. But you know what? We *nix users have had this feature for over a decade. Both at the command prompt and within the GUI by way of virtual terminals. I can have many users logged into their own desktops on the same machine with apps running and easily switch between them using Ctrl-Alt-F(n). Nothing new to us.
And as far as Remote desktop goes, *nix users have again had this since the earliest versions of X. Again over a decade. X was designed with this in mind from the start. And with Xnest, you can actually run a different user's desktop within your desktop on the same machine. You CAN'T do that with Windows XP.
Microsoft just got the "RUNAS" command. Hmmm... anyone familiar with su? And now with GUI alternatives, *nix has innovated much farther than Windows has. And still kept security job one.
What about the idea of not using drive letters and instead mounting to a folder. Windows 2000 introduced this. But Linux, the BSDs and other *nixes have had this from the very start.
VNC? Still came from the *nix world first since it is based completely on X. And we've had it longer than Microsoft.
What about things like esd (The Enlightened Sound server)? While you can share a remote desktop in Windows and even share the sound associate with it, you can't easily reconfig it to FOLLOW you from one machine to another one. I use VNC and esd together so I can log into a running desktop at any machine on my network and the audio will follow me. Again, how long has Open Source had this? for almost a decade (the lifespan of esd). Does Windows have this feature? No.
Need I point out anything else? I'm sorry, but the innovations all seem to come from open source first and then Windows plays catch up 5-10 years later.
Un-news
The day I beleive that Microsoft is innovating is the day that I look at the source code and it's proven to me that they are not utilizing open-source code in their OS... and other products...
To further illustrate, how is it that they develop support for a new technology, it's buggy as hell, it sucks. The LINUX kernel begins to support it and it's rock-solid as hell and if it's not there's a patch available... The next windows version, the support for the same technologies is rock-solid and stable...
They've back-stabbed everyone else they've dealt with... why not steal from the only OS which COULD wipe them out of the OS market?
Excuse me, but what qualifies something as dead? I don't think usage alone is enough. Take VHS. You can buy them, rent them, and millions of people own them; billions are owned. It's dead.
I call something dead if it is in a critical region, downward spiral, inside a event horizon, (etc etc). Now back to the previous example if someone released a VHS cassette that stored 100 hours, the medium would be 'revived', or 'resurrected', if only for a short time. It can be dead and still be in wide use. (IMHO)
Actually, hunt around - I've seen the video. It was Bill at an Apple II conference, 80 or 81. Didn't one of the old Apple CDs have the video?
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Five years ago, such an interview would not even have mentioned Linux, and people like us would say
'but in the future you will have to deal with Linux, why are you ignoring it?'
Does anyone have suggestions for what is not mentioned in this interview but that will have to be mentioned in 5 years?
Or is the open source paradigm a big enough change that there is nothing similar on the horizon?
Wow, look at all the evidence you back this up with. Sure, I don't use Hotmail or Passport 'cause I don't need to, but IIS? Have you used the one in Server 2003 or are you just going off of the Code Red scare?
Outlook is ok, but hardly innovative. There is little logic in bundling a calendar, daily plannar, etc, in with an e-mail program
That's funny, I remember Outlook being touted as a Personal Information Manager and Communication solution, not an e-mail program. I actually love how it works. Someone can send me a meeting request and it'll automatically enter it into my calendar. I can easily propose a new time if necessary and all people will get that update. With the Exchange back-end, I can see it all on the web or on my Pocket PC. If they were separate programs, it would be harder to work together and actually less secure because they would be in separate process spaces so allowing only the calendar to talk to email and not other stuff is harder to do. How about you offer some valid reasons why they should be separate programs?
So, you bring up a bunch of categories that _you_ think are the real great apps and since MS doesn't work with them, that doesn't make them an innovator? Also, you say they're not a leader in any categories of significance, even though their Office suite is the most widely used and I personally think it beats the crap out of OpenOffice.org.
