Gates, Jobs, Torvalds: Who is Most Important?

Ian Wilson writes "silicon.com has launched its latest Agenda Setters poll which puts together a list of the top 50 people influencing tech. I remember Slashdot carried last year's poll - which was won by Steve Jobs. The full top 50 includes many of the usual suspects. Last year's winner Steve Jobs has slipped down to second place, but perhaps most interesting is the fact that the panel of judges couldn't separate Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates - they are tied in seventh place."

Comments

Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[randyflood]

Linus is much more important than Bill Gates!

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[JeanBaptiste]

"Linus is much more important than Bill Gates!"

Why?

I'd say Gates is more important. Mostly because if Gates died tomorrow, it would affect the economy a lot more than if Linus died tomorrow. Plus, Gates has given more to charitable organizations than Linus will ever make in his life.

Whom do I prefer? Linus. Whom do I think is a nicer guy, and a better tech? Linus. Who is more important to a larger percent of the population? Gates.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Random Web Developer]

I asked everybody in my house a question
"who is more important, bill gates or linus torvalds"
bill was the winner because none of the people knew "the other guy".

It's more than clear bill has had more influence in our world at this moment than linus has (though linux/oss might influence the world to new business models, but thats tomorrow and maybe)

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[bobhagopian]

This is simply not the case, as I think most of us realize. We may all despise Microsoft, and we may all love Linux, but we're simply ignoring the truth if we think Linus Torvalds has been more influential than Bill Gates.

The issue is this: Linus may have ushered in the creation of a better product than Bill Gates. But quality doesn't necessarily correlate to influence. The very fact that the Linux-loving Slashdot crowd grumbles about how everyone uses MS even though Linux is better should be the first indication that Bill Gates is more important. He may be ugly, and he may have created the most evil company with the worst software, but his work has been influential. Without him and DOS/Windows, I'm not sure computers would have become a common household appliance until much later.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[randyflood]

I'll grant you that Gates has *had* more of an effect on the impact of the computer industry than Linus has in the past. But, Gates is a dinosaur. I'll grant you that he is a really cool dinosaur. He is a great big Tyranasauros Rex. But he is still a dynasaur.

If Gates died tomorrow, more people would sell shares of Micorosft stock, out of Fear that the company could not perform without their glorious leader. And that would impact them. But, in reality, Gates has stepped aside, a long time ago. .. Ofcourse Windows has a much larger user base than Linux. And ofcourse, it has a much larger impact on the economy.

Linus is a like a great big meteorite that came from outer space. And right now, we are just beginning to see this dust cloud forming... So, when you ask, which is more important, the T-Rex, or the meteorite, I would got with the meteorite.

But that's just me.

The fact that all the other dinosaurs are still looking around saying,"We all live in awe and fear of the T-Rex and we have never even heard of the meteorite," is hardly a convincing argument to the contrary...

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[s_mencer]

This isn't a popularity contest. It doesn't matter who is more famous. The people on this list are the ones that have changed the way we do things with computers. In this respect, I think Steve Jobs should be number one. His decisions at Apple spread throughout the entire computer industry. Apple decides to use USB and Firewire... now they are "standard equipment". Apple ditches the floppy drive... now you have to ask for one if you order dell, ibm or gateway. And all those PC modders are just jealous of the pretty mac cases ;-).

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

>Mostly because if Gates died tomorrow, it would affect the economy a lot more than if Linus died tomorrow.

I disagree with that assertion. The man who
has been at the helm of Microsoft, Inc. since
2000 has been Steve Ballmer. Gates could get
hit by a bus tomorrow, and Microsoft, Inc.
would continue business as usual, using
their standard (rude) business practices
without so much as a gasp.

Torvalds on the other hand inspired a movement,
and (in my awfully naive opinion) gave the
FSF the credibility and recognition it needed
in the wider computing community that was ignorant of the GPL and the quality of
software that comes out of FSF.
If Torvalds were hit by a bus tomorrow,
Linux would continue, but the leadership
of the Linux kernel folks would be something
more like FreeBSD, where a consensus was required, since no single individual stood
out as the heir apparent. (My personal
favorite would be Alan Cox, but that's just
my personal favorite.)

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Scottarius]

Apple decides to use USB and Firewire... now they are "standard equipment".

Just because apple was the first to adopt these technology doesn't necessarily mean they should be credited with it being "standardized". It could have been anybody to take the first step.

Apple ditches the floppy drive... now you have to ask for one if you order dell, ibm or gateway. The floppy drive history, who cares who ditched it first, they all would have eventually, and I hardly believe this makes Steve Jobs a major influence on the technology world. (I'm not saying he isn't, but I don't like this argument.) I stopped installing floppy drives in my home built computers before apple did, maybe I should be on the list somewhere.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Quino]

Actually, Stallman inspired a movement to create an OS.

Linus manages and has managed the development of a kernel.

Big difference.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[nwbvt]

Really? Why? What has Linus done? He started work on a new operating system, yes. But now that system (and all of the software around it) is supported by the community, not one person.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[davidsyes]

Then, to my mind, this means Linus, Alan, Richard, Manuel and all the others need to be paraded on Oprah, IBM commercials, and more. Have ANY of these been shown as Geek of the Week?

Instead of much of the reality TV bullshit, we need the 5-minute spot of Linux and F/LOSS personalities to be rotated. Not just Linus, tho, but ALL the major voices from the foreground to the average code contributor.

Surely, some will want to lay low for employment reasons, but others who have contributed code could as well be in a Freedom Hall of Fame. By corollary, ms' henchmen/women could be in the Encroachment Hall of Shame.

It would be nice if IBM would sponsore these commercials. I haven't watched much "live" TV, opting for eye-selected DVDs from the local import video shop, but is IBM doing anything lately. I did in the past 2 weeks look at the list

http://www.ibm.com/ibm/tvads/

of commercials IBM ran, but didn't see anything doing "The Average Freedom Lover".

Actually, putting a little cup o' tea in their hands in some tiny French cups, with Mandrake on one side of the table, and tall Lipton on the Red Hat side, with Novell & SUSE sporting Ginseng and a lager, we might get some serious laughs at microshaft's (lower-casing/deprecation of microsoft's name intentional/perpetual with me...) expense. But, it would take IBM's money to make sure the ads ran, or ms' marketing department would preempt all the ads slots...

David Syes

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[WindBourne]

I'd say Gates is more important. Mostly because if Gates died tomorrow, it would affect the economy a lot more than if Linus died tomorrow. Plus, Gates has given more to charitable organizations than Linus will ever make in his life.

All right, I will bite. Why would BG's death affect the economy? He headed the company, but now adays it is in Balmer's hands. As to the technology of MS's, they are notorious for either stealing or buying it. It is only in recent time that MS has really built up a power house of inovative tech guys. But BG himself has never been that technical.

As to charity, BG has NOT given money. That was his wife and parents that pushed it. BG stayed happily out of charity (and politics). Do not get me wrong. It is his money and he is free to do with it as he sees fit. But do not give him credit for where it does not belong.

As to giving more to charity, Linus gave us Linux and one of the very best OSS projects. Prior to Linux, GNU was moving very slowly. It was only after Linux was started that GNU really took off. And Linus gave away his time, his effort, and his ideas. Not even BG did that. In fact, BG has fought against this, his entire adult life. I would mark Linus as being one of the most charitable individuals on this planet.

Finally, Linus is in his early 30's. Who are you to say what the future holds in terms of earnings? It is quit possible that Linux will do even better than BG.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[davidsyes]

How about ushering in some morality? I forget, business and morality don't mix.

If morality and business don't mix, then companies should just quit donating and doing charitable things.

Just this past Friday evening someone tried to assail my anti-ms stance with this weak argument:

"Do you know how many millionairs bill gates made? Do you know of ANY other company or person who donated as much as microsoft or bill gates?"

My standard argument response is: "If my parents donated $10 million to every county in the US and $1 million to every STATE in the US, but they were found connected to a string of animal slayings, child pornography or destruction of peoples's lives, should they be allowed to get off the hook, just because they give a shitload of money? Do YOU know how many companies ms fudded out of existence, still-birthed startups that tried to offer better and fairly-competing alternatives? Do you KNOW that a corporation company is accorded the status of PERSON, and that if a PERSON did to another what bill gates and henchmen/henchwomen did and still do to COMPANIES that would be called corporate murder, PEOPLE would go to jail?"

So, I'd say for morality and good-man points, Linus is more than head and shoulders above gates. I don't give a damn how much money he gives. The big question is: Can those donees take those computers and strip them of windoze and install Linux on them? Can they MIX those environments. Are they pre-conditioned before acceptance of the goods that they are receiving them contingent upon not using, testing, or talking about Linux, Open Source or even weighing in on behalf of any studies?

As for the argument that Linux is costing job, BULLSHIT. CEOs decide they can't cut their own compensation and instead whack salaries, rather than rewrite their staunchly widget-based sales model. If they adjust the model to charge for support, integration, testing, and such, and reduce the software cost to the cost of shipping, rather than fixing development to disks shipped or code delivered, then they could still exist. It also would force them to stop using PAYING customers and users as beta sites.

But, some of them still don't get it. They probaby won't ever, either.

David Syes

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[vettemph]

If Gates died tomorrow,

We can dream. :)

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[thentil]

As to charity, BG has NOT given money.

I don't know how true that *was*, but it is certainly not true as of july 21, 2004. From this article:
"Bill and Melinda Gates yesterday announced that all of an estimated $3 billion of the stock dividend that would have gone to the Microsoft chairman will instead be donated to their non-profit foundation in support of its efforts in global health, education and equity."

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Tanktalus]

From my naive position, it seems that the perception is that Stallman may spearhead the movement, Linus inspires it. And, since inspiration relies more on perception than reality, I think Linux wins out on that one.

In other words, Stallman without Linus would not have managed to get the whole world lined up to commit to open source. Linux without Stallman would likely have ended up with a BSD-type license, and we'd be likely in nearly the same position with OSS being a major threat to Gates.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Random Web Developer]

I haven't seen an IBM ad in years in Belgium. In fact most people over here consider it dead apart from maybe the hardware

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[WindBourne]

The whole thing was pushed by melinda (a PR person) as a way to make BG look better. It has worked. There are many ppl who think that BG is a good guy and did this program freely. Of course, many of these same people swear up one side and the other that BG invented the internet.

The real irony in this for me, is that my mother is one of those that really does think that BG invented the internet AND freely does charities. She has also told me that it was not about trying to make BG look like a good guy. Of course, she also thinks that GWB is either an alien or the devil incarnate. Or both.

:) Just kidding, Mom and Dad. Really.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[arose]

Linux without Stallman would likely have ended up

...without a compiler.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[MysteriousPreacher]

Yes anybody could have taken those steps first but Apple did. Anyone could have have mass produced cars first but Henry Ford did. Anyone could have outlawed slavery but Britain was the first (major western nation) to have done so.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is Linus more important than Gates?

I'll tell you why:

Gates is just another business man, like Ellison, Jobs, and a million other guys. He just happens to have made more money than most of them. Big deal. Nothing new here.

Linus has helped jump-start a movement of sorts. People contributing code to others for free, helping each other out, not expecting anything in return. I think this sort of attitude is far more healthy to the future of mankind than the dollar-driven mindset of the typical industry.

Look at the majority of important people in history. Most of them are individuals who've had an impact on people's way of life, for better or for good. Lincoln, Jefferson, Stalin, Einstein, Aristotle, Copernicus, etc.. I think Torvalds better fits this mold than Gates does.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, that should have read 'for better or for worse'.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't the kind of question that has a right/wrong answer based on public opinion though. Just because the majority will answer Gates, doesn't make it the right answer.

It's like asking a person what the most important part of their body is. If 80% of people answered "the heart" would that make it the right answer? No, because the heart can be replaced, and other organs like the brain can't be.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[WindBourne]

There were and are other open compilers.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[WindBourne]

Linux without Stallman would likely have ended up with a BSD-type license, and we'd be likely in nearly the same position with OSS being a major threat to Gates.

While it is impossible to say, I do not think so. One of the things that Linus wanted was a system that was opened, but could not be taken over. BSD licensing allows just that, and it would have prevented IBM, SGI, HP, etc. from actually working with the group. Each of these would simply have borrowed what they wanted and used it with Unix.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Osrin]

If Gates has not given to charity then where did the $7.3bn in grants come from that his foundation has issued to date?

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[arose]

I don't see the BSDs switching and they would really love to get that GPL "infection" that gcc represents for them out of their systems.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

If Gates has not given to charity then where did the $7.3bn in grants come from that his foundation has issued to date?

From his wanting to keep his wife happy. It was not true charity on his part. In addition, many of the grants had conditions added such as you will spend the money on MS software.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Frizzle Fry]

As to charity, BG has NOT given money... But do not give him credit for where it does not belong.

Why was this modded insightful? It's just a lie. You can find hundreds of articles that will show you how untrue this is. Here's one:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/701860.stm :
starting "Microsoft chief Bill Gates has pledged $57m over five years to help protect young people in Africa against the threat of HIV and Aids" and with a caption under Gates' picture that reads: "Bill Gates: History of donations to fight disease".

And why is there no CowboyNeal option? Honestly.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Frizzle Fry]

Gates is just another business man, like Ellison, Jobs,

Quickly skimming the page, I thought you can just likened Gates to Elton John.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

I read in "the road ahead" by BG that he was involved with his charity work and it wasnt just from his wifes urgings. Maybe you should cite a source before making a controversial comment?

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

yes. I imagine that he renamed the Bill Gates Foundation to "Bill and Mellisa Gates Foundation" AFTER they got married? What? There was no giving BEFORE Mellisa? All the initial giving was by Mellisa the Bill Gates Parents? Bill gates was not involved for the first 2.5 years of the foundation? Say it isn't so.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

My standard argument response is: "If my parents donated $10 million to every county in the US and $1 million to every STATE in the US, but they were found connected to a string of animal slayings, child pornography or destruction of peoples's lives, should they be allowed to get off the hook, just because they give a shitload of money?

What a complete bullshit comparison. All you're doing is showing yourself an idiot and devaluing the people who have actually been victemized by child poronography etc by comparing it to a software company. If you honestly think that what MS has done is any way comparable to your example you really have some serious problems.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

if Gates died tomorrow, it would affect the economy a lot more than if Linus died tomorrow.

It would hardly affect the economy at all. Microsoft stock would drop sharply, that's all. Do you expect Windows XP to suddenly stop working, or what?

Gates has given more to charitable organizations than Linus will ever make in his life.

And Gates has made more money dishonestly than Linus will ever make in his life (there's little doubt that Microsoft's consistent pattern of lawbreaking is driven by Gates). What's your point?

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

They're both wankers, they deserve that spot ;)

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[yuri benjamin]

if Gates died tomorrow, it would affect the economy a lot more than if Linus died tomorrow.

If Gates died tomorrow, and if that death caused Microsoft sales to decrease (I don't see how, but who knows? - it might), then it would affect the economy, but not in a bad way.

Non-IT companies who use IT would have more money to spend on what they do best if they weren't paying hefty IT licenses and hefty IT support costs.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[rastakid]

Every time I post, slashdot runs a port scan on 80, 1080, 3128, 8000 and 8080. wtf? anyone else?

That's probably to check if you're a proxy server. If so, you are allowed to do more posts in a certain amount of time, to avoid blocking thousands of Slashdotters who are surfing through their ISP's proxy servers.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. Shutting down competitors in the market (I know, unfairly, but whatever) is equivalent to child porn. Between this and your earlier post where you pointed out how little TV you watch and justified your use of a lower-case 'm' in Microsoft, I'm beginning to think that you are an out-of-touch, pedantic blowhard. Corporate murder? Jesus!

BTW - I am perfectly aware that this is an ad-hominem attack. Suck it up.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[einhverfr]

I'd say Gates is more important. Mostly because if Gates died tomorrow, it would affect the economy a lot more than if Linus died tomorrow.

What makes you think that the mere death of either Gates or Linus would have any real impact on the economy at the moment?

Yet there is only one aspect where they do have impact: Both are incredibly gifted public speakers-- if you ever watch Gates speak he radiates this sense of fascination with technology, and in this way, he can motivate others to be interested in Microsoft.

Linus is equally the effective public speaker but in a very different way. Linus can say about anything and avoid having it be political. He is an extraordinary convincing speaker because he not only is fascinated by the technology but understands things he talks about enough to explain things in very simple english sentences.

Both individuals have a sort of "quiet charisma" which has allowed their pet projects to be successful. But neither one is so indispensible that their projects won't continue strongly after they are gone.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[einhverfr]

the question is who is more influential at setting trends, not who has the most current influence over trends which are already established. These are separate issues.

