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RMS to Move Into Bill Gates Building Today
In anonymous reader writes "RMS will be moving his office to the new William H. Gates building at MIT's Stata Center starting today. This marks the end of MIT's use of building NE43, which housed the LCS and AI labs (now combined into CSAIL).
On a strangely unrelated note, shortly after Harvard, in a laudable attempt to retain solidarity with the Open Source community, dedicated the Maxwell Dworkin building (named after Gates' and Ballmer's mothers respectively), Gates' credit card was hacked. After all, they did have his mother's maiden name... "
How does this attempt to retain solidarity with the OSS community? The entire post is one gigantic run-on sentence, so maybe I am not reading it correctly?
How stupid can you be? In the article, it says he stole the credit card numbers to prove how insecure things were. If that wasn't enough, he emailed the info to NBCi. Why do these people think that they're the "good guys" when they do this?
Gray says he is actually the good guy. He said "I just wanted to prove how insecure these sites are. I have done the honest thing, but I have been ignored."
That's like shooting someone just to prove how unsafe firearms are.
*shakes head*
Spread the RC luvin'
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I think the term about those kids that felt that they were doing the "right thing" that is most apt is "shoot the messenger." Some young kids uncover security holes that could lead into millions of fraud if not patched, and then tell the authorities, let's arrest the kids. Makes it less likely that some good samaritin will do the same in the future, leaving security holes open for those less ethical to actually steal the money!
What's next, arresting the kid that stuck his finger into the dike?
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Okay, so taking Bill Gates' credit card resulted in 3 million dollar in damages. Assuming that figure's actually correct, anyone want to bet those sites are still insecure? :)
Here's a guy who started a company from scratch,
From birth, William Gates III was a millionaire. (Trust fund from wealthy parents). The lowest net-worth he's ever experienced is greater than the highest an average American can ever expect.
What's sad is bill Gates has donated well over twenty billion dollars to charities, including his own and you all still bitch and moan and call him the great satan because he doesn't want you to see his source code. That's about 1/3 of his total net worth. In contrast, how much has our Vice President Dick Cheney donated to charity....a staggering 1%.
I'm posting AC because judging by your +4 insigtful score the mods are abusing their moderation points again and I don't feel like taking the karma hit.
How generous: give some money away AFTER you have ruthlessly and greedily made more than you could possibly actually use yourself.
I prefer Jesus' view of what constitutes generosity to yours.
I think it might have been a very bad attempt at sarcasm.
its not the Linus Torvalds building.... all we'd hear for the next two years would be some insane analogy about how it would be like Thomas Jefferson moving into the "George Washington, founding document authors complex" - maybe even something more absurd.
I kid RMS...
There are a few RMSes there, and on a news site an acronym should never be used without using the full form first.
though it was a pretty obscure attempt at it. Maybe a [sarcasm][/sarcasm] would've helped.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
"taking a big chunk of money from Mr. Gates"
Good morning, Microsoft-basher. Please smell the coffee, open your eyes, and realize that Gates has GIVEN (where do you get take from???) more money to an assortment of charities and institutions that you will ever see in your life. Yes, I know you hate him but let's face it he's a smart guy and now that he has more money than God he's pretty damn generous with it.
Be happy. Nothing else matters.
Considering many of his 'donations' are Windows PC's and Microsoft software...
First, he never started from scratch. He was born very rich, then got even luckier.
Second, he donates less of a percentage of his disposable income than I do by FAR. In fact, I'd suggest that the average American donates a considerably higher percentage of their disposable income than he does. $20Mill is nothing to him - it would be like me handing out $40 over the course of a year to things (homeless, the church, Girl Scouts, whatever). $20Mill is 1/2000 of his worth. The average American is lucky to have a net worth in the 5 figures...most live paycheck to paycheck with 4 figure accounts (which means they only need to donate $10 a year to blow Bill to bits, percentage-wise), and make mortgage payments until they die.
