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."

Comments

subbing articles on himself

[pytheron]

What is Bill Gates doing submitting stories under his pseudonym (king-of-darkness) ? Anyways, an interesting bit in the article I thought was:

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 !

Re:But...

[Roto-Rooter Man]

OS/2... 1988-2002. This is shorter than Linux how?

Finally, an interview with Gates!

[PhysicsGenius]

Mr Gates,

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?

Bad bet

[jsse]

We bet on the 16-bit PC.

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 .Net

Hold you bet cowboy! This time is different! That's YOURS thing to bet with!!

Think again!

He's technically right

[mblase]

I mean, we've had to bet the company many times on big technological advances.

This is true enough; the latest big MS strategy is unquestionably .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.

The fallacy is confusing "bet the company on" with "innovated the technology for". .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.

Re:But...

[laserjet]

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.

I compare it to this...

[Kjella]

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

Re:OS/2??

[Zathrus]

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.

This is basically a dig at IBM

[MsGeek]

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.

Flaming Bill....

[MyHair]

Okay, I RTFA'd. Bill neglects to mention that OS/2 was at one point the future of Microsoft.

BG: . . . I mean, we've had to bet the company many times on big technological advances. We bet on the 16-bit PC. We bet on graphical user interface. We bet on the NT technology base.

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".

BG: . . . We will never have a price lower than Linux, in terms of just what you charge for the software. We compete on the basis of, if you look at the value you get out of the system and the overall cost that the system has that apply in our software. 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?

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.)

USA TODAY: Is there a scenario by which you would at some point consider porting Microsoft applications into Linux?

BG: There's no consideration of that at this point.

"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.

Innovation

[HoloBear]

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.

Who was the interviewer? I smell a rat.

[gosand]

Who exactly conducted this interview? Think about this for a second: if you got to interview the richest man in the world, wouldn't you want your name on it? All I saw listed as the interviewer was "USA Today". (Beiser took the photo shown) Not only that, but:

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.

Re:It's an _ok_ article

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:It's an _ok_ article

[DJ Rubbie]

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?

Re:But...

[Greyfox]

Exactly what astroturfing was that? Team OS/2 was a volunteer organization with very little actual support from IBM. IBM kept them at a distance due to the "Lunatic Fringe" of rabid OS/2 zealots who would view even constructive criticism of the platform as "FUD" and denounce it as such.

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.

Re:Dear Bill

[Christianfreak]

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.

I wanna see the source -

[ColeNielsen]

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?

Re:Typical

[mbourgon]

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?

software definition of dead

[geekoid]

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.

Oh, come on.

[Tom7]

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.)

Re:Then why does IIS keep getting hacked?!?

[TheConfusedOne]

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.

And I'm sure if I rooted your Apache box, I could depend on your password files and other important files sitting in /etc.

You can certainly expect to find some files in /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...

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.