Also, people tend to use Bill as a stand-in for Microsoft and Linus as a stand-in for the Linux communities. Trying to separate these things is difficult, so I will try to look at what these people are doing now and what influence they have over emerging trends.

Bill is no longer the CEO of Microsoft, and has some nebulous title regarding his work doing software achitecture. What exactly Bill does these days regarding Microsoft's internal operation is somewhat of a mystery to me. My suspicion is that he is involved in product strategy. But he was not the primary achitect of Microsoft's .Net framework or any other products that I can see.

OTOH, Linus is extremely closely involved in the architecture of the Linux kernel His technical influence is limited to this endeavor.

So?

With Linux on the rise in cell phones, embedded consumer electronic devices, etc. we have Linus to thank. I am not sure that any current Microsoft trends can be directly attributed to Bill.

Score: Linus 1, Bill 0.

The second issue is their effect on popular culture and their ability to motivate average people to look into technology. Bill has a serious advantage here. Many people have heard of Linus but they don't know who he is, or maybe if they are above average, they know that he came from Finland.

Score: Linus 1, Bill 1

Third issue is their ability to convince businesses to buy into their vision of the future of computing. Both are extraordinarily good at this. Linus is clearly better at this than anybody else in the OSS movement primarily because he makes very radical suggestions in a very mild-mannered and quiet way, as if the whole point of life is to have fun with everything.

I would give the point to Linus here. We are seeing more and more businesses buying into the concept first of Linux and later into the ideas of open source software. This is an emerging trend which is far more fundamental than anything coming out of Microsoft. I think that the Linux adoption is at least in large part due to Linus's amazing but invisible leadership skills.

So my score is Linus: 2, Bill: 1.

In my book, Linus wins for influence over emerging trends.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Drawkcab]

And other people who donate to charities are selfish because all they care about is making themselves feel good or looking good to others. Its silly to try to dissect people's motives for giving. He's given more than would have been necessary just to seem nice. And he could always have married a 20 year old model and spent just a few million on creature comforts to keep her happy, if his motives were so terrible.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[hazah]

Popularity, and influence, are two distinct concepts. Popularity projects an influence, but influence does not rely on the existance of popularity.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[nitrocloud]

If William Gates died tomorrow, the company would not change. Gates has only limited say in the matters of Microsoft. If someone assasinated the whole board of directors, that'd be different.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Gates is Karma whoring on the world stage. He has so much money he can afford to toss millions around just to improve his public image.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[sjwt]

or you could look at it this way,
without the evil(tm) MS gates would anyone realy care about Jobs or Torvalds.. Lets face it, i think Gates/MS had made those two what they are today.

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[cfuse]

This isn't a popularity contest.

Aren't all polls of this kind?

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[blengino]

Do you expect Windows XP to suddenly stop working, or what?

Yes, dailly, then reboot ;)

Re:Linus Is much more important than Bill Gates

[davidsyes]

Get a grip. I was not "devaluing" the victims of pornography or exploited children. I was pointing out the MAGNITUDE of complacency among consumers, and the level of corruption among many CEOs, boards of directors, and the lawmakers who supposedly are on the side of good, or good policy.

The point is that if IIII had gates' money, and were myself not outspoken, I could buy off just about ANYone, even if the sheepish public bought my shit but mildly hated my guts. At that level, I could be the corporate Mugabi or Manson and probably still get off the hook. (Sigh, I can see it now... gates, Mugabi and Manson in the same short paragraph...)

t3h winnar

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, goatse of course...

No

[gowen]

... the most interesting thing is that #1 is a guy from the BBC. As they look to digitise their content, the BBC is carving itself a really nice niche on the Web -- a World Service for the 21 century.

Re:No

[Mr Guy]

It's funny how World Service is changing people's lives. I've found more and more these days one of my primary news sources is out of Bejing. My guess is that's because they are putting out new releases right about when I look for news, so Google news tends to stick them toward the top of the stack.

Re:No

[nwbvt]

This is slashdot. No one here is interested in real news if they get to make fun of Gates instead.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

I too use that chineese news service. You just have to be carefull, for topics important to the regime it is a propaganda arm of the government.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

what the heads of intel, oracle?

Scary scary bloke

[Space cowboy]

[This is possibly more 'yro' than 'it' but the consequences are truly scary for the UK if this man gets his way]

Look at number 5 - David Blunkett. This man makes all other (previously thought to be totalitarian) Home Secretaries in the UK look positively liberal. To recount:

• Wants to introduce compulsory biometric ID cards, despite massive opposition
  
• Wants to DNA-sample all Europeans and be able to cross-reference them in a db.
  
• Has enacted legislation forcing all telecoms companies (phone,'net,...) to monitor their users. The aptly named 'RIP justice' bill.
  
• Wants to monitor ex-criminals with satellite technology. Note the important bit is these people are potential re-offenders!
  
• Wants to greatly increase the number of cameras around the UK
  
• God knows what else...
  

Sure he's an agenda-setter, but Vlad the impaler had an agenda. It didn't make it a good agenda, unless you happened to be Vlad himself...

Simon.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[gowen]

The aptly named 'RIP justice' bill.

Except thats not what its named. Its called the 'Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act' (previously the RIP Bill). No mention of the word "Justice". Yes, its a horrible piece of legislation, but thats no excuse to pretend its name is different from what it is.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[zev1983]

But look how much crime went down under Vlad!

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Space cowboy]

My mistake - it was supposed to be 'RIP' (justice!) but my brain failed to communicate to my hands.... The 'justice' part was supposed to be an obvious addition - I accept that it's not.

Simon

Re:Scary scary bloke

[gray peter]

Who said they were limiting it to a good agenda? Kind of like the Time Man of the Year. Plenty of the winners have not been good men, just powerful...

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Space cowboy]

I suspect the euro-wide dna scan is actually to find someone he can nominate as his successor, assuming he already has some of Vlad to compare everyone to... (can you tell I'm not a fan ? [grin])

Simon

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Stegano]

If David Blunkett has his way then days of GATTACA aren't far away and then we will need one too many Vincent to democratize the system. Its really Scary.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Coryoth]

But look how much crime went down under Vlad!

Well yes. He had a novel solution to poverty as well. He invited all the poor and homeless to a huge feast. Once they were gathered inside and were enjoying their meal, he had all the doors sealed, and burned the place to the ground. After that there were no poor in Wallachia - well, no one would admit to it anyway.

Jedidiah.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[16K Ram Pack]

The danger with things like DNA databases isn't if people use them properly, than if they abuse them.

And of course, it won't be by a government who were just a little economical with the truth over Iraq.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[micromoog]

The danger with things like DNA databases isn't if people use them properly, than if they abuse them.

Rather, when they abuse them.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd that slashdot would find people being burned alive funny...

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Greyfox]

The Romanians I've talked to get touchy when you mention Vlad. They speak fondly about how in Vlad's day you could leave a bag of gold on the street and no one would touch it. I mean, sure, he impaled a couple of folks, but was he REALLY such a bad guy?

If I were in power, my regime would have impaling. Our current methods of gently killing people don't seem to be much of a deterrent, but I bet all those violent criminals and spammers would tow the line if they knew they were risking impaling. Bruce the Impaler. Has a bit of a ring to it...

Re:Scary scary bloke

[jimicus]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the RIP act one of Jack Straw's babies?

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

And how is he different from either blair or Bush/Ashcroft ? I see none.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[hackstraw]

Wants to introduce compulsory biometric ID cards, despite massive opposition

Many people would consider me a tin foil hat conspiracy theory nutjob, but even I don't have a problem with this. After all, I'm required to provide a picture ID to do anything that requires and ID, and that is a weak form of biometric ID.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[katorga]

"Big Brother" Blunkett. Once his "agenda" is in place, elections will no longer matter in G.B. Every political person will be under the thumb and control of the groups managing the surveillance state. Step of of line and oops....the PMs DNA suddenly appears on a murder victim. Etc. etc.

It will make a GREAT novel.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[hesiod]

> Odd that slashdot would find people being burned alive funny...

Anything is funny, in the proper context.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Look at number 5 - David Blunkett. This man makes all other (previously thought to be totalitarian) Home Secretaries in the UK look positively liberal.

This is scary for those of us in the US too, because the UK is basically a beta test site for totalitarianism in the US. This will continue to be the case for as long as George W. Bushoco and his lapdog Tony Blair remain in power in their respective nations.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect if he gets his way and SkyNet is born, the guy currently at number 33 will start climbing the charts.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

Just another sad fact of humanity, I guess.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

If you define your own crimes as legal then I guess Vlad did drive down crime.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Gilmoure]

In the US, while the airlines will tell you to provide a picture ID to get a boarding pass, they won't actually tell you the law that requires this. WTF? The government can't publish a law requiring people to show a picture ID? They say it classified. How the hell can you expect people to obey a classified law?

Most likely, they know the law is illiegal and would be struck down by the courts so they just try to BS people into following their wishes.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Hoi Polloi]

I guess a moderator thought the victims were MS Windows fans.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[fyonn]

and every joke* is at someones expense

dave

* that has any claims on actually being funny

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Coryoth]

If I were in power, my regime would have impaling. Our current methods of gently killing people don't seem to be much of a deterrent, but I bet all those violent criminals and spammers would tow the line if they knew they were risking impaling.

Let's just be clear on what impaling meant - it wasn't just getting a sharp stick rammed through you. It was getting a (usually blunt) pole inserted in your rectum, and then having the pole stood vertically supporting you so your weight inexorably pushed the pole up through you. Death took days of excruciating agony. Crucifixion is a lark by comparison.

Jedidiah.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[billimad]

now if you had said "Roy the Impaler" I would have believed you.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

from Blunkett's Bio on the site:

With an eye on the future, it seems Blunkett will carry on his agenda setting pace, making sure technology insinuates its way further into the lives of even the most ordinary of British citizens.

Knowing that the guy is blind, I wonder what sort of future, he is "seeing", hopefully not mine, but somehow at this point it feels rather likely that it will. And no I don't like him at all either, he freaks me out.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Citizen of Earth]

But look how much crime went down under Vlad!

In other news, when you count the crimes committed by Vald himself, the crime figures are up by 200% from previous figures.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[wickedj]

Isn't this the part where he gather's dna from Vlad, Napolean, Sun Zu, Ghengis Khan, Montezuma, Alexander the Great, Ivan the Terrible and Sgt. Slaughter all to form the new Cobra leader Serpentor?

Re:Scary scary bloke

[hesiod]

> Just another sad fact of humanity, I guess.

I see it as the opposite. If we couldn't joke about things, we'd all go mad from stress. It's one way we deal with it.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[davidsyes]

Or, would that be "Bruce the Almighty Impaler"

In Mother Brucedom, crime impales YOU!

While you're at it, add to the list of impalees a bunch of dirty, corrupt legislators, and civil administrators. Not all of them, just the top 2% known to be on the take. Impale them and turn them like roasted pigs, but over a low, slow flame. Crisp their ass and let the critters go.

(Note: Impaling does not necessarily mean putting a pole or a splintered fiddle vertically up someone's ass and out the back of their skull, for some people would say "I'll run you through" (as in with a sword to the liver or kidneys) and consider that impaling. But, the vision of impaling has its effects...)

Re:Scary scary bloke

[fyonn]

yes, but no ID is foolproof but biometric ID will be considered to be much stronger than any other, even though its as weak as a passport or drivers licence. but being considered stronger it gives people a false sense of security and thus weakens the system as a whole. remember that a biometric ID does not prove who you are, it only proves that you've the same guy as put his dna (retina scan, colonic map) on the card. and how do you get said biometric id's? I imagne you have to present existing ID, like I dunno, a forgeable passport, forgeable drivers licence etcetc.

also it's the idea of there being a single database with all your info on it. right now the data is spread about quite a bit. with everything in one place, and everyone asking for the same ID (that no doubt logs into the gov database to check data) then you can be tracked across the country as you ID yourself. and who has access to this data? any copper is likely and that's got to be a bad thing. and what about bad data. how can you correct it if you don't know it's there, but it could ruin your life. now bad data currently can cause trouble, but it's kinda limited by the number of places that check that data source. when everyone checks one data source, that is run by the gov, then wtf do you do? even my mum thinks it's a bad idea and she knows little about technology.

not forgetting that in the UK we are not bound by the names we are born with. if I wish to become known as Mandy, I have every right to do so and no-one can tell me I'm wrong (well, they can but.. well, you know :) as long as it's not done for the purposes of deceit, there is nothing wrong with it.

*sigh* I wrote and complained to my mp, did you?

dave

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Brandybuck]

Geez! That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy that we colonists got stuck with Ashcroft :-)

Re:Scary scary bloke

[mobby_6kl]

Oh, so that's how the goatse guy got his infamous ability...

Re:Scary scary bloke

[segfault7375]

...It was getting a (usually blunt) pole inserted in your rectum, and then having the pole stood vertically supporting you so your weight inexorably pushed the pole up through you. Death took days of excruciating agony....

Yeah, well he did mention spammers.. so what's the problem?

Re:Scary scary bloke

[killjoe]

The impalers were experts at missing the vital organs so the death would take as long as possible. The stakes were usually arrayed in a public place so that the entire population could witness the agony of the victim.

If something like this was proposed today I bet a lot of people would be for it though. Not a majority for sure but I bet a good 40% of the people would approve of impaling terrorists.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[phlipant]

yea, but at least he`s high tech.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I bet a good 40% of the people would approve of impaling terrorists.

Hey, as long as I get to choose the terrorists, no problem...

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone over there had any balls, this David Blunkett guy would be a grease spot.

This kind of thing is the best reason I can come up with for owning a gun. It gives the ability to say NO when the secret police come to get you.

All you anti-gun people can just go quietly when they come for YOU.

Oh - you say "that won't happen" because you are a law-abiding
citizen ? Well, I guess you haven't read much history...you should
start with "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich".

By the way :

I hate violence, but I am quite willing to employ it to prevent myself from being victimized. If you disagree, then be prepared to be a victim...

Re:Scary scary bloke

[visgoth]

"Y'ever read about Vlad the Impaler, man? Awesome dude with the spikes? He's my hero."

-Frankie "Haywire" Gordon
Jagged Alliance 2

Re:Scary scary bloke

[MikeXpop]

They speak fondly about how in Vlad's day you could leave a bag of gold on the street and no one would touch it.

I'm told that's how things are in Singapore now. Because punishments are so harsh (caning, unthinkable fines), crime nearly ceases to exist.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[k98sven]

But what about non-blood relationships?*

Although I don't think a DNA scan would be necessary.. AFAIK the Basarab family (that of Vlad III) is not extinct.

Although the Basarab name alone is not distinctive. Moldova, which was once part of Wallachia, was named 'Basarabia' (after the family) when it was a Russian province, so there are people originating from there named 'Basarab' too.

(*An ancestor of mine (Mátyus Maróti, 1446-1476) was a brother-in-law to Vlad III.)

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

that was a hilarious comment! ah, 80s cartoons...

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea no kidding. USA has already passed similar laws above.. And BBC has also lost all credibility.. The list is a joke..

Re:Scary scary bloke

[kevmit]

"Death [by impaling] took days of excruciating agony. Crucifixion is a lark by comparison."

'Could be worse...they could STAB you.'

Re:Scary scary bloke

[yuri benjamin]

I bet a good 40% of the people would approve of impaling terrorists

Depends on how the label "terrorist" is applied.
I would agree with punishing people for what they do, not what they are.
eg. killing or attempting to kill lots of people is bad. Holding the opinion that America is the "Great Satan" and that all Americans should die is not a crime. Some actions resulting from such an opinion are a crime.

Then there's the ever creeping extension of the term "terrorist" being applied to all sort of nonsensical situations.

eg. there is no such thing as a "Cyberterrorist". It is impossible for a hacker to make my computer explode killing everyone in this office.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[killjoe]

"Depends on how the label "terrorist" is applied."

Wow. I was half expecting a response like this.

Why is impaling somebody OK no matter how horrible the crime?

Better yet. What kind of a person actually wants to see somebody impaled on a stick and suffering for days while slowly dying.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

man your fuckign stupid to think getting stabbed with something is anywhere near this death by impaling up the ass...

or in the modernized thigns to do in denver when your dead, get shot and left in a dumpster.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[haggar]

How is this informative? Everyone knows this stuff.
Besides, the post isn't completely accurate, either. According to accounts from chronicles, it's known that:
- The pole was sharp and not blunt.
- The condemned would usually die within the same day, in a few hours in fact. Exceptions were the ones that had to be punished particularly severely, in which case the executioner would receive explicit orders to extend the agony of the condemned. The executioner would achieve this by carefully routing the sharp end of the pole around any vital organs. As this is a delicate and time-consuming process, my guess is that it was rarely performed. Expecially if you consider that impaling was usually used to punish a larger group of people and there would never be enough "trained" executioners.