There's also the tax benefits to the "foundation," which he sits on for further benefits (why just donate money, when you can start a foundation? and name it after yourself? and sit on the board?).
When most Americans would be fiscally devastated by a $1,000 unexpected expense, Bill could have a $100,000,000 unexpected expense and not change his lifestyle AT ALL.
The foundation, the scholarships, and everything else is all just PR for him, to make people dislike him less. And it works, obviously.
Third point: if he was truely being generous, his name wouldn't be on any buildings.
Fourth point: the "legacy" of his foundation will last only as long as his money is in it. Its done nothing all that substantial. His business finess though has made a very substantial impact on the planet, and will be remembered for a very long time.
Don't get me wrong -- there's nothing wrong with taking grant money. Just because something isn't economically sustainable, doesn't mean it's not worth doing. I just get very tired of the way the "Free Software" folk insist that they've transcended the evils of software "ownership". Which they've never actually done. Their bills are paid for by revenues from the very businesses they are too pure to work for.
So of course RMS now works in a building that was paid for by the license fees that Microsoft gouged out of hapless computer buyers. What could be more appropriate?
And that diniminishes my point, how?
Ever hear the saying "The first million is the hardest?"
I'm about the same age now as Bill Gates was when he started Microsoft. I wish I could be out starting a company instead of working to dig myself out of the debt that was created when I obtained an education. If I had a million dollars now, I bet I could turn it into 10 million in 8-9 years. Instead, I'll be lucky to have a half-million saved up by then, and if I do it will be as equity in a house, not as liquid assets.
I'm not trying to diminish his acomplishments, but you can't really hold him up as an icon for what anybody can achieve.
I'm pretty sure the people who have benefitted from his contributions don't care whether he cares. There's an alternate way of looking at this: Bill Gates donates to causes that he doesn't even care about. It sounds almost more philanthropic, put that way.
Personally, I'd prefer the big donors to be as minimally invested in any one ideology as possible. I don't want them to deeply care about causes. They should be concerned with helping people, in general.
I'm no fan of Microsoft, but Bill Gates' money has done more great things than I'll ever be able to accomplish.
I'm not a big Microsoft apologist but comparing Bill Gates to Hitler?
Comparing building an OS monopoly to killing 7 million jews?
Wow, you're an idiot.
He has contributed over 20 billion dollars. He stated the reason he doesn't just give it all to some great charity because there are no great charities. Look it up. Salvation army, and all the big charities blow over 50% of every dollar on overhead administration. So he is careful about how he gives away his money. And I wouldn't call 20 Billion, pocket change, even to Bill Gates.
Starting out rich isn't a free pass to doing well in business. Lets look, Paris Hilton, more wealthy than Billy boy, Certainly hasn't done her business any good.
George Bush, our president, couldn't hack it in business, hence the faltering of his oil company and every business he touches.
All the children of the wallmart fortune. Most of them are worthless, business is ruthless and to have done as well as Gates has, you have to be extremely intelligent. And I garantee you he is. Have a conversation with him someday. He's a very intelligent guy, despite what slashdot would have you believe.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
I fail to see how much he's given away has any bearing on the situation. He still has more money, by many many orders of magnitude, than me and everyone I personally know all put together. More than will pass through my and my acquaintances' hands in our lifetimes, I don't doubt. He's not going to want for money for the central heating in his dotage, is he? So pull him down off that pedestal, for God's sake.
He's a greedy and conniving man, with very little respect for the human race as far as I can tell. He does not deserve our admiration or our defence.
the layman's guide to computer science
Um, no, I bitch because he's committed the rest of his vast resources to destroying my livelihood (as a software developer).
Incidentally, are you seriously trying to make him look good by comparing him to Dick Cheney? There's a popularity contest that's hard to lose.
sic transit gloria mundi
IF someone were to ask me to key them into a secured area that they didn't have access to I would say no. There may be reasons that the building has security you know. I don't know all of them but for those of us in the real world things like pass cards are a frequent fact of life. And if it was RMS doubly so.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
The fact is that before Bill Gates, there was no Microsoft, no employees, no product, no sales.