All you spew here is rhetoric with no real examples. So you don't like a couple of their programs (such as IE). Use something else and be happy! Just because they're not #1 doesn't mean they are the most innovative. MacOS X is way innovative and they always have been, but are they the #1 OS? No. They're always doing innovative things with their hardware. Are they the #1 seller of PCs? No. It doesn't mean they're not innovative, though.
Please actually try the latest software and experience the full feature set before you spew your zealotous rhetoric.
-Shippy
Actually a couple of years ago, there was a gigantic thread here about Microsoft's "Innovation". People would throw up innovations by Microsoft, someone else would cite either the company bought by MS that had that tech, or the original idea. Hell, Cleartype was done by Steve Wozniak back in the 1970's. It's actually quite depressing - you'd think they could come up with something new.
IIRC, there was an innovation - apparently they have a patent on a two-way door hinge.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
does not mean no longer used. It means it has had its usage peaked. Linux, not dead, still ging into new markets and aquiring new users.
Windows. this is interesting, it ets 'new users' but that means the same old users buying upgrades.
It is moving into new markets, but slowly because it is not designed well for low level usage.
I almost wnat to use the term 'undead'.
Unix is dying. No not a troll. There are fewer users every year, and not a lot of new markets, because in has already penetrated all markets.
Mostly being killed by Linux.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I use linux at work and for my servers, and I like it.
But really, windows is pushing new technologies more than linux.
Windows XP has USB 2.0, it has low-latency audio, it can play DVDs, it has translucent windows, built-in NAT, drag-and-drop CD recording, an MPEG-4 media player, it has an encrypted, compressed file system, they have fine-grained access controls, they have a common language runtime. They are pushing and developing modern programming languages so that we aren't all stuck programming in C. Some of this technology sucks, and most of it they didn't invent, but they are pushing new technology. (I also know that most of this stuff is available on linux, but it's also kind of a pain in the ass.)
I totally agree with what you are saying here. Microsoft is as big as it is not because of it's innovation or creativity in the programming realm, but rather in the business and marketing one.
Microsoft has the money to throw themselves into any market an dominate it- look at the Xbox. They saw an opening in a market, and jumped in full speed and are now a competitor. How many other companies could have gotten into this market when MS did, and been as successful?
This is why Linux should scare MS as much as it does: It's not that Linux is more stable, better looking, or any other million reasons; it's that MS can't beat out Linux in the business side.
Just as P2P networks are going to force the entertainment industry to give us high quality stuff if we are going to pay for it, Linux is going to force MS to truly have to innovate and create something really amazing to get our money.
At least, I hope.
I seem to recall it was QDOS (from "Quick and Dirty Operating System" -- funny how MS added the "Disk" after the fact! Why...? ;-)
BG For any project, if you look at communications costs, hardware costs, personnel costs, all that, software licensing ranges -- the highest you'd ever find is, like, 3% of any IT-type project. And so the question is can that 3% [compensate], in terms of how quickly you get the system set up?
Well if you look at total cost of ownership -- factoring in all the communications, hardware, personnel, and software costs that putting a PC on someone's desk leads do -- Wintel is a very very bad solution to almost any problem.
Back in the mid-90s, the TCO of a Wintel PC to a business was something like $20k p.a. based on obvious clearly measurable costs, and ignoring hard to measure factors productivity lost to downtime etc. etc.
So yes, probably less than 3% of that is software licenses. But a lot of it is makework created by licensing that software.
Note that in many companies, driving down support costs will lose you business. IT is usually a cost center in most companies, so for IT managers being needed and being big equate to power within the organisation.
The contention was that Windows was getting hacked because it was the biggest target. Well, IIS isn't the biggest target and it's still getting hacked.
/etc.
/etc. The big if in your scenario is rooting the box in the first place. Was there any particular 'sploit that you planned to use or are you going to just keep trying things? And, oh yeah, what if I'm running Apache on Windows? Not much in the way of /etc files then...