And strangely as it may sound, impalation is not the most terrible form of death penalty. The infamous "Hundred Pieces" must have been more terrifying. The details are left as an excercise in imagination to the reader.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[BasilBrush]

Note the important bit is these people are potential re-offenders!

You are surprised that "ex-criminals" are assumed to be potential reoffenders? It's hard to come up with a more likely group!

But you are misrepresenting the case. There's nothing "ex" about it. These are people that have been given a curfew or exclusion order as an alternative to a prison sentance. They have not yet paid their debt to society. They are not "ex".

BTW, as a law abiding citizen, I feel I have much more to fear from what criminals get away with doing than I have from technology being harnessed to make the police's job in detecting crime easier.

Slashdot is funny! If the topic of guns come up, the majority will defend to the ends of the earth the right to bear arms and shoot trespassers dead on the spot. Yet the prospect that they might be videoed walking down a public street, or have to identify themselves to the police sends them into paranoid fits.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[WhiteDeath]

I see plenty of computers impaled on SPAM and spyware, and slowly dying...

seems to fit quite well to me...

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least it gets you out in the open air.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[yuri benjamin]

Nowhere in my post did I say I agree with impaling. My post was aimed at those supposed 40% to point out the irrationality of "approving of impaling for terrorists" due to the fuzzy definition of "terrorist".

I agree with you POV on this.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[$hecky]

To elaborate, this mice-eating-the-bad-man-in-the-tower myth, like the myth about the Countess Margaret of Henneberg's 365 children, is a staple of continental Europe. If it doesn't predate the historical Hatto, it probably comes close.

The Hatto version probably became dominant because of its association with a the tower you mention; Henneberg is likewise remembered in a plaque in a Loosduinen church -- visited by none other than Samuel Pepys (and recorded in his diary). But even though she dates from the late 13th century, there's evidence the myth is a few hundred years older. It got sort of set-in-stone through association with a real place.

I think Jan Bondeson writes about this in The Two-Headed Boy. I'm sure someone who knows the book better could get things more right.

Nate

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

I think someone must have impaled you through your anus, but only until you were brain dead.

It was a joke. Laugh, son.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[killjoe]

I must have misunderstood your post. Sorry.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Sique]

In theory you are right. The association of the tower in the Rhine with mice has to do with the fact, that the terms for "toll" (Maut) and "mouse" (Maus) are very similar in German. So the "Mausturm" was in fact a "Mautturm" (toll tower). It's probably founded on the remainings of a frankonian fortress (6th century), and it's unique position in the Rhine made it strategically important. Behind the Maeuseturm starts a 100mls long, narrow valley with difficult and deep currents, where the Rhine breaks through a mountain range. The famous Loreley rock is not far away.

The nearby town of Bingen was on paper a Free Town (freie Reichsstadt), meaning that it had to be loyal only to the Emperor. But the archbishops of Mainz managed to get the town in a close dependency to their diocesy and managed to draw the profits to them, probably to do with their control over the toll stations through the countryside, including the Maeuseturm in the Rhine.

On the other hand Hatto II was archbishop only for two or three years (968-970), which hints a sudden and probably non-natural death.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[lachlan76]

Our current methods of gently killing people don't seem to be much of a deterrent

Well, they are only killing people: impaling would be considered torture, and therefore unconstitutional. Not to mention that no-one really deserves that kind of punishment. All you are doing is stooping to their level.

And don't forget, no matter how hard you try, you will convict innocent people. Think that they should get tortured to death too? At least with current methods they don't have to spend several hours in extreme pain to die.

DISCLAIMER: I am against capital punishment anyway

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Kjella]

Hey, as long as I get to choose the terrorists, no problem...

It's the queers. They're in it with the aliens. They're building landing strips for gay Martians, I swear to God

Somehow, I believe you might not be the right person.

Kjella

Re:Scary scary bloke

[mdwh2]

Firstly, a picture ID isn't compulsory. People like myself are more against the compulsory part than the biometric part, especially if after the introduction of it, more and more places start requiring ID (or in the extreme case, it becomes compulsory to carry).

Secondly, when I show photo ID to someone, they don't scan a copy to keep on their own database, but this is exactly what anyone requiring ID will be able to do (and as much as I'd like to think this was tin foil hat conspiracy stuff, remember that this is what the US Government have openly said they are doing with fingerprints of foreigners who enter the country).

Re:Scary scary bloke

[hesiod]

> and every joke* is at someones expense

Why did the man throw the clock?
To see time fly!

Granted, that hasn't been considered funny for years, but it does have a "claim." And unless you think "the man" is suffering here, it's not at anyone's "expense."

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Greyfox]

Hey if you wanna make an omlette...

So we'd have to spend some time dealing with those bothersome paragraphs in the constitution. Or convince the courts that spammers and terrorists don't feel pain the same way we do, or something, so it's not "cruel and unusual" to impale them. It should be pretty easy with the new "if you don't agree with the leader, you're a terrorist" policy. Besides, I think it's a small price to pay for a spam free e-mail box and an anthrax-free mailbox, don't you?

'Course that's probably why I don't have a corrupt regime at this point. Heh heh, I'll leave it up to you to figure out how much of that is actually serious...

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

no...No...NO, AC Noob. You missed the Monty Python reference. Ergo...you suck. Your penance is twelve continuous hours of Jabberwocky.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[lachlan76]

Its worth it for the spam free mailbox. I can live with the anthrax threat though.

Re:Scary scary bloke

[Anonymous Coward]

The Romanians I've talked to get touchy when you mention Vlad.

The Catholics I've talked to get touchy when I mention Pius XII but is this the reason to forget about history? I don't think so.

Well, of course

[savagedome]

Cowboy Neal

My thoughts

[DraKKon]

I bet the lkids would say Jobs.. as teh iPods are al the rage.... geek would say Linus... general public would say Billy..

Re:My thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would it be Linus? How does controlling the direction of the Linux kernel possible make him the most influential person in tech?

Re:My thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet the lkids would say Jobs.. as teh iPods are al the rage.... geek would say Linus... general public would say Billy..

That is a sad thing, but true. To the general public, Bill Gates is the personification of 21st century technology. All through the 1990s, all I heard from my mother was "don't you want to get a good job and become successful like Bill Gates?" Uhhh, yea, by falling ass-backwards into a lucky opportunity that happens once every century to someone? There will never be another Bill Gates in our lifetime... Microsoft was a fluke. He was in the right place at the right time and screwed the right people to make it all click.

Re:My thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

"Uhhh, yea, by falling ass-backwards into a lucky opportunity that happens once every century to someone"

There is nothing called lucky opportunity. Unless you are smart and prepared enough when luck or whatever comes calling, you won't make it.

Re:My thoughts

[maddskillz]

I shouldn't even bother responding to an AC but... Maybe he isn't on par with many of the others, when it comes to technical talent, but to say he was just lucky to create Microsoft is a bit of an understatement. Of course being in the right place at the right time is always good for business, but Microsoft has done it over and over, and nobody on earth is that lucky. Was it just luck that everyone used MS-DOS? Was it luck that they switched to windows instead of OS/2? Was it luck that they switched from Wordpefect to Word? Was it luck that people switched from Netscape to Explorer? To say that these changes happened because of technical superiority would be folly, but it is surely not luck. Bill Gates was very good at business, and that's why Microsoft is doing so well. You might not like his tactics, I know I don't, but they really worked.

Re:My thoughts

[Gilmoure]

It's all who you know. BG's mom was on the same national charity board as a VP from IBM. Strings were pulled and BG and co. suddenly had a chance to deliver a drive controller to IBM. After that, they used a lot of cunning to drive MS to the top of computing business.

Re:My thoughts

[pk2000]

"Uhhh, yea, by falling ass-backwards into a lucky opportunity that happens once every century to someone"

There is nothing called lucky opportunity. Unless you are smart and prepared enough when luck or whatever comes calling, you won't make it.

Chance favours the prepared mind!

Have'nt they ever heard of Viagra?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wait, IMPORTANT......

Re:Have'nt they ever heard of Viagra?

[Xoro]

No Viagra, but Sarin came in at number 17.

Somebody should tell Bush. I hear he's been looking all over for this guy.

Even more depressing

[CodeWanker]

And the most depressing thing is that there's only two chicks in the top 50. Tho someone named "Tata" oughta count.

Re:Even more depressing

[RobotRunAmok]

Hmmmm... what to make of a post dripping with heart-felt concerns about gender equality that nevertheless refers to women as "chicks?" ...and, no, I'm not touching the whole "Tata" thing...

Re:Even more depressing

[GigsVT]

Why depressing? Are you also depressed that the NBA is full of black people?

Re:Even more depressing

[CodeWanker]

If I were looking for dates in the NBA, then yes. I'm SO over the whole "large black men" part of my personal life.

Re:Even more depressing

[ScriptMonkey]

Thats right. Its rude to call a broad a "chick".

Re:Even more depressing

[Anonymous Coward]

I was talking to a magazine photographer who was shooting pictures of the R&D group I was in, and she asked why there weren't any females in the group. I asked her why she didn't get into doing computer research. She said computers are boring. I said "Well, there you go!". I told her that in the 3 years I've been at the company, I haven't even seen a resume for a woman looking for an R&D job. She thought we were sexist or something.

Re:Even more depressing

[drinkypoo]

Pamela Finklestein : "Broads don't belong in broadcasting"? Is that the kind of professional courtesy you teach your news department?
R.J. Fletcher : Why, that's a terrible thing. I don't know how many time I've told those boys, never call chicks broads.

Re:Even more depressing

[EyesWideOpen]

Tho someone named "Tata" oughta count.

But not someone named Ashley (the No. 1 guy from the BBC)?!

Re:Even more depressing

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'm not touching the whole "Tata" thing..

This being /., none of us are ever going to touch the "Tata" thing.

Re:Even more depressing

[Anonymous Coward]

Given he calls himself Code Wanker what can you expect - You do know what wanker means don't you?

if you think about it...

[dijjnn]

it makes some sense i think. The big battles right now are in corporate IT, where microsoft and gnu/linux are taking big bites out of commercial unix platforms in terms of installation base and spending. So, the two are one in terms of big things on the horizon.

The real question is, what happens when Microsoft and companies like Suse, redhat, and even IBM start competing head to head -- what's going to happen then?

Please rig our poll

[rde]

To do my bit for pseudo-democracy worldwide, I tried to vote; when I did, though, I was asked to vote again. And again... wonder did my vote count at all. Damn, it's just like living in Florida.

To commit heresy, though: should Linus be that high on the list? Sure, he's influential in linux, and linux should be represented, but in the happy world of IT shouldn't some Red Hat or Suse guy be higher?

In case you care, I voted for Hu Jintao. I don't share the judges' belief that vendors will dominate in China, and I reckon that Hu could well in years to come cause geeks much angst as they support his open source policies while being less fond of his oppression policies.

Re:Please rig our poll

[chamblah]

I had the same thing happen to me when trying to vote.

I was using Firefox to view the poll. Then I opened up IE and was able to vote with no issues and also see the vote results.

Re:Please rig our poll

[Anonymous Coward]

The importance of Linus Torvalds is not that he invented Linux, per se, but that he invented easy worldwide collaborative software development. Although Stallman had GNU before him, it was more of an "ivory tower" kind of thing.

Re:Please rig our poll

[jonadab]

> To commit heresy, though: should Linus be that high on the list? Sure, he's
> influential in linux, and linux should be represented, but in the happy
> world of IT shouldn't some Red Hat or Suse guy be higher?

Who at Red Hat or Suse would you rate higher? The most influential person I
can think of at Red Hat is Alan Cox.

It's not that Linus is so influential he's single-handedly changing the world;
it's more that very few individual people have that much influence, taken one
at a time. Microsoft is incredibly influential, but what _one_ person at
Microsoft is really that important? Gates hasn't _personally_ overseen the
_actual_ development in a long time; he's a figurehead -- an important one,
but a figurehead nonetheless. RMS at least still (I'm told) contributes to
actual development, though he's really not critical to any particular project.
Linus is very active in kernel development, but no more so than a dozen other
people. Wall is deeply influential in language design, but that's more of a
long-term thing; we won't see the results of that until years from now, when
the software people use on an everyday basis is being written in languages
influenced by Perl6 (though, already searching is better in many apps because
of the influence Perl had on regular expression engines in various languages
and tools, including grep -- but that's in the scheme of things really only
a relatively small matter).

Who would _you_ put on the list?

but n1 technologist....

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.siliconagendasetters.com/technologists. htm

Say what is Bill Gates doing in that list? He didn't know DNS was an acronym already in use on the Net, he doesn't know much of the technical aspects of his own product... What gives? How can we trust this list?

Re:but n1 technologist....

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't know DNS was an acronym already in use on the Net

Really? Never heard that before - do you have a reference? (I'd like to use it in the future :o)

Re:but n1 technologist....

[pilgrim23]

I remeber hearing back when the Pentium 1 166mhz was king that at that time Bill's machine of choice was a older 386 laptop he lugged about. This could all be urban legend though. Knowing Bill, he probably acts like Andy Groves and uses...A Mac :)

Re:but n1 technologist....

[niteice]

he doesn't know much of the technical aspects of his own product

And he gets to be chief software architect for Longhorn?...do you see some pointy-haired boss logic go ing on here?

Google

[TheFlyingGoat]

Larry Page and Sergey Brin? Granted, they may not be as high as a lot of the other people on the list, but they should be on it. How many other companies are having as big of an impact on the Internet as Google? Not many.

Re:Google

[16K Ram Pack]

Particularly a list with RMS in there.

Granted, he was one of the pioneers in the Free Software movement, but what's he done in the past 12 months? I'd say that PJ on the Groklaw site has achieved more in the past 12 months.

Re:Google

[CrazyTalk]

Google is ubiquitous, but if there never was a google, would things be that different? We would still have yahoo, perhaps altavista, go.com, and other search portals and technologies.

Re:Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually...I think this was addressed:

No. 9 Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO, Google Larry Page and Sergey Brin may have founded Google, but it's Eric Schmidt who's shepherded the company from kooky start-up to big-time public concern.

Re:Google

[marsu_k]

Larry Page and Sergey Brin? Granted, they may not be as high as a lot of the other people on the list, but they should be on it.

I'm high almost on daily basis. Should I be on the list?

Re:Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not forget Steve Wozniak, who created the Apple I and II computers. The Apple II was probably one of the most important microcomputers. Steve Wozniak did a fantastic job and he should be on the list for sure.

Re:Google

[Bob Uhl]

Yeah, but I never just typed stuff into those other search engines and expected (rather than hoped) to get an answer. Google is part of what makes things like Linux possible: I can get technical information on my monitor even if I've lost my manual; I can read HOWTOs and debug problems in seconds.

Part of it, of course, is that the web was smaller when those other engines were around. But somehow I don't see them ever having the consistent and reliable quality of Google. Google has become a kind of information utility.

Bill is in 8th place after Linus

[leguirerj]

Since there is no 8th place person, Bill must be 8.

Re:Bill is in 8th place after Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Good work there Sherlock. We were all so confused about that.
Guess who gets a gold star sticker. That's right! It's you!

From the blurb:

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

...but perhaps most interesting is the fact that the panel of judges couldn't separate Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates - they are tied in seventh place.

Is there any difference between the two men? Don't they both more or less control an operating system that is freely distributable, freely modifiable, strongly based on standards, with rock solid performance?

Re:From the blurb:

[Phragmen-Lindelof]

Windows can be "rock solid" - if you remove the power cord. Security is never a problem in an unpowered Windows computer.

Re:From the blurb:

[lowe0]

Funny, my copy of Windows is rock-solid as well, and the power cord's right where it's supposed to be.

Re:From the blurb:

[LilMikey]

Funny, my copy of Windows is rock-solid as well, and the power cord's right where it's supposed to be.

I see you are like me. Your copy of windows is securely on the shelf right between "Computers for Dummies" and "How to speak AOL".

Re:From the blurb:

[lakcaj]

You got the "freely distributable" part right -- wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Re:From the blurb:

[lachlan76]

I don't know how I survived before I downloaded Cygwin...it makes my life worth living (my parents bought me a computer with a Winmodem, then a CD jukebox with only Windows drivers...I'd put on Fedora, if it weren't for the jukebox (i get ADSL in a week, so no modem to worry about)).

Re:From the blurb:

[lowe0]

Meh... that's what I have my Mac for. A Unix shell when I need it, and not when I don't.