Well I give you one out of four here. There was, in fact no Microsoft, but people were employed, made products and sold them all the same. Monopoly is definitely reducing the total number of software jobs and products.
what an incredibly successful accomplishment it is
If you mean his personal accomplishment to make money for himself, then definitely. If you mean the contribution to society - well there is a good but crazily expensive word processor and a decent C++ development IDE. This doesn't make up for all the areas where they destroyed or diminished other companies - Apple *, Netscape, Real, Corel, Lotus - and stopped making improvements to their own product once they had all or most of the market.
Are you seriously implying that giving people a work environment where opening an e-mail message without any attachments wipes out your HD is an accomplishment?
* Yes, this one actually needed a wake up call from MS to make a better product. But now they do have one, and would be enourmously popular if not for MS monopoly. And cheaper too - high volume == low cost.
This may sound corny, but I'm of the opinion that somebody who donates 10% of their meager substainance is far more generous than somebody that gives away 90% of his luxury, leaving him with, well, luxury.
It's nice that Gates is giving away money -- even if it was obtained dishonestly/unethically/illegally. However, to applaud his gifts is a bit silly methinks. The money he gives has little value to him, in the sense that it cannot be used to greatly improve his quality of life. Therefore, his gifts have cost him little.
So, from my perspective: he gives away plenty of money, but isn't at all generous with it.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Hey asshole, how about a goddamn warning on a link like that?
Jesus, I've lost my apetite for weeks now.
Gates has never donated that much to anything. It was only a few years back when he was exposed as a cheap skinflint for donating almost nothing, ever! Soon after he made a big deal out of offering ONE billion (over twenty years so that means about 50M per year) when his net worth was way over 100 billion. If I made a similar, oh so magnamimous, gesture I could beat Gates by throwing a handful of nickels to a Salvation Army Santa.
I'm posting AC because judging by your +4 insigtful score the mods are abusing their moderation points again and I don't feel like taking the karma hit.
No you are posting as AC because your post is a damn lie. As others have pointed out, even the actual donations that can be counted as coming from Gates are often in the form of Microsoft software (x full retail price) or PC's that come with Microsoft software pre-installed (and choosing which PC vendor to fill that contract can be used to get what you want in unrelated negotiations).
I'm the same as you. I *didn't* start from scratch.
I had upper-middle class parents, a Mom who didn't work outside the home and who always had time for homework. I had a decent public school to go to, then an even better private one, followed by a college paid for by my folks. (Public, so I didn't need loans.)
Compare that to someone growing up in a single parent home, with that parent holding two jobs to pay the rent on a crappy apartment in a war zone. The nearby schools graduate kids who can barely read and have no college prep classes. College is funded totally by loans because they've got to work 40+ hours a week to live while going to school. After college, they've got a pile of debt to pay off-get a job now, no matter how bad. Failure doesn't mean that you go back and live with Daddy while you sort out your options, failure means going on welfare or being homeless.
You are I are blessed far beyond what you think. We've got the education, we've got the parents to bail us out if we get into serious trouble, we don't have to worry about Mom losing one of her two dead-end jobs and getting tossed out of her apartment. Gates was even more so- he *never* had to worry about money, even if MS tanked. He was a millionaire to start.
In grad school, I had a long discussion with my (black) roommate asking why there were huge numbers of blacks in med, law and engineering schools and less than 1% in my chemistry department. His answer: when you're the first kid to get this far, money matters. Money matters a *lot*- you're going to have to pay back a fortune. (And he commented that he needed to be able to give back to others as well- someone's got to help pull the other smart but forgotten kids out of the hole.) Chemistry is great for middle class white kids who can afford to not think about the bottom line.
From what you say, you've *never* had to really think about the bottom line. Neither have I. We're lucky.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Are these the same "religiously devout" folks who get promised 72 virgins for all eternity if they strap a bomb to themselves and blow up a few kindergartners?
What a bunch of whining, jealous retards.