Gates: Open Source Kills Jobs

theodp writes "On the Malaysian leg of a whirlwind Asian tour, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates voiced his concerns over the growing goodwill towards open source, especially in Asia, emphasizing how damaging open source software can be. 'If you don't want to create jobs or intellectual property, then there is a tendency to develop open source. It is not something you do as a day job. If you want to give it away, you work on it at night,' he said. Gates, who apparently has never contended with the horrors of a VB upgrade, when on to say that '[Open source] doesn't guarantee upward compatibility.'"

Comments

Re:Gates is right

[aristotle-dude]

Sorry but how are you increasing your value as a person but stealing jobs away from other people? You already have a job.

If you have a lot of "free" time on your hands why not:
-volunteer at a local charity
-become a big brother.
-volunteer with an international agency
All of the above are altruistic pursuits. While open source development only serves to inflate your ego.
You may think you are doing a good thing but companies which can afford to buy application software would buy software as a matter of regular business and treat it as a business expense.
If you create Application software which replaces software produced by smaller companies as closed source, you eliminate the following jobs: programmer, various support staff at the company, executives, advertising jobs, sales clerks, delivery/shipping jobs as well as all of the trickle down jobs in the community.

Oh and that non-software company that saves money with open source will most likely will not buy support from you and the principles will pocket the money instead of creating even Mc Jobs to support it.

Remember that charity idea? Most single parent families cannot afford any kind of computer so the most vulnerable in society will not gain any benefit from your largess but only the rich. Then there are the street people.

Why not contribute to society instead of contributing to its problems by putting more people on the street?

Go ahead and mod me down but you will only serve to reenforce the view that america is heartless when it comes to the poor.