Re:From the blurb:

[lachlan76]

Haven't used Macs much, but do they have X11, or another windowing system that I can redirect over a network?

Re:From the blurb:

[Demolition]

Yup, Apple offers X11 for Mac OS X. See this webpage. A link to the free download is in the right sidebar.

D.

But what about ...

[Anonymous Coward]

me?

Re:But what about ...

[General Wesc]

Anonymous Cowards are a vital part of the Internet community. I guess the judges don't consider anonymity important.

And that's why I'm posting this while logged in. I don't want to jeopardise my chances of getting on the list.

Linus and bill tied...

[Squapper]

...clearly shows that there where 50% Linux-users and 50% Windows-users in the jury.

Re:Linus and bill tied...

[halivar]

...clearly shows that there where 50% Linux-users and 50% Windows-users in the jury.

Or those dastardly Linux commie-hippies are voting multiple times. It's Chicago '63 all over again! Nooo!

Where's the cowboyneal option?

[bcarl314]

Oh wiat, this isn't a /. poll.

Article Mod -1 Flamebait (NT)

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

NT May Stand for:

"No text" -- said to describe email messages or forum posts whose subject line contains the entire message and whose body is blank

Wiki

Me

[clockmaker]

I am the customer.

I am the most important...

Re:Me

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll buy what eWeek tells you to buy.

Re:Me

[seanvaandering]

I am the customer.

I am the most important...

That is, until you called tech support... ;)

Re:Me

[Mordaximus]

Ideally you're right. Unfortunately, most large companies act as though the shareholders are the most important.

Re:Me

[SanLouBlues]

Wrong. You are a customer. No more important than any other customer. Less important than any group of customers.

Re:Me

[Anonymous Coward]

No, its Me, an AC - Annonymous Customer.

Re:Me

[lachlan76]

Can software exist without people to buy it? Yes, it's possible, but it would never happen. Can software exist without developers? Not possible at all.

No Separation?

[TheUnFounded]

Linus has created a model, from which dozens (hundreds?) of additional creations have been made, ranging in purpose from full-fledged supercomputers to OS-on-a-chip. Bill has created a monopoly, who's empire pulls the rug out from under people left right and center. While I don't think its difficult to determine which has had the BETTER impact on technology (and society), I can understand the difficulty in determining who had MORE of an impact.

Re:No Separation?

[Anonymous Coward]

What impact on technology? Linux is a 70's kernel... nothing new!

Re:No Separation?

[maxbang]

You're giving him more credit than is due. His kernel would never have taken off if not for the GPL. In that case I would argue that rms and his lawyer friend created the model. That said, Linus for #1.

Only one way to figure this pressing question out.

[TrevorB]

CELEBRITY DEATHMATCH!

Karma to anyone who can actually call the match.

Re:Linus

[kevin_conaway]

Think again

Steve just fills a role?

[System.out.println()]

I disagree about Steve just filling a role. When Steve left Apple, Apple started to suffer. It wasn't until Steve returned in '97 that the 'new Apple' really started to kick ass.

Re:Steve just fills a role?

[nordicfrost]

Steve is actually mostly good for one thing. But, he fufills that role a lot better than similar positioned CEOS. He is the visinary. Steve can imagine how people would want to use the computer and create a row of products in that general area. That is to say, he manages tp pick a line of three products, where two fail and one is a smash hit. Others do the technical work (Woz, we love you!) but the projects that Jobs manage are strongly influenced by his vision. That said, I'd rather work for Saddam Hussein or Dubya before Jobs.

Bill Gates is a marketing nerd, wich is the worst kind of nerd.

Re:Steve just fills a role?

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF. You are insane. But I hear Saddam needs a good lawyer or two. Or maybe you want to try out his next acid chamber thing........or other forms of torture.

Re:Steve just fills a role?

[Anonymous Coward]

Three things you really should give Steve credit for: publicity, recruitment, and leadership.

Publicity: Cover of Time magazine. Cost to Apple, $0. Value as an ad placement? Maybe twenty million bucks if you could buy it.

Recruitment: He's done an amazing job of filling Apple's roster of VP's with some of the smartest people you'll ever see (Ron Johnson, to name one, is freakin' brilliant).

Leadership: look at the product line.

Re:Steve just fills a role?

[nine-times]

When Steve left Apple, Apple started to suffer. It wasn't until Steve returned in '97 that the 'new Apple' really started to kick ass.

Yeah, I'm not sure what it is (I haven't devoted much time to figuring it out, and I don't pretend to be a Steve Jobs expert), but at the very least, Jobs seems to have a talent for getting people excited and making things happen. I don't just mean with die-hard mac loyalists, either.

I keep seeing references to the "Steve Jobs distortion field", and maybe that's his great contribution: he's a terrific PR man. Everything I hear says he's horrible to work for, but however it works, he does seem to get good work out of people. People who work at Apple believe in their products, and Jobs seems to be a central figure in keeping that culture.

Re:Steve just fills a role?

[miller701]

I remember the first "Stevenote" I saw, it was of the color NeXTstation. I would have sold a kidney to get one of those.

The past two "Stevenote"s haven't been as 'Rah Rah Rah", I guess that's what happens when systems mature. It makes one wonder what is in store for OS Eleven.

Re:Steve just fills a role?

[drsmithy]

Yeah, I'm not sure what it is (I haven't devoted much time to figuring it out, and I don't pretend to be a Steve Jobs expert), but at the very least, Jobs seems to have a talent for getting people excited and making things happen. I don't just mean with die-hard mac loyalists, either.

Apple's market is "cool stuff". They don't compete on price, they compete on "cool stuff". Steve Jobs is good at coming up with "cool stuff", so he's good for Apple. The times Apple were in trouble were the times Apple were trying to compete on value, features, etc and not "cool stuff".

I keep seeing references to the "Steve Jobs distortion field", and maybe that's his great contribution: he's a terrific PR man. Everything I hear says he's horrible to work for, but however it works, he does seem to get good work out of people. People who work at Apple believe in their products, and Jobs seems to be a central figure in keeping that culture.

It's actually the "Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field" - or RDF for short.

silicon.com

[caluml]

You have been redirected to this page during a temporary period of planned downtime. We apologise for any inconvenience this work may have caused you. silicon.com should be available shortly and we encourage you to visit us again soon.

/.ed already

[Bin_jammin]

The poll has been taken offline temporarily for a period of "scheduled maintenance" whoops...

Re:/.ed already

[sjalex]

They saw the article on /. and quickly scheduled some maintenance.

I guess they don't want tech people to vote

[mahdi13]

You have been redirected to this page during a temporary period of planned downtime. We apologise for any inconvenience this work may have caused you. silicon.com should be available shortly and we encourage you to visit us again soon.

-The silicon.com Team

Re:I guess they don't want tech people to vote

[mahdi13]

Poll is up now...time to vote in the very slow slashdotting way =)

Re:I guess they don't want tech people to vote

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Which one is the CowBoyNeal option?

Re:Linus

[SamiousHaze]

I doubt that, the BSD source code controversy was resolved, and you'd have gotten FreeBSD and of course minix in the OSS "market".

Jobs is most important!!

[Ced_Ex]

Jobs, as in careers. Who doesn't want a stable steady challenging Job.

As for Steve Jobs? What has HE done for me LATELY?

I'm appalled.

[fresh27]

It disgraceful that Britney Spears didn't even make the top 50 this year. Without her, I don't think Google would ever get any searches.

Re:I'm appalled.

[Procrastin8er]

Semi-nude images of her (jpeg, gif, etc..) traversing the Net account for approximately 50% of the total traffic. ;-)

Planned slashdotting

[RabidChipmunk]

Yes, we planned this. We schedule a slashdotting once a year to keep our IT people on their feet.

Re:Planned slashdotting

[JamesTRexx]

I thought it was an anti-internet-terrorism drill?

Would that also make /. a terrorist organisation? (not looking at the many extremists it already consists of..)
:-P

Re:Planned slashdotting

[ultranova]

Slashdot has over a million members, so it would be condsidered an army and not a terrorist organization. Or possibly a large group of enemy combatants, depending from how much room Camp X-Ray has left...

Impressive

[mentalflossboy]

I didn't realize that you can schedule ./ing now.

Re:Impressive

[mhesseltine]

I didn't realize that you can schedule ./ing now.

Sure you can. It's as easy as

1. Create a site with lots of images/video/other large files
2. Submit your site with a story
3. /.ing

Perhaps the ranking make sense:

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Gates and Linus are not as much involved in everyday development as they used to be, so they are not so influential anymore. Now Steve Jobs, on the other hand, still has his hand in the development of new products (for example, he helped personally simplify the iPod's menu system in terms of usability, IIRC).

Also, Apple seems to lead the innovation in many areas, with Windows and Linux behind (I am mainly talking about things like usability of the operatig system, etc).

Re:Perhaps the ranking make sense:

[ViolentGreen]

I think Steve Jobs has the edge here too, but for another (though related) reason. Apple tends to adopt new technology before it becomes mainstream features in the Wintel world. For example IEE1394, wireless networking, 64bit processor, hard drive mp3 players, wide-screen "media notebooks" and bluetooth.

I think if you look at the features on apple machines today such as 64bit processors, back-lit keyboard on notebooks and the one-button mouse (ok I jest) it's a good indicator of where the wintel world will be in the near future.

Worst [Reasoning] Ever...

[jaymzter]

I realize the heading of this is "Agenda Setters", but c'mon! The majority of the reasoning behind Gates' placement is based on vaporware:
whether that be seamless computing, the much-awaited Longhorn OS or the promise of 64-bit chips.
Gates continues to make security an agenda
I realize PHBs suck this crap up, but you'd think there would be good _technical_ reasons to give Gates such a high placement. The article read more like it was apologizing for the man.

DEK?

[xx_chris]

Perhaps this list needs some garbage collection. DEK (Donald E. Knuth) is an elder statesman of technology, but he isn't the 30th most influential person in technology. Isn't.

Re:Linus

[rpdillon]

Well, there was GNU before there was Linux. Maybe it wouldn't be as popular, but there would be OSS. Thank Richard Stallman for that.

Please, please, this post isn't meant to start a flamewar of Richard Stallman vs. Linus Torvalds, I'm just saying OSS would probably exist without Linus.

The site is slow. Here's the list.

[oncee]

• 1. Ashley Highfield
• 2. Steve Jobs
• 3. Niklas Zennstrom
• 4. Tom Ridge
• 5. David Blunkett
• 6. Richard Granger
• 7. Linus Torvalds
• 7. Bill Gates
• 9. Eric Schmidt
• 10. Marc Benioff
• 11. Sir Peter Gershon
• 12. Marten Mickos
• 13. Meg Whitman
• 14. Sir David Tweedie
• 15. Jonathan Ive
• 16. James Murdoch
• 17. Arun Sarin
• 18. Rupert Murdoch
• 19. Sven Jaschan
• 20. S Ramadorai
• 21. Karen Price
• 22. Lawrence Lessig
• 23. Ian Foster
• 24. Jonathan Schwartz
• 25. Joe McGeehan
• 26. Vivek Paul
• 27. Sam Palmisano
• 28. Eric Abensur
• 29. Martin Varsavsky
• 30. Donald E Knuth
• 31. Len Hynds
• 32. David Levin
• 33. John Connors
• 34. Michael Dell
• 35. Azim Premji
• 36. Ben Verwaayen
• 37. Daniel Egger
• 38. Van Honeycutt
• 39. Jon Rubinstein
• 40. Mark J Cox
• 41. Hu Jintao
• 42. Dan'l Lewin
• 43. Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley
• 44. Richard Stallman
• 45. Ratan Tata
• 46. Michael Powell
• 47. David Sainsbury
• 48. Andy Duncan
• 49. Bernard C Soriano
• 50. Simon Davies

Re:The site is slow. Here's the list.

[StillDocked]

You honestly are the greatest person on the planet. Why aren't you in the top ten for your service to /. and it's readers!!!

Re:The site is slow. Here's the list.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not slow - they're just having a "temporary planned downtime", heh!

You have been redirected to this page during a temporary period of planned downtime. We apologise for any inconvenience this work may have caused you. silicon.com should be available shortly and we encourage you to visit us again soon.

-The silicon.com Team

And even that loads slowly. Backup servers dying too?

Re:The site is slow. Here's the list.

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

So the question is... who are these people? Am I just a clueless idiot, or are 37 of the most influential 50 people completely anonymous? They could be names out of a hat as far as I know.

# 1. Ashley Highfield
# 3. Niklas Zennstrom
# 5. David Blunkett
# 6. Richard Granger
# 9. Eric Schmidt
# 10. Marc Benioff
# 11. Sir Peter Gershon
# 12. Marten Mickos
# 13. Meg Whitman
# 14. Sir David Tweedie
# 15. Jonathan Ive
# 16. James Murdoch
# 17. Arun Sarin
# 19. Sven Jaschan
# 20. S Ramadorai
# 21. Karen Price
# 25. Joe McGeehan
# 26. Vivek Paul
# 28. Eric Abensur
# 29. Martin Varsavsky
# 31. Len Hynds
# 32. David Levin
# 33. John Connors
# 35. Azim Premji
# 36. Ben Verwaayen
# 37. Daniel Egger
# 38. Van Honeycutt
# 39. Jon Rubinstein
# 40. Mark J Cox
# 41. Hu Jintao
# 42. Dan'l Lewin
# 45. Ratan Tata
# 46. Michael Powell
# 47. David Sainsbury
# 48. Andy Duncan
# 49. Bernard C Soriano
# 50. Simon Davies

I only recognized 13 of the 50, and I work in IT, read "InformationWeek" and other junk like that for the sole purpose of trying to stay on top of this kind of thing.

# 2. Steve Jobs
# 4. Tom Ridge
# 7. Linus Torvalds
# 7. Bill Gates
# 18. Rupert Murdoch
# 22. Lawrence Lessig
# 23. Ian Foster
# 24. Jonathan Schwartz
# 27. Sam Palmisano
# 30. Donald E Knuth
# 34. Michael Dell
# 43. Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley
# 44. Richard Stallman

Re:The site is slow. Here's the list.

[CrazyTalk]

Where's Al Gore, inventor of the internet???

Re:The site is slow. Here's the list.

[zygote]

I clearly am clueless idiot redux. When I saw No.1 (Ashley Highfield) it was surprising because I'd always just considered her a hottie reporter from MSNBC.

Re:The site is slow. Here's the list.

[Anonymous Coward]

Darn, I'm at number 51. I missed the list by *that* much.

/ Anonymous Coward

Re:The site is slow. Here's the list.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know who Hu Jintao is? Are you retarded?

Jon Rubinstein and Jonathan Ive work for Apple. Michael Powell, of course, is chairman of the FCC.

Re:The site is slow. Here's the list.

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

My guess is that less than 90% of Americans know who Hu Jintao. And less than 50% of /. readers.

Now that you mention Michael Powell being chairman of the FCC, the name does indeed make my "familiar with them" list.

Re:The site is slow. Here's the list.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh... this Ashley Highfield?

Re:The site is slow. Here's the list.

[UserGoogol]

Michael Powell runs the FCC and is Colin's son.

Re:The site is slow. Here's the list.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know who Hu Jintao is?

Isn't he a japanese porn star? ('intao' is japanese for 'dick', isn't it?)

Re:The site is slow. Here's the list.

[ggy]

Uhm, if this is the list, haven't they already shown that Torvalds is more important? I mean, both B and G should be sorted higher then L and T. Or am I missing their sorting order?

Re:The site is slow. Here's the list.

[dickrichardv8]

This can't be the right list; There ain't no Nascar drivers on it?

OT: Your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

What have we been attacking for the last few years? Sure as hell isn't terrorists... oh yeah.... IRAQ.

BTW, way to drop the t-word to incite fear and rally the mindless masses to your side.

Re:OT: Your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrorists prefer Bush anyway. Having a one dimensional cartoon-like figure for an opponent helps to rally their minions.

Re:OT: Your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

Now be fair. Terrorist organizations membership numbers may be down with Bush in office but their recruitment numbers are through the roof.

Re:OT: Your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

If George Bush didn't exist, the terrorist would invent one.

The funniest slashdotting message. Ever.

[div_2n]

How originial:

You have been redirected to this page during a temporary period of planned downtime. We apologise for any inconvenience this work may have caused you. silicon.com should be available shortly and we encourage you to visit us again soon.

-The silicon.com Team

Re:Linus

[mobby_6kl]

If there were no Linux, there would be BSD.

The world would be a b^Hdifferent place.

Re:Exception

[Ryan.Merrill]

I'd hardly say that Gates is non technical. I doubt he could have acheived to head one of the largest money making coorporations without starting from somewhere, and he dind't have millions of programmers when he started with BASIC back 30 years ago. Not that I'm saying he's any better than Torvalds but Gates does have great technical abilities.