And I'm sure if I rooted your Apache box, I could depend on your password files and other important files sitting in
You can certainly expect to find some files in
The point is that in the case of Apache it's an application running on a whole range of OS's. Additionally, it can run the web server with reduced or non-existant user permissions so if you hack it you're not going to get anywhere.
While there are certainly methods that can be used to perform OS typing, exploit searches, and the like the issue is size and time. A good Linux worm is going to take too much time to write unless you can find one vulnerable service that is running everywhere (BIND hacks, etc.).
MS OSes get hacked because they're EASY tagets, not because they're LARGE targets.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
When quoted on things like "no one will need more then 640k" was pretty much an accurate statement in 1982 or so.
That is not a quote, and was never supposed to be. It was a joke invented 15 years ago, when its falsehood was self-evident to all listeners. It is apocrypha- an external summation of their business practices in designing MS-DOS, but not something Gates has even been alleged to have said.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
If mine own foggy memory serves... OS/2 was a collaboration between IBM and M$, I'm pretty sure I remember His Borgness talking it up big time at a convention in 1989, "OS/2 is THE future." Then Big Blue hit financial troubles, M$ pulled out of the project and nicked most of the code to form the basis of NT. Does this guy have no shame ?? Ahhh, I'm kidding myself, it was surgically removed shortly after they germinated him.
OS2 is what windows should have been. In fact, for a time Microsoft was in partnership with IBM on the project until they decided to go their seperate ways - conspiracy theories aside.
Unfortunately, while OS2 was a more stable system and an all-around better implementation, Microsoft won the war of the desktop through pretty graphics and flashy advertising.
Before Linux came along I was considering Warp on my desktop; now I'm running Slackware and loving it.
The number one thing about Linux, that I think will keep it alive - and on alot more desktops than anyone really perceives is the fact that it can breath life into older machines, unlike Microsoft offerings which invariably use more memory and require more CPU cycles to run effectively.
Case in point: My network:
P120 with 3 hard drives - file server running Redhat.
P300 - Wife's desktop - running Slackware
P 1.4Ghz - My desktop - running Slackware
p500 - Daughter's desktop - running Redhat
p250 - Daughter's 2nd desktop - running Windows (until I can get soundcard working on her p500 - then it becomes part of my growing Beowulf cluster...muhahaha!).
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
OS/2 is just like Linux? Perhaps in functionality/reliability for apps that couldn't afford to freeze up like Windoze....
I do remember seeing the OS/2 boot up on a number of bank machines being rebooted by security guards when they refill and take away deposits.
Gates pointing out that the IBM army was behind OS/2 is a load of horse puckey.
The one big thing that made me regret my $200 purchase of Warp was the fact that it took 8 months to get a beta OS/2 Warp sound card driver from IBM for my "Options By IBM" branded Media Magic sound card.
A number of recent articles looking at OS/2 in retrospect made me think of the example given of problems with post-brain opreation epileptics. One hand is pulling the trousers up while the other is pulling them down.
We use lots of FreeBSD for servers and Linux for desktops. The support for both is phenomenol and the reliability far outweighs what M$ has to offer.
Unlike OS/2 whose beleagured IBM 1-800 numbers were the only means of support at the time, The free IX's are widely supported online and will be here to stay for the long while.
OSS forever!
Eventually CSet++ became VisualAge for C++ but the UI still stunk (it was a convoluted slug of a visual designer implemented in Smalltalk or something), and it still didn't provide *useful* classes - things like toolbars, status bars, tooltips etc. Every bloody UI element not defined in the CUA spec but required by modern UI design had to be coded by hand. It was no wonder that every OS/2 app was hopelessly inconsistent with each other and bugged to high heaven!
That IQ test has to be a joke. In some of the questions they practically gave the answers away. I'd be surprised if anyone scored But then, I guess that's why they advertise it on USA Today. Let the readers think they're intelligent :)