The lost for those who didn't make it in...

[clockmaker]

1. Ashley Highfield 2. Steve Jobs 3. Niklas Zennstrom 4. Tom Ridge 5. David Blunkett 6. Richard Granger 7. Linus Torvalds 7. Bill Gates 9. Eric Schmidt 10. Marc Benioff 11. Sir Peter Gershon 12. Marten Mickos 13. Meg Whitman 14. Sir David Tweedie 15. Jonathan Ive 16. James Murdoch 17. Arun Sarin 18. Rupert Murdoch 19. Sven Jaschan 20. S Ramadorai 21. Karen Price 22. Lawrence Lessig 23. Ian Foster 24. Jonathan Schwartz 25. Joe McGeehan 26. Vivek Paul 27. Sam Palmisano 28. Eric Abensur 29. Martin Varsavsky 30. Donald E Knuth 31. Len Hynds 32. David Levin 33. John Connors 34. Michael Dell 35. Azim Premji 36. Ben Verwaayen 37. Daniel Egger 38. Van Honeycutt 39. Jon Rubinstein 40. Mark J Cox 41. Hu Jintao 42. Dan'l Lewin 43. Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley 44. Richard Stallman 45. Ratan Tata 46. Michael Powell 47. David Sainsbury 48. Andy Duncan 49. Bernard C Soriano 50. Simon Davies

Well..

[puke76]

If you're talking about who's been most influential in holding back computing by about 10 years.. I believe Mr Gates wins hands down.

Before I get modded down to oblivion (or up, this is slashdot), look at where the real innovations come from; it isn't Microsoft, unless you count the small companies that it assimilates once they come up with something promising.

An example: with the iPod, Apple is setting a new standard for mp3 players, and there's healthy competition. What is Microsoft setting the standard in? (apart from it's own standards..)

I don't think Mr Gates can be considered influential, next to others who are actually shaping rather than strangling the industry. My opinion, YMMV etc.

Re:Well..

[Pharmboy]

From what I read of the article (just as the /.ing began...) its about influence, good OR bad. Keeping this in mind, BGates has certainly created influence in the industry. His draconian licensing terms has created a bigger interest in GPL and BSD licensing (and others). His insistance on a closed software model has created more interest in open source projects like Apache.

He did make it affordable to get a useable computer on mom's desktop, and easier to get it infected. Some of the most ingenious programming *IS* viruses and trojans, which Windows has provided a viable platform to run on. Try writing your own smtp server and remote control server, all in a few K of space, from scratch. Not child's play.

I don't mean to bash him, not everything he has done is bad. You don't become the most successful software company by doing everything wrong, after all. But he IS one of the most influential persons in the industry, if for no other reason than his methods inspiring others to provide an alternative to his products.

Re:Well..

[vakuona]

Mr Gates is shaping the industry alright.

Try strangling yourself and see if the shape of your throat doesn't change.

Re:Well..

[DogDude]

Before I get modded down to oblivion (or up, this is slashdot), look at where the real innovations come from; it isn't Microsoft, unless you count the small companies that it assimilates once they come up with something promising.

Cute Star Trek reference, but it's irrelevant. The fact is that MS brings products TO MARKET, and packages them so that they are useful. There are tons of small companies out there, but if they can't market, and if you don't know they exist, who cares? MS has made computing cheap and ubiquitous, something that no other company has come close to doing in the relatively short history of PC's. I could write the greatest piece of code on the planet while sitting in my basement, but that doesn't matter if nobody ever gets to use it.

Re:Well..

[hackstraw]

I don't think Mr Gates can be considered influential

I don't either, but then again I don't consider Michael Dell any more influential either. He just owns a mail order company that sells computers.

Re:Well..

[DunbarTheInept]

MS has made computing cheap and ubiquitous

False. That was the IBM-PC cloners. Even at MS's inflated profit margin, the cost of buying the OS is irrelevant compared to the cost of the hardware.

Re:Well..

[JabberWokky]

Uh... the word "assimilate" is part of the English language. It appears in _The Life of John of Barneveld_, published in 1618 and is likely older than that (I just Googled Gutenberg for it and checked the first couple returns).

If I use the phrase "you are obsfucating the issue", I'm not making a Vampire the Masquerade reference.

--
Evan

Re:Well..

[k2dk]

I do not agree. Mr. Gates is _the_ most influential guy in the business. There are few on the list that he could not take out of business should choose to do so. He could easely kill Apple (M$ even owns part of it) skype or kazaa could be build into windows anytime and who would then download the independent programs if a network of all windows users were readily availble?

M$ does not innovate. Thats not their business. Their business is to make money. So they wait and see which applications are successfull, and voila if they are free on the net, they appear in windows for free too (ie, mediaplayer, firewall) ...

On the other hand, if there is a market where all competitors charge, they simply make a compeeting product (usually simpler) and make it easy to use. (sql server, office)

So they have success. Not only through being a monopoly but also through analysing their competitors and trying to see how they can improve their programs, and how they can make them simpler so that ordinary people can use them. - Something Linux, Oracle, IBM and so on could learn a lot from.

Also, M$ has a mantra of making it easy for the developers to make programs for their platform. Consider VB and dotnet. Especially VB really sucks from a computer science perspective, but it really have enabled a lot more people to produce programs than for example c has. (or at least it is a lot easier). And this is one of the reasons why M$ won windows vs. os/2. They gave away their developers kits, while IBM charged $20000 a piece. Guess where the garage developers of the early 90's put their developing efforts? And have you noticed how there is a lot of code examples and documentation for dotnet and vb on the net, while oracle and ibm has almost none?

So to recap.

1) m$ enter platform
2) m$ makes it easy to program for their platform
3) a lot of companies makes a lot of programs for m$'s platform
4) m$ picks the winners of 3) and buys them or hires their best developers and makes a competing product, preferably bundling it with other m$ products for a synergy effect, and definetly making it easier to use.
5) profit (a lot)
6) Bill Gates is the world richest man, and quite more powerfull than the top 50 it people.

Phew, that was a lot. Thank you for reaching the bottom.

Now, consider what you would do if you have any power over Linux, Symbian, IBM, SAP or any other company with a platform worth defending. I don't think they are doing very well. And I simply cannot believe how stupid the execs of the above companies are.

Re:Well..

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

BGates has certainly created influence in the industry. His draconian licensing terms has created a bigger interest in GPL and BSD licensing (and others). His insistance on a closed software model has created more interest in open source projects like Apache.

I think you're giving Microsoft far too much credit. There has always been freeware, since the dawn of personal computing, it's just that today some of it comes with random abbreviations and personal philosophies attached.

Whether that's an improvement on simply giving your stuff away out of charity is left as an exercise for the reader, but either way, it's hard to see how Microsoft has really contributed to it. I doubt many people or companies really choose GPL alternatives to MS software because of the open sourceness. It's just that there aren't a lot of credible alternatives in some markets right now.

Re:Well..

[Anonymous Coward]

Many would claim it's because Microsoft is a very influential company. However, I'd say Gates are the least influential because of it. Remove Gates from Microsoft top post, and you feel nothing missing. Microsoft's momentum as a big company will keep pushing it forward regardless the loss of Gates or other executives.

Imagine open source movement losing Linus. That will be a big blow for OSS movement and in turn a big blow to the industry. Or imagine Apple losing Jobs (again). The first time almost killed Apple. If Apple had died, the industry'd have lost a very innovative company.

Linus and Jobs should be in the top 5 and Gates somewhere in the middle to last.

Re:Well..

[DogDude]

False. That was the IBM-PC cloners. Even at MS's inflated profit margin, the cost of buying the OS is irrelevant compared to the cost of the hardware.

And what were people supposed to run on PC's, exactly? What good is a cheap PC with no software? The cheap PC's didn't start happening until MS DOS was popular. Other than Apple, there is no other company making a relatively cheap OS that "just works". And Apple is famous for their hardware lock-in (which is why they never got to be nearly as big as MS). So other than MS, what is there? OS/2 was a contender for a while, but that was after MS DOS and Windows had already taken off. Hell, even today, there's *STILL* no real competition. Linux *might* be a PC competitor in 5 years, but that's still a ways off. Gates was responsible for personal computing as we know it today. I'd say that's pretty important. Which would explain why Gates is the wealthiest person in the US, despite the fact that MS is a relatively new company.

Re:Well..

[dark_requiem]

Much as I hate to have to sing the praise of anything Gates and M$ do, I have to say, as someone who has just begun programming games, Direct3D is a pretty good API. Granted, not portable like OpenGL, but still very feature-rich and functional.

Re:Well..

[merdark]

How was this modded up?

From wordnet:

1. influential (vs. uninfluential) -- (having or exercising influence or power; "an influential newspaper"; "influential leadership for peace")

If the man who created the company whose OS runs 90% of the worlds computers in addition to having a total monopoly on office software is not considered to be influential, than no one is. Influential does not mean "innovative". Gates most certainly does have influence, LOTS of it.

If Microsoft made Office for Linux, bang, linux would instantly become a major player on the desktop. That is influence. Likewise, if Microsoft put DRM into a Windows XP service pack, and refused to patch copies without this pack, then 90% of the worlds desktops would have DRM. Just like that. Influence. (Ok ok, lot's of people run other versions of windows, so less than 90% of desktops would be affected, but you get my point).

Slashdot, where we like to redefine words to push our agendas?

Re:Well..

[DunbarTheInept]

The cheap PC's didn't start happening until MS DOS was popular.

While this is technically true, there's no cause/effect link between them. MS-DOS 1.0 predates the cloning of IBM PCs, and it pre-dates the ubiquitous nature of the IBM-PC design. It's a bit like saying automobiles didn't become popular until after the Cotton Gin, and therefore Eli Whitney is responsible for the popularity of cars.


And Apple is famous for their hardware lock-in (which is why they never got to be nearly as big as MS).

That's not the reason. It's because they were targetting the "I'm not a computer geek and don't want to be one" market at a time when the majority of home computer buyers were computer geeks and resented this. Microsoft didn't start trying to make their system work that way until after the marketplace started to fit that model better.


Gates was responsible for personal computing as we know it today. I'd say that's pretty important.

Yes, that is important. It just that it happens to be false. Everything useful MS did was something where someone else had done it first. Hell, even MS-DOS 1.0 itself was just someone else's product that they purchased and renamed (CP/M). But in business it is typically NOT the first cutting-edge group that ends up being financially successful - it's the ones that wait and let someone else test the waters first that do the best.

Re:Well..

[gryphokk]

The fact is that MS brings products TO MARKET, and packages them so that they are useful.

Sometimes that's the fact. Sometimes the fact is that MS buys up companies for no other reason than to squelch a competing product, or weaken another platform.

Blue Ribbon Software's brilliant MIDI/Multimedia Bars & Pipes sequencer package (Amiga) is but one personally mourned example.

Assimilated, then buried.

Re:Well..

[drsmithy]

False. That was the IBM-PC cloners.

Whose product was only viable because of Microsoft's OS...

Re:Well..

[Pharmboy]

I doubt many people or companies really choose GPL alternatives to MS software because of the open sourceness.

This is EXACTLY why we use it, as well as many others I know. I want to be able to use any software with any other software. I want to modify my software, even tho I am not much of a programmer. I want to be able to use the software any way I want, instead of having a license define for me HOW and WHERE I can use it.

I started using RedHat in the 4.x days, although not seriously until 6.1. It was quite raw back then. I didn't use it because it was easier or more powerful, I used it because it had more freedom, with the difficulty of use being the price I was willing to pay to have the freedom. It isn't about price either, since I have paid for support for Linux for years. The cost of the software and support is a very small portion of the actual cost of ANY software. In my experience, Linux and Linux applications can cost more to install and maintain, but allow easier expansion, so they can help create more profit for the company in the long run.

Part of the advantages, to me, was that it is easier to get different open source software packages to work together than closed source packages. Sometimes I can hack together some Perl to allow this. While I can do this with Windows applications (ironically, using Open Source apps like Perl...), it is easier on the Linux platform because of the documentation. How programs work is not hidden, whereas most Windows programs deliberately hide HOW they work, insisting that if you need extra functionality, you should buy X module or application. They force you to buy or install more crap than you really need or want.

So yes, Bill Gates HAS influenced me to seek open alternatives. I don't grudge him for it, since his actions have helped me personally, by causing the creation of even more open source programs than were even thinkable before 1991. And now several companies get my money for software and support, instead of just Microsoft.

Re:Well..

[HuguesT]

This is soo true. This was a master stroke from Gates to negociate the right to licence DOS to third parties from IBM.

Re:Well..

[HuguesT]

You are making a Kinq Henry the VIIIth reference

> "you are obsfucating the issue"

Obfuscating (spelling, btw), from the OED

1. trans. To cast into darkness or shadow; to cloud, obscure. a. In figurative contexts.

1536 Act 28 Hen. VIII c. 10 The..usurped auctorite of..the pope..which did obfuscate and wrest goddes holy word.

Re:Well..

[DunbarTheInept]

False. You could buy IBM's version of DOS in stores.

Re:Well..

[Ohreally_factor]

There are few on the list that he could not take out of business should choose to do so. He could easely kill Apple (M$ even owns part of it) skype or kazaa could be build into windows anytime and who would then download the independent programs if a network of all windows users were readily availble?

Wrong. You're mythologizing Gates and MS, and you're not even supporting you myth with facts. Firstly, MS does not own a significant piece of Apple, if they own any at all. Those non-voting shares they bought in 1996 (I think it was) were long ago sold at a nice profit. Secondly, if they can so easily brush aside with a wave of the hand other companies that compete with them, why haven't they done so? The very fact that there are Apples, Novells, IBMs, Redhats, Suns seems to fly in the face of your contention that "there are few on the list that [Gates] could not take out of business". Besides, if he killed Apple, who would he have to do R&D?

So to recap.

2) m$ makes it easy to program for their platform

They encourage sloppy programming and engage in it themselves. They make it easy to program viruses and worms for their platform.

3) a lot of companies makes a lot of programs for m$'s platform
4) m$ picks the winners of 3) and buys them or hires their best developers and makes a competing product, preferably bundling it with other m$ products for a synergy effect, and definetly making it easier to use.

I like how you make illegal anti-competitive practices all warm and cuddly, using marketspeak doubletalk like synergy, and bringing up "ease of use".

6) Bill Gates is the world richest man, and quite more powerfull than the top 50 it people.

Richest does not make him the most influential. You've failed to prove your thesis statement. The ability to crush small companies and to stifle innovation might be a better argument for Gates' influence, but when you go to the zoo, do you point at the biggest gorilla and say, "That one there is the most influential"?

Re:Well..

[JabberWokky]

You are making a Kinq Henry the VIIIth reference

Clearly an "Are you Hot or Not" reference.

--
Evan

Ouch

[phrostie]

that's gotta hurt

500???

[Pharmboy]

You have been redirected to this page during a temporary period of planned downtime.

So they EXPECTED to get slashdotted?

Re:500???

[kraada]

Of course they did. They subscribe, so they can see new articles early, and boy are they glad they did!

Re:500???

[Just Some Guy]

"No one expects the Slashdot Effect!"

Re:500???

[nuggetman]

"No one expects the Slashdot Effect!"

NOBODY expects the Slashdot Inquisition! Our chief weapon is trolls...trolls and open source...open source and trolls.... Our two weapons are trolls and open source...and repeated articles.... Our *three* weapons are trolls, open source, and repeated articles...and an almost fanatical devotion to Linux.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as trolls, open source.... I'll come in again.

Re:Article Mod -1 Flamebait (NT)

[Anonymous Coward]

So a comment on the article isn't on topic?

Re:Mr. Torvalds is NOT an agenda setter

[dijjnn]

the parent should really be modded -1 redundant. Personally i'm tired of all the "who's better, linus, ESR, RMS" comments out there, and i'm doubly tired of the "RMS is CrAzY" comments out there.

Please, be original.

No Al Gore?

[wickersty]

How can Al Gore not be on that list!!?? He invented the Internet, for chrissakes!

Re:No Al Gore?

[Ohreally_factor]

Due to the confusing butterfly ballot that was used in this poll, many votes that otherwise would have gone to Gore went to Pokemon.

My vote goes to...

[rampant mac]

The guy who first posted porn to the internet.

Where ever you are, whoever you are, thank you.

Re:My vote goes to...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean this guy?

Re:My vote goes to...

[Spoing]

1. The guy who first posted porn to the internet.

You're welcome!

Awww...for old times, here it is again;

1. 0O

Re:My vote goes to...

[CdBee]

Back then it was all ASCII though - and it took forever on a compuprint line-printer. The risks of discovery were high and it took ages for the models to draw themselves in Wordperfect...

Re:My vote goes to...

[glitch23]

You are welcome.

Re:Linus

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

I agree with you that Gates should be the lowest of the three. He is, after all, only there because he owns a monopoly large enough that it can bastardize standards created by other people.

But I think Jobs and Linus should be tied, and higher on the list. Everything you said about Linus is true - he has helped spearhead the OSS movement. But Jobs has generally set the agenda that others follow. Linux has made great strides in making computers accessible to the extremely computer litterate who know what they want their computers to do. Macs have done an equally good job of making computers accessible to those who don't know so much about computers, but would really like to use them. Both men are equally committed to their respective causes.

I get the sense that Microsoft is not necessarily the reflection Bill Gates or his ideas. I think it does whatever amounts in the most profit. On the other hand, I think Jobs and Torvalds are both driven by idealogies. When asked why they made decisions, they respond with the term "should." As in: computers should do this, or operating systems should not behave like this.

I think that makes both of them better leaders and very high on this list.

Re:Exception

[Anonymous Coward]

Torvalds = Wrote a world class operating system from scratch ..meh..

From scratch? You wish. Even Linus doesn't claim that.

Idea for Slashdot Poll

[RAMMS EIN]

This would make a good idea for a /. poll. Throw in Theo de Raadt as well, for special effects.

My money is on Billy Gates, as I think he's responsible for much of what the PC software market is like today. For Linus there are the BSD geniuses, and while Jobs has achieved a lot, I don't think it stacks up against the achievement of the others.

No, it's Gates now, and maybe...

[turnstyle]

No, it's Gates now, and maybe Linus or Jobs later.

Pretty much any metric Gates wins: economicy, population of users, etc.

Which is not to say that Linus or Jobs or me or you might one day take the baton...

Re:No, it's Gates now, and maybe...

[Squinky86]

*sarcasm* but none of them would have been able to do their job without the technical prowess of Al Gore. He invented the internet, and with his continued work makes me wonder why he isn't on the list! Of course now, he's a bitter old man...but hey, he should have made the list!

Re:No, it's Gates now, and maybe...

[Tanktalus]

The metric is not popularity. It's bringing the most to technology. You don't need to be well-known to bring anything to the technological state of the world. For example, the average user doesn't know anything about Oracle or DB2. Chances are, though, that their money is tracked in one (or both) of these. Technologically, they are very important, but both would fail your popularity contest.

Re:No, it's Gates now, and maybe...

[davidsyes]

Hmmmm, if mshaft would quit screwing around with would-be and actual competitors, MORE would be brought to the tech table despite of or IN spite of mshaft, with or without their help (funding or inspiration).

Popularity should be based on integrity, honesty, unselfishness, and more, not on who's got the biggest treasure chest or family jewells. (Actually, I suppose if gate's parents had vastly less money, gate's and his parents' company would not have started up with as much of an arsenal to go after firms and people on a cherry-picking expedition... (Where is Capt Braxton or the Timeship Aeon when we need them?))

As for another passage I read in Linux User and Developer, in which an mshaft ranking officer (or someone quoted in the article) claimed ms "looked the video and music industry in the eye" and challenged them to prevent users from getting access to music, hell I would find it more believable to have read: "We paid them off. We showed them the benefits of vendor lock-in, the use of patents to hold competitors in check..."

Just how much did microshaft (lower-casing/deprecation of ms' name intentional/perpetual with me...) INNOVATE or CREATE? As I see it, they:

--encroach more insidiously than many or most others

--they hijack and shut down products they don't want on the market

--buy up what they want and through disgusting aspects of legalities and ownership slap their name on products they never created, and the pedigree is wiped out except by those who follow and meticulously track mergers and acquisitions or trawl through SEC filings

--still-birth and FUD would-be competitors out of existence by using false release dates and the sheer weight of their name with the goal of destroying their fledgeling competitors' funding foundation

--Pen Tablet: not new: sci-fi shows have demonstrated (even if fake) that such things are useful (for dramatic devices or props, or just to predict)

--GUI: it's an evolutionary thing; after all, for just how long would people stick with CLI and DOS boxes? That would be as bad as asking seeing people to learn Braille and touch a TV screen rather than SEE (But, more importantly they (as I recall) STOLE, ahem BOUGHT the GUI idea from Apple, who stole (or maybe bought) it from Xerox

http://www.semack.net/Articles/MicrosoftDoesntIn no vateTh.html

or Google:

http://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft%20stole %2 0gui%20from%20apple%20who%20stole%20from&ie=UTF-8& oe=UTF-8

)

--browsers: they cobbled some NCSA or near-time code and created one riddled with security holes, perpetuated them, and god branded as the crap it is: A MAJOR SECURITY HOLE

--security through obscurity? Hell, they get points for taking it to extremes, but even governments and intelligence agencies knew they couldn't keep secrets forever, so they assigned code names and covers for projects, often double-naming some super-sensitive projects

So, micostorf doesn't innovate much, but they sure as hell take things to the extreme, get credit for it when all they have is a loud-assed, mega marketing department, and a legion of acolytes, many of whom just need a job and either have real passion for ms, or successfully FAKE their passion just to lay claim to a check emblazoned with "microsoft" on it.

David Syes

Oh, boy! It's "Let's Adore the 'Geek Elite' Day"!

[Cryofan]

I guess I am probably not showing the proper amount of obesiance to those at the top of the hierarchy, but I just have to know why humans spend so much time pondering the minutaie of those at the top of the hierarchy?

The List!

[elijahao]

1. Ashley Highfield
2. Steve Jobs
3. Niklas Zennstrom
4. Tom Ridge
5. David Blunkett
6. Richard Granger
7. Linus Torvalds
7. Bill Gates
9. Eric Schmidt
10. Marc Benioff
11. Sir Peter Gershon
12. Marten Mickos
13. Meg Whitman
14. Sir David Tweedie
15. Jonathan Ive
16. James Murdoch
17. Arun Sarin
18. Rupert Murdoch
19. Sven Jaschan
20. S Ramadorai
21. Karen Price
22. Lawrence Lessig
23. Ian Foster
24. Jonathan Schwartz
25. Joe McGeehan
26. Vivek Paul
27. Sam Palmisano
28. Eric Abensur
29. Martin Varsavsky
30. Donald E Knuth
31. Len Hynds
32. David Levin
33. John Connors
34. Michael Dell
35. Azim Premji
36. Ben Verwaayen
37. Daniel Egger
38. Van Honeycutt
39. Jon Rubinstein
40. Mark J Cox
41. Hu Jintao
42. Dan'l Lewin
43. Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley
44. Richard Stallman
45. Ratan Tata
46. Michael Powell
47. David Sainsbury
48. Andy Duncan
49. Bernard C Soriano
50. Simon Davies

Re:Mr. Torvalds is NOT an agenda setter

[Anonymous Coward]

I ain't voting for ESR, he's not a regular /. reader! At least Bruce is one of us ;)

They forgot someone!

[irokitt]

Hey, where's Darl McBride!

1.- Bram Cohen

[cabazorro]

enuff said.

Re:Linus

[TechnoPope]

Actually, OSS software existed before stallman started the GNU Project. A lot of software was open source, distributed through local computer users groups. Programs were shared amongst people in the group. So even without Stallman's pushing, there would have been OSS.

AC wins award

[say]

AC, you have just won the award for "most off-topic flamebait ever" on Slashdot.

What does Linus do?

[SamSeaborn]

I rank the three as follows:

1) Steve Jobs runs a big successful computer company, envied by many for its impeccable style and cutting edge innovation and product design.

2) Bill Gates is an effective caretaker for the largest money-printing machine in the world. His products are not innovative and are far from perfect. He has no style and this is reflected in his products, but they are extremely popular. He's a good manager and an excellent card player.

3) Linus wrote a UNIX kernel and released it freely to the world. An innovative even important move, but other than that what does he do to garner such awe?

Sam

Re:What does Linus do?

[LilMikey]

So the guy who decided how the scrolly-wheel on the iPod ranks higher than the guy who decides what makes it into the Linux kernel? If this were "Marketing Weekly" or "Style" magazine I'd be all over Jobs but that's not the case.

Re:What does Linus do?

[mdfst13]

Linus continues to determine what does and does not get into the official Linux kernel. Mostly based on the advice of others, but his is the final decision.

Re:What does Linus do?

[HuguesT]

Arguably the iPod is the device that brought mp3 to the masses. Before it there was a morass of expensive but cheap-looking underpowered devices that didn't hold enough storage to make a significant difference between the mp3 players and a simple cassette player.

Now look around you, mp3 players are ubiquitous and the iPod has the largest market share (all models put together).

Since Apple is a legitimate company they also set up the first significant online store for music where you can actually buy mp3 tracks legally and cheaply enough instead of downloading them via some shady P2P mechanism.

The iPod is not a device reduced to its wheel, it has actually changed the way people listen to music, and also to the way music is produced and distributed. Is that significant?

Now Linus makes a lot of important decisions but there are way way more people listening to music than running a Linux box.

Disclaimer: I don't have an iPod, I don't plan to have one, I do run Linux. this is just an observation.

Re:What does Linus do?

[LilMikey]

iPod was a small next step in the evolution of the mp3 player. It just happened to be on top when the market burst. Yes, the uptake of mp3 players was slow and most people thought they were geek-only before but fundamentally there's not much special about the little white box other than it's stylish... and it's only stylish because people say so. I still think people are half cracked to buy one. There are players out now that are higher cap., cheaper, and higher quality.

Personally, I had a 32 mb Rio back when Diamond made them. It was the first common mp3 player on the market.

Number 1

[beattie]

I thought number 1 would be Darl McBride.

influence on tech

[l3v1]

So all this is about top 50 people influencing tech.

Then this all should go to Bill Gates. Why ? Because usually (and sadly) it's mostly not the guy who has the largest influence, but the money. This meaning if you can't persuade them, buy them or pay them.

Re:influence on tech

[polyp2000]

I'd have to disagree just a little bit ;)
Actually Bill Gates or Microsoft as a company are being influenced in big ways by people with much less money.

Think about how Open Source and Linux has changed the way Microsoft conducts its business. Would things like XP starter edition or "shared source" or even "trusted computing" be on the agenda if it wasnt for FOSS/Linux ethics and its proliferation ? Howabout all those virus writers exploiting the flaws and bugs in the operating system. These people are influencing IT in very big ways by putting security , openness and many of the issues we read about here every day on slashdot.

The only thing money allows you is purchasing power- the power to buy the little guy's technology or money to brute force competitors out of the marketplace.

I am not saying Bill G and his company are not influential because they are- only his influence is mainly concerned with twisting the arms of hardware manufacturers and using money and FUD to propogate his own monopoly, rather than being progenitors of new technology.

Nick ...

Re:influence on tech

[l3v1]

As it is, I can agree with most what you said. Just one thing. On: [...] only thing money allows you is purchasing power- the power to buy the little guy's technology or money to brute force competitors out of the marketplace[...] I tend to see more about this. What I mean is take for example BG's many "visionary" speaches on what people need, how technology will evolve, what our future digital home will look like, what formats will emerge, and I could go on. I usually get a headache when I hear how he tries to be a digital messiah every time he speaks

But given his money, he can actually make that happen. He can "persuade" certain other companies to take on his ideas and plans, he can "convince" organizations and companies on certains ways and formats they should adopt, he can follow very powerful (in the circles of the usual people most certainly) marketing and promotional strategies, and I could go on forever.

One could argue that some of their stuff would've emerged without their backing with lotsa cash, but that's only a typical "what-if" story. We'll never know. What's certain is that with all their money they can more easily go their ways than mostly anyone else.

Re:influence on tech

[Ohreally_factor]

The only thing money allows you is purchasing power- the power to buy the little guy's technology or money to brute force competitors out of the marketplace.

Don't forget the ability to buy politicians, which accords much power and influence.

Re:Linus

[Pharmboy]

OSS *DID* exist before Linus, he is just a great posterboy. To be honest, if Linux had not come around, the Hurd would probably be much farther along. I don't think the Hurd would be as developed as Linux is now, but many of the same people that are spending time on Linux would have spent time on it instead. The Hurd does predate the Linux kernel (can't remember how long).

The biggest advantage Linus had at the beginning was the ability to get others to pitch in and help, building a very large network of contributors. It appears he was better organized back when Linux was less developed than the Hurd, and organization matters.

Part of this may be because (right or wrong) people see Linus as non-political, whereas RMS's views seem to be more political. My bet is this attracted people who were neutral about the GPL and Free software, as well as the zealots. A bigger tent attracts more contributors.

Re:The funniest slashdotting message. Ever.

[jtwJGuevara]

It's obvious they planned for their inevitable slashdotting and put up a guise to decieve the rest of the world!!

Come to think of it, it can't be Linus.

[turnstyle]

Linus doesn't own anything. Really Linus is here used as a stand-in for the Open Source movement.

Otherwise, it would be prety easy to aruge that Tim Berners-Lee is more important than Linus.

Re:Come to think of it, it can't be Linus.

[theManInTheYellowHat]

I think that if anyone were to stand-in for the Open Source movement #44. Richard Stallman might do.

Re:Come to think of it, it can't be Linus.

[fiftyfly]

Linus doesn't own anything. Really Linus is here used as a stand-in for the Open Source movement. Otherwise, it would be prety easy to aruge that Tim Berners-Lee is more important than Linus.

0miportant != influential. Sir Tim certainly would have made the list in the past but it's hard to argue that he, as opposed to his body of work, has that kind of influence currently. If it were otherwise we'd, in all probability, befan boy lackies of who ever invented the abacus.

Re:Come to think of it, it can't be Linus.

[turnstyle]

"I think that if anyone were to stand-in for the Open Source movement #44. Richard Stallman might do."

Sure -- that is if we actually called it GNU-Linux as Stallman wishes we did.

But we don't, and we never will. Perhaps history crulely gave more fame to Linus than to Stallman, but that's what happened.

Re:Come to think of it, it can't be Linus.

[davidsyes]

How far would that make Richard Stallman from: ... Sonata No. 31 in Ab Major, Op. 110, 517. Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111, 533. ... Sonata 31 in Bb transposition - Domenico Scarlatti; Sonata 33 (original key) - Domenico Scarlatti; Sonata 33 in Eb transposition - Domenico ... ?

Re:Come to think of it, it can't be Linus.

[Mr2cents]

I don't even call it Linux, I call it Debian. It just implies the GNU system, and hints strongly towards Linux (ok, it *could* be Hurd, but someone in that case probably would mention it explicitely). It's just human speech compression, you rely on the receiving end having a brain. It has nothing to do with ideology, only with a healthy laziness.

Re:Come to think of it, it can't be Linus.

[jonadab]

> if anyone were to stand-in for the Open Source movement #44. Richard Stallman

RMS is to Linus as Leif Ericson is to Columbus: yeah, he was there first, but
hardly anybody knew about it at the time and even fewer people cared. It was
Columbus (or Linus) who did something that brought it to the world's attention.

The List

[MrNonchalant]

1. Ashley Highfield
2. Steve Jobs
3. Niklas Zennstrom
4. Tom Ridge
5. David Blunkett
6. Richard Granger
7. Linus Torvalds
7. Bill Gates
9. Eric Schmidt
10. Marc Benioff
11. Sir Peter Gershon
12. Marten Mickos
13. Meg Whitman
14. Sir David Tweedie
15. Jonathan Ive
16. James Murdoch
17. Arun Sarin
18. Rupert Murdoch
19. Sven Jaschan
20. S Ramadorai
21. Karen Price
22. Lawrence Lessig
23. Ian Foster
24. Jonathan Schwartz
25. Joe McGeehan
26. Vivek Paul
27. Sam Palmisano
28. Eric Abensur
29. Martin Varsavsky
30. Donald E Knuth
31. Len Hynds
32. David Levin
33. John Connors
34. Michael Dell
35. Azim Premji
36. Ben Verwaayen
37. Daniel Egger
38. Van Honeycutt
39. Jon Rubinstein
40. Mark J Cox
41. Hu Jintao
42. Dan'l Lewin
43. Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley
44. Richard Stallman
45. Ratan Tata
46. Michael Powell
47. David Sainsbury
48. Andy Duncan
49. Bernard C Soriano
50. Simon Davies

Re:Only one way to figure this pressing question o

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if it's a tag-team match, monkey boy Ballmer may be ferocious, but he's no match for Linus' kickboxing wife :)

Slash-smited

[bitswapper]

I
went to the main site, and it said this was a planned down time. Maybe slashdot should be called 'slashsmite'

Where are we on this list?

[Leroy_Brown242]

Without the general community, the infinite monkeys writing and using the technology, where would any of us be? Thousands of people, maybe tens-of-thousands sit down at their computer and support the open source community every day, where are they on the list? Milions of people every single day take advantage of windows and apple technology. Where are they on the list? I think "The geeks of the wrold" should be part of the list, if not "computer users of the world". Without us, Bill Gates would just be a nobody.

Re:Where are we on this list?

[micromoog]

I'm number 864,576. You're number 1,365,918.

Re:Where are we on this list?

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd, and here I thought you were number 206,608...

I guess I've been overestimating you, then ;)

In order of importance

[Xibby]

Jobs - Still visionary, still a good business man, still leading his company. Apple definitely won't be the same without him. Apple is what it is today because of him. Most importantly, he's Steve Jobs - of Apple. People listen to him.

Torvalds - Still visionary, still a good coder. Still has influence over Linux kernel, but not so much as he used to. Linux will continue without Linus. Linux is what it is because he started it and gave it to the community.

Gates - Bill Gates and Microsoft are no longer synonymous. The culture at Microsoft won't notice when Bill is gone. The only thing significant about Bill now is his bank account. Microsoft is what it is today because of lawyers, marketing, more lawyers, other people in MS, and even more lawyers. Bill Gates hasn't been relevant to Microsoft for some time.

Re:In order of importance

[AKnightCowboy]

Bill Gates hasn't been relevant to Microsoft for some time.

Bull. Windows, Office, and Visual Studio were all products single-handedly coded by Bill Gates himself. Sure, other people have taken on the tasks of maintaining it, but the true vision of these products started under his programming leadership.

Re:In order of importance

[DavidLeblond]

Bull. Windows, Office, and Visual Studio were all products single-handedly coded by Bill Gates himself. Sure, other people have taken on the tasks of maintaining it, but the true vision of these products started under his programming leadership.

Single-handedly? Uh, no. He didn't even single-handedly code BASIC if I remember correctly.

Re:In order of importance

[Russellkhan]

"Windows, Office, and Visual Studio were all products single-handedly coded by Bill Gates himself."

Talk about bull. Single handedly coded? How many lines of code is that? What exactly do the legions of programmers working for Microsoft do, if Bill is single handedly coding their biggest projects?

I'd also like to know who's the genius that modded parent interesting?

Re:In order of importance

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm trying to work out whether the parent post was meant to be funny or not before I reply...

Re:In order of importance

[AKnightCowboy]

I'm trying to work out whether the parent post was meant to be funny or not before I reply...

Neither. I'm just sick of various coworkers that fawn over Bill Gates like he's the Jesus Christ of computer technology. I honestly had an argument going with someone over whether or not Bill Gates invented web browsers. *sigh*. WTF is with this hero worship of this guy in the non-techie circles? Having $48 billion doesn't mean you're smart, it could just mean you got really fscking lucky... or if you're like the Waltons, you inherited it.

Re:In order of importance

[drsmithy]

WTF is with this hero worship of this guy in the non-techie circles?

It's much like the hero worship of that Torvalds bloke in Linux circles.

Having $48 billion doesn't mean you're smart, it could just mean you got really fscking lucky... or if you're like the Waltons, you inherited it.

Except in this case he *does* have it because he was smart.

Re:In order of importance

[Russellkhan]

OK, I must admit your irony was lost on me. I will however plead the excuse that it's really hard to pick up tone in written discussion - you sounded like one of the fanboys you were apparently trying to mock.

Re:In order of importance

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why did everything start to go wrong when Paul Allen left the company?

Re:Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

These kinds of lists are stupid anyway. My guitar teacher just showed me a Rolling Stone's best 100 guitar players of all time. Eddie Van Halen was like 57 or something and Curt Cobain was like 8. Sure, Nervana was cool, and Curt wrote good songs, but he couldn't play guitar worth a damn...certainly not better than Van Halen. In my opinion Curt shouldn't have even been on the list, much less be ahead of the likes of Van Halen, Almand, Johnson, Rhoads, Young, etc...

It was more a popularity contest than a true list of their respected abilities and innovation.

So, all I have to say about these kinds of lists, "What ... Ever."

NR

Obviously Jobs are most important...

[CatGrep]

I can get by without a gate, but I can't get by without a job.

Re:Obviously Jobs are most important...

[Anonymous Coward]

You may not need a gate (or a door), but at least you need an opening, call it a window, to come in and out.

Why Linus?

[poot_rootbeer]

Linus Torvalds makes a convenient representational symbol for the Linux community (it's named after him, after all), but is he really an Agenda Setter?

Every interview I've read with him gives the impression that Linus has no plan to achieve world domination, or even knock Microsoft down in the marketplace. He's just an engineer who's trying to make the best operating system he can.

Credit for "the Linux agenda" (if any) more rightly belongs to the RMS'es and ESR's of the world, the business brains at IBM and RedHat and Fedora and the other companies that have taken Linus's work and packaged it as something that's enterprise-ready.

Re:Why Linus?

[InfoVore]

Every interview I've read with him gives the impression that Linus has no plan to achieve world domination, or even knock Microsoft down in the marketplace. He's just an engineer who's trying to make the best operating system he can.

No plan for world domination? Wants to use his skills and influence to make better tools for us all? Sounds like a heck of an agenda to me.

Re:Why Linus?

[Junks Jerzey]

Linus Torvalds makes a convenient representational symbol for the Linux community (it's named after him, after all), but is he really an Agenda Setter?

And, truthfully, Linux is the architect of the Linux *kernel*, which is stable and reliable and all of that, but it's a very small part of the Linux user experience. Actually, it's an insignificant part of the Linux user experience. If the Linux kernel were replaced with, say, BSD, then what impact would that have on someone who spends all of his time in the KDE desktop? This is not to belittle Linus's achievement, but at some point who matters more: the guy who builds guitars or the people who use those guitars to make amazing music? It's not like people say "Oh, my favorite band XXX is so completely enabled by the man who invented the electric guitar."

Re:Why Linus?

[garethwi]

Probably because RMS and ESR are Fucking Ugly.

Re:Why Linus?

[drinkypoo]

Linus is now an icon. Where he goes, Linux follows. People hang on his USENET postings as if they were the words of God. Of course, Linus seems to be a more even-handed individual than Jehovah (If you believe the bible, God is directly responsible for more death than anything else in biblical times, and I'm not talking about taking away eternal life either) so I don't mind that so much. Still, Linus is highly influential among the Linux community, and Linux is becoming more and more influential... Linus belongs.

Re:Why Linus?

[graffix_jones]

"Oh, my favorite band XXX is so completely enabled by the man who invented the electric guitar."

...and that would be Les Paul.

Re:Why Linus?

[Billly Gates]

Linus opened an alternative.

BSD's were in lawsuit trouble and many including myself 10 years ago thought it was crippled because it was now BSD-lite. Not to mention they stabilized about later than Linux.

Linux was there for those who wanted out of the Windows lock in. That is why he deserved credit.

I do wonder if we would all be using BSD's by now if Linus were never born or be in Microsoft lock in? Shudder.

Ashley Highfield is #1?

[Animats]

The BBC's director of New Media? The guy who tried to make the BBC a "portal"? The guy who introduced Fantasy Football and Pure Soap (both cancelled) to the BBC web site?

MOD PARENT UP!

[say]

Why is parent at Flamebait(0)? It is funny! Laugh!

Re:Linus

[Trurl's Machine]

You simply could not be more wrong in your statement. If it weren't for Linus, the OSS movement would now stick to a free OS based either on 386BSD or GNU/Hurd - or some combination of these. Everything would look pretty similar to the real world as we know it.

Bill's case is far from obvious - if it wasn't him in particular, his place would be most likely taken by Gary Kildall. The history of personal computing would look entirely different, as Kildall was far from being a monopolist egomaniac like Gates and Ballmer. Kildall's company, Digital Research, could easily be the Microsoft of the 8-bit computers. Their system was just _the_ system for 8-bit machines, but Kildall did not try to use his advantage as a vehicle for building monopolist empire. Quite contrary, he was sticking to the principle that the company that makes OS should not take part in the application market. That's actually how Microsoft has found its niche - as a key vendor of the CP/M applications. So if it wasn't Bill, CP/M-86 would be the MS-DOS, and GEM Desktop would be Microsoft Windows - but there would be NO equivalent of Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Office, and that would be probably good news (we would have various competing office suites instead).

The case of Steve Jobs is even more obvious - Apple with Steve and Apple without Steve (1985-1997) are just different companies. No Steve - no iPod. Period.

Architects over Vendors

[ehiris]

Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides, Graddy Booch, James Rumbaugh, and Ivar Jacobson to name a few.

Gates was influenced by technology more then he influenced it. He'll be remembered as the guy who made a lot of money from technology not as someone who created anything.

Re:Exception

[Anonymous Coward]

Torvalds = Wrote a world class operating system from scratch ..meh..

He didn't write the whole operating system, he just wrote some of the kernel; to say he wrote the whole thing is disrespectful to the thousands of other people who have contributed.

your scary bloke seems familiar!

[museumpeace]

Except that we yanks have lent more DNA to Europeans than I think we have any interest in collecting, all of the Big Brother technologies you list are in place or on the drawing boards in the US thanks to our current national administration's accidental discovery that fear is a much easier way to consolidate power than reason ever was. And I shouldn't forget, as mentioned in /., we don't just oggle crooks with our satellites.

Bleh - we all know the outcome of that!

[schon]

We all know the outcome of a celebrity deathmatch between Bill and Linus:

From pictures, I'd say that Linus has a physical advantage over Gates; but Bill would probably play dirty and get someone else (Balmer, perhaps) to fight for him (he never doesn anything for himself.) That would give Linus the excuse to play tag-team with Tove, and she'd kick the ass of Bill, Melinda, *and* Balmer (remember Tove is a six-time Finnish National karate champ!)

Re:Bleh - we all know the outcome of that!

[AnalogDiehard]

Bill Gates shoots first.

Re:Bleh - we all know the outcome of that!

[Ziviyr]

The way they seem to write Celebrity Deathmatch, odds are a lighting rig controlled by Windows will go haywire, at which point it turn into one of those chat with frankenstein scenes.

Re:Bleh - we all know the outcome of that!

[glitch23]

That would give Linus the excuse to play tag-team with Tove, and she'd kick the ass of Bill, Melinda, *and* Balmer (remember Tove is a six-time Finnish National karate champ!)

And I thought I knew too much just because I knew Linus changed jobs a while back.

Re:Bleh - we all know the outcome of that!

[mdfst13]

I figure that I will know too much when I know who Tove is. Fortunately, no one has posted that info.

Re:Bleh - we all know the outcome of that!

[Anonymous Coward]

I figure that I will know too much when I know who Tove is.

Linus's wife.

Re:Bleh - we all know the outcome of that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Balmer... I'm almost sure he was hyper-ventilating with less than 30 seconds of running and yelling.
Could you clarify wether choosing Balmer would be to win the fight, or just avoid being injured?

Re:Bleh - we all know the outcome of that!

[jonadab]

> Linus the excuse to play tag-team with Tove, and she'd kick the ass of Bill

No, you're forgetting, Bill would play dirty. Karate is a strong advantage
in a normal fight, but except in the movies it doesn't work so well against
an opponent whose tag-team member is a 350-lb body-building goon or packs
heat or whatever other cheat Bill would employ. Actually, it seems like the
most likely thing would be faking injury and then sending in a team of lawyers
to sue, claiming Linus and Tove fought dirty by using Karate and caused his
client a great deal of pain and anguish, plus the loss of wages for the rest
of his disabled life... Karate can't fight that stuff.

Re:Bleh - we all know the outcome of that!

[glitch23]

Tove is Linus' wife. Disclaimer: This doesn't count towards me knowing too much. Really, it doesn't. No, really....ah nevermind.

I don't think anyone has posted the list yet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Click here to find out more! Agenda Setters 2004 is here ----LOVE OF LIVE!-----
Video | Archive | White Papers | Special Reports

The list Who's on it? Business leaders Butt Rangers Dechnologists Entrepreneers Politicos The panel Personal 10's Analysis Home
Mo' chars, mo' chars!!! Aoojp!
silicon.com presents Sponsored by Citrix
Click on a name to read the individual's bio
1. Ashley Highfield
2. Steve Jobs
3. Niklas Zennstrom
4. Tom Ridge
5. David Blunkett
6. Richard Granger
7. Linus Torvalds
7. Bill Gates
9. Eric Schmidt
10. Marc Benioff
11. Sir Peter Gershon
12. Marten Mickos
13. Meg Whitman
14. Sir David Tweedie
15. Jonathan Ive
16. James Murdoch
17. Arun Sarin
18. Rupert Murdoch
19. Sven Jaschan
20. S Ramadorai
21. Karen Price
22. Lawrence Lessig
23. Ian Foster
24. Jonathan Schwartz
25. Joe McGeehan

26. Vivek Paul
27. Sam Palmisano
28. Eric Abensur
29. Martin Varsavsky
30. Donald E Knuth
31. Len Hynds
32. David Levin
33. John Connors
34. Michael Dell
35. Azim Premji
36. Ben Verwaayen
37. Daniel Egger
38. Van Honeycutt
39. Jon Rubinstein
40. Mark J Cox
41. Hu Jintao
42. Dan'l Lewin
43. Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley
44. Richard Stallman
45. Ratan Tata
46. Michael Powell
47. David Sainsbury
48. Andy Duncan
49. Bernard C Soriano
50. Simon Davies

Reader vote | Choose your Agenda Setter | top searches | site map | help | contact us | how to advertise | get silicon news on your site | silicon rss feeds about silicon your privacy about cnet networks ZDNet UK Builder UK

Re:Only one way to figure this pressing question o

[Anonymous Coward]

... and Steve Jobs has just smacked Bill Gates in the stomach with a sunflower iMac! Gates' head crashes into Torvalds and they knock each other out!

but wait! what's this? some unknown has just jumped into the ring! he's wearing a BBC t-shirt! he's on Jobs' back... and he's tied Jobs' legs up with iPod headphones! what an ingenious move! Jobs has tripped over and lands head first outside the ring! I think Jobs is going to need surgery for that one!

a surprise upset to the British upstart!

Gates begat Linus

[Thud457]

I read in some bio somewhere that the key idea that Gates had back in his Basic days was convincing people to pay good money for a series of ones and zeros on a floppy that could be copied in three minutes. Remember, back then, the software industry was either : A)acadamia or B) in-house development. Who would want to buy SW "off the rack"?!!!

Linus popularized the idea that you should be able to take the source and build it yourself.

I Must Be #51

[geomon]

I didn't see my name on the list.

I'm sure it is just an oversight.

it was XP

[Anonymous Coward]

bill gates will be remembered as the guy whoes company made the OS that kept getting its butt burgelurized

I can think of one thing

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that when Linus said that SCO was on crack, my respect for the man went up about 1000%.

What, no joy?

[OffTheLip]

As in Bill Joy.

Re:Exception

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd hardly say that Gates is non technical.

You're right - non-technical is surely a huge understatement.

he dind't have millions of programmers when he started with BASIC back 30 years ago

No, but he did have *two* programmers, - the guys who did all the work.

Your fanboy fantasies aside, it's pretty well documented that Bill has *ZERO* technical abilities.

Where is Bruce

[jtwJGuevara]

Where is Bruce Schneier on this list? While I am admittedly pretty ignorant on who most of these figures are on this list, I don't understand the ommission of Bruce here. He is, at least in my estimation, the single most influential figure in the area of computer security and cryptography and had a hand in developing a few commonly used cryptographic algorithms in use today (blowfish for example). With the world moving more and more online and ecommerce taking center stage how is the figurehead and most quoted individual of the information security field not listed?

Re:Where is Bruce

[ricotest]

Bruce, one account on Slashdot is enough :)

Its someone we've never heard of.

[Dzimas]

The most important person in tech over the next decade or two is someone few of us have ever met. He or she will start (or has started) the company that will lead the next revolution in computing. Perhaps it will focus on atomic computing, perhaps it will be optical. Few of us realize its significance, and fewer still could guess how it will change the face of technology. Bill Gates, Linus, and Mr. Jobs are interesting, but they are the hallmark of *today's* state of the art. :)

Re:Its someone we've never heard of.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well no. They're the hallmark of 80s state of the art, just brought to the average people. The most important person in tech over the next decade will be whoever manages to bring 90s state of the art to the average person.

Of course, anybody that could sell today's state of the art would be truly amazing. And anybody that could create a new state of the art and sell it would be an absolute genious.

Wealth?

[ElDuderino44137]

"Gates, Jobs, Torvalds: Who is Most Important?"

Gates is wealthy ...
Jobs is wealthy ...

Torvalds?

Re:Wealth?

[Ohreally_factor]

I know this is corny, but Torvalds is wealthy in friends. He has touched the lives of many across the globe in a good way, and asked nothing in return*.

Gates and Jobs, on the other hand, probably have few friends, and fewer outside the circle of other business moguls. Sure, a lot of people "want to be their friend", because of their money and their power. (I've met Jobs, and I think he's a total prick. I'll still blindly buy anything he sells, however, and drink gratefully from the glass of kool aid he offers me as I bathe in the warm aura of the Reality Distortion Field.)

Linus, on the other hand, is loved because he did something really cool in creating the Linux kernel, and then did something even cooler by giving it away under the GPL. Linus is a mensch.

But I'll probably get modded down for this opinion. =)

*Unless you count the GPL =)

Re:Wealth?

[ElDuderino44137]

Wait a minute ...

I totally buy into the wealth of friends.

But it's a bit "silly" to say that the other two men have none. Gates and his wife change peoples lives every day w/ the charities they're involved in. And Jobs ... iPod ... Pixar ... he's kind of a self made man. W/ super cool ideas.

If these people had no money ... I imagine that they'd still be innovating and changing ppls lives.

I wonder if Linus is as "poor" as you think?

Cheers,
-- The Dude

downtime?!

[mottie]

You have been redirected to this page during a temporary period of planned downtime.

who plans downtime directly after they release a story.. sounds like they didn't plan for /.

anyone have a mirror?

Re:downtime?!

[Lazy T]

They have only blocked people comming from slashdot. Copy paste link and it should work.

Darl McBride?

[BabyJaysus]

Where's Darl McBride? He's paving the way for a brighter tomorrow!

THEN WHY DID YOU PUT TEXT IN THE BODY? (N/T)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re:THEN WHY DID YOU PUT TEXT IN THE BODY? (N/T)

[Ohreally_factor]

That wasn't text, it was meta text.

Re:Oh, boy! It's "Let's Adore the 'Geek Elite' Day

[Anonymous Coward]

It lets us take a break from pissing on those at the bottom of the hierarchy.

Bah! - technologys figureheads

[gone.fishing]

These lists are worthless, I don't know what draws me to them. I see it and I just have to see who is on it.

Technology isn't a one-person effort. It is the total combined efforts of a wide variety of companies, engineers, technicians, and other people doing what they do best. It is a symbiotic relationship that crosses almost any boundary put in front of it. If the plastic's people can't find an answer to a problem, maybe the ceramic's people can.

Think of the progression of the Intel processor and the hundreds or thousands of people who have had a hand in it's development along the way. Sure there are names that rise to the top, but litterally hundreds of engineers, technicians, and probably even janitors have contributed different ideas and insights into how to grow that little calculator chip into the massive CPU that we have today.

It doesn't stop there though. Someone had to take that computer chip and make it do something. Along came the hundreds of engineers from IBM and many, many other companies. They built the box that housed the chip and then found that they had something.

But what they had wasn't complete. Along came the boys from Microsoft, Digital Research and other companies. They cobbled together something that made the box do something.

What they had was a genuine invention. But someone thought they could make it do something else. They tinkered and hacked and low and behold, it did something else. And then another thing and so on and so on and so on.

By now millions of people in almost every country in the world are involved. Someone decided to make a list of the most influential people?

Isn't that like picking a few hairs out of your scalp and calling then your favorite?

I want to take my hat off and salute every single person and every single company who has ever endevoured to make something better! It is this insatiable need to improve that has taken mankind to where we are today and it is this same compulsion that will make tomorrow possible. In the grand scheme of things, Names like Torvalds, Gates, and whoever else are just figureheads for countless nameless and faceless people out there making things better.

Re:Bah! - technologys figureheads

[gregarican]

"Technology isn't a one-person effort."

Hmmm. Tell that to the person who was just left off the published list. Coming in at #51 the much-underrated Russell Johnson. Better known as "The Professor" on Gilligan's Island. Tell me he wasn't a one person team for those guys.

A sarcastic bloke, too

[oobob]

Vlad once displayed a golden cup in the central square of Tirgoviste, ostensibly for thirsty travellers to drink from. It was never stolen.

-Oobob

Jonathan Schwartz?

[Anonymous Coward]

That clown's on the list, and above RMS? What were they thinking?

"Planned Downtime"

[KanSer]

Planned downtime my ass, silicon.com just had a tech who luckily spotted the /. about to be laid on his server. They can run this time, but they can't hide forever.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

From this page:

Most people are familiar with the current Dallas and Houston Tollway Systems. To illustrate one problem with the Austin Plan, compare Toll Road Miles per million people: Houston has 17, the city of Dallas has 13, and Austin will have more than 113! If you look at the Dallas and Houston maps, you'll notice those cities, (as other cities with toll roads throughout the United States) have a simple loop or E/W and N/S tollways as additional "new" road options. The toll plans we all know in the past are built with investor dollars, and they complement the existing highways. The toll plans we all know in the past are built with investor dollars, are new roads, took years to carefully plan and they complement the existing highways. The Austin toll plan is built with our tax dollars and the toll roads become our existing highways. The Austin plan was rushed and approved within 3 months. If this doesn't look like a boondoggle, what does?

The Austin Toll Plan - Download Larger Map:
Shifts allmost every local Highway to Toll Roads.
Uses Billions of our tax dollars to finance the Toll Roads. In the past Toll Roads were built with 80% bonds...these toll roads are built with 80% of our tax dollars.
Seizes over $100 Million of our tax financed roads/projects in Austin and converts them to Toll Roads. See .pdf
It's not a transportation solution, it's a "Revenue Generator", a Boondoggle for special interests.

I *told* you the /. stories are bought...

[FooAtWFU]

... and here's proof! They knew enough to schedule a shutdown in advance! COWBOYNEAL, YOU'RE GOING DOWN!!!!!1!1!1!!eleven

John Conner?

[grifter7]

At first I read #33 as "John Conner", which on first reading, seemed about right.

+1 FUNNY

[OmniVector]

if only i had mod points

Re:Oh, boy! It's "Let's Adore the 'Geek Elite' Day

[Bull999999]

I just have to know why humans spend so much time pondering the minutaie of those at the top of the hierarchy?

And this coming from a guy who always makes "But it sucks if you aint in the top 30 percent or so...." posts time after time?

You, Sir, are my hero.

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, are my hero.

Re:Linus

[mark-t]

If Linux hadn't come around, most of us Linux geeks would instead be using some BSD variant. Remember, FreeBSD came out within a year or so of Linux's first public version. Long before a vast majority of people even heard of Linux. Linux caught on so much faster in those days because it ran on less expensive hardware than FreeBSD could at the time.

The Real News for Nerds is...

[cornice]

The real News fo Nerds is #1:


Highfield joined the BBC in 2000 and is in charge of the corporation's online and cross platform content and his impact has been considerable. His position atop the poll is evidence of the regard in which the panel holds the BBC and their belief that the corporation's global reach is truly setting the agenda - in terms of innovation, penetration and ambition.

Who is Silicon.com? No big iron obviously

[Almost-Retired]

The sites click on a name is already slashdotted.

When are folks like that going to understand that a mention on/. is going to kill their little server?

Bah, humbug

No cheers, Gene

But wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

...
30. Donald E Knuth

But hey, wait until his volume 4a comes out, he's gonna slash your butts!

--
Answer your questions with Nuggets , the SMS-based search engine for mobile phones, across the UK.

Re:Only one way to figure this pressing question o

[TeamSPAM]

Well I've figured this deathmatch tournament would be similar to the NCAA March madness. There you be 4 brackets with 12 slots. The 12th seed in 2 of the brackets would be determine by pre-tournament deathmatch to determine who would be killed by the bracket's number 1 seed.

Re:Oh, boy! It's "Let's Adore the 'Geek Elite' Day

[Cryofan]

and just how is that supposed to impeach or discredit my comment?

Re:Exception

[jcr]

I'd hardly say that Gates is non technical.

Umm.. Read Barbarians Led by Bill Gates. The guy couldn't even code a raster-flood algorithm, about ten years after they were available in ACM SIGGRAPH publications.

-jcr

Look at it another way . . .

[npsimons]

Gates: most influential in business.

Jobs: most influential in fashion.

Torvalds: most influential in *actual* technology.

I'm not saying that Microsoft or Apple don't have any effect on technology, but anyone who thinks that Jobs or Gates are ubergeeks are deluding themselves.

Re:Look at it another way . . .

[moosesocks]

Errrmm.......

Gates I will agree is influential in business. Let's not forget the huge number of CS projects going on at Microsoft too -- C# ain't half bad either (the linux community liked it enough to copy it)

Apple under Jobs, however, has made numerous contributions to UI and product design as well as the Unix core of OS X. He's also been innovative in the sense that he's used other people's existing solutions where they are adequate -- Darwin, CUPS, Samba, etc. and created his own where there are no adequate solutions (Aqua, Quartz, Cocoa).

Oh yeah. He released a Desktop Unix which became the most popular in the world within days of its release. What Linux had been trying to do for years, he accomplished in a day. Sure, it was many years in the making, but it can't be denied that OSX was produced from scratch by far far fewer developers than it took to turn windows 2000 into XP.

Torvalds contribution to technology is questionable. There are definite things in the Linux kernel which are very innovative from a CS standpoint -- many of which were made by torvalds. The man is without a dobut a world-class computer scientist, but weather or not his ideas are original is somewhat questionable. He only influenced linux because he had direct control over Linux. His influence lies in innovation in worldwide group collaboration -- actually ORGANIZING linux. I'm not sure if that's technology innovation. Its also worth noting that in general, linux seems to be by and large a 'me-too' version of all of the other operating systems. He pulled tons of great ideas together, but many of them had already been implemented on other systems. Think of linux as a re-implementation of other people's good ideas -- remember that it WAS supposed to be a free unix re-implementation. All he was trying to do was to re-create a commercial application for free (which was strongly helped by his socialist upbringing and free ride at university).

Re:Look at it another way . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Torvalds: most influential in *actual* technology.

Reimplementing decades-old ideas in a kernel primarily used in a clone of a 30-year old OS is "actual technology"?

Re:Look at it another way . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Gates: most influential in business.
Jobs: most influential in fashion.
Torvalds: most influential in *actual* technology.

Jobs is probably the first who _successfully_ combined computer technology with fashion. that is already enough to put him high on the list

Re:Look at it another way . . .

[mdfst13]

"far far fewer developers than it took to turn windows 2000 into XP."

ObNitPick: Turning 2000 into XP is almost trivial. It's just adding some extra doodads. All XP is is what 2000 and WinME were supposed to be: an NT based OS that is compatible with many win9x programs. They did not finish XP Home in time, so they released WinME instead. The next year, when they finished XP Home, they tweaked 2000 slightly and produced a new business version as well.

The hard things to do were turning NT and win9x into XP.

Re:Look at it another way . . .

[Necroist]

I'm not saying that Microsoft or Apple don't have any effect on technology, but anyone who thinks that Jobs or Gates are ubergeeks are deluding themselves.

Apple I computer? BASIC? Hmm... I wonder where will we be without them.

Re:Look at it another way . . .

[npsimons]

Apple I computer? BASIC? Hmm... I wonder where will we be without them.

Last I checked, Jobs was not the brains behind the Apple I, nor did Bill Gates create BASIC. Try again.

Dilbert!

[mindhaze]

Now, I know he's not real, but he's definately influential! Dilbert should be on the list!

Re:Oh, boy! It's "Let's Adore the 'Geek Elite' Day

[Bull999999]

I didn't discredit your comment. I merely pointed out that you should already know the answer by your own obsession of the elite.

Re:Linus

[rumblin'rabbit]

As I understand it, this poll is about the most influential people today. Given that, I have no problems putting Torvalds over Stallman. Linux is at the very eye of the storm these days, Gnu as a whole not so much.

And totally ignoring your pleas for avoiding a flame war, Richard's personal "style" is not a particularly influential one. Linus seems adept at orchestrating many factions into a semblance of cohesion, and is more influential as a result. To be blunt, Linus doesn't lead with his ego.

Re:BBC gov subsidies work

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not a very good troll.

Offtopic. Re:Scary scary bloke

[Sique]

This story is just reattributed to Vlad. It was originally a story about Hatto II of Mainz, who was Archbishop there between 968 and 970 (those dates are provable facts). He also was said to have invited all poor in his diocesy to a huge meal, and he also commanded the doors to be closed and the hall to be burned down.

But when the hall sunk to ashes, a big tribe of mice broke out of the ruins and started to hunt Archbishop Hatto. He tried to have the mice squashed, killed, blocked, nothing helped. So he fled out of Mainz down the Rhine. Near the town of Bingen he asked a ferryman to row him over to a small island with a fortified tower built on it. He ran into the tower and blocked the door. But the mice, being millions of them, were swimming through the waters of the Rhine, reaching the island, entering the tower and eating Archbishop Hatto.

The tower at the island near Bingen can still be visited, it's called the Maeuseturm (lit.: Mice Tower) since then. For further references check a short descripton of the site. Other sources attribute the story to Archbishop Hatto I, a predecessor of Hatto II.

Re:Offtopic. Re:Scary scary bloke

[defaultXIX]

Sweet, I live in Mainz, :) Now I can go tell all those pesky germans at the pub to stop complaining about Bush...

I Know

[Anonymous Coward]

I've said it before and I'll say it again...

"My Grandma can beat up your Grandma!"

Re:Mr. Torvalds is NOT an agenda setter

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm personally tired of RMS's crazy raving rants. Maybe we should have a slapfight to determine whose opinion matters more.

Re:Exception

[Wordsmith]

"From scratch? You wish. Even Linus doesn't claim that."

You're right. He clearly started with code from SCO.

No Roland?

[Anonymous Coward]

What? They left out Piquepaille ?

What a crappy list!

John Connors

[xant]

Duh, he fathered the guy who would one day lead the resistance and bring down SkyNet.

It doesn't get much more technology-influencing than that.

Re:John Connors

[Anonymous Coward]

don't mean to be a dick or anything, but john connor WAS the guy that lead the resistance. The guy he sent back in time to protect his mom, Reece, was his father.

Re:Linus

[Golias]

It's a list of the most influencial, not the coolest, the most innovative, or the most visionary.

The guy who is "only there because he owns a monopoly large enough that it can bastardize standards" obviously wields lots and lots of influence. There's a reason why Microsoft has been called the "800 pound gorilla" of the industry for the last 15 years or so.

Re:Linus

[Phragmen-Lindelof]

"I think that makes both of them better leaders and very high on this list."
I agree to some extent but I wonder if Apple will remain in business over the long run. Once Linux is popular enough, could MS buy Apple (without concern about federal lawsuits)?

Re:Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

But Stallman was the inspiration for the GPL, without that Free software would all still be using X/MIT or (original) BSD style licenses, and Free software as a discrete entity would have been subsumed into proprietry software.

What about Al Gore !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, he invented the Internet...

there is no point...

[Anonymous Coward]

to asking a question that amounts to a 6th grade popularity contest.

Gates and Torvalds are both important.

The opinions of slashdotters are a little less important.

Pamela Jones

[rumblin'rabbit]

Pamela Jones, instigator of Groklaw, might one day be seen as one of the most influential if her (and many other peoples') efforts result in a reworking of the intellectual property laws for software in the U.S.

This despite the fact that she might not ever have written a line of code in her life.

Re:Pamela Jones

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG, you people place FAR too much importance on Groklaw.

Really, it is not significant in anything outside of the SCO case, which was a _farce_ from the get go.

Re:Pamela Jones

[rumblin'rabbit]

First, I'm not "you people".

Second, the cases (there's a number of SCO cases going on, not just one) could certainly be considered farces, in that SCO appears to be losing badly. They are not farces in that the ultimate stakes are very, very high.

What Groklaw does provide is a central forum for some important issues that have come of age. I'm not a total fan, however. I think Groklaw is too much of a political monoculture, a bit too intolerant of opinions outside of a narrow range of "correct" thinking. Having said that, I still think it deserves much credit.

Re:Pamela Jones

[k98sven]

They are not farces in that the ultimate stakes are very, very high.

(not the previous respondent)
This is only if you assume that SCO ever had a snowball's chance of winning, which is something they never ever had. Maybe in the view of the press, but not in reality.

In reality, this is just yet another frivolous lawsuit which happens to have managed to generate an unusual amount of FUD. Apart from that, it has zero signficicance.

No laws are going to be changed just becase of the SCO cases. Come back in a year or two when it's all over and don't say I didn't tell you so.

Re:Ratan Tata is a he

[EqualSlash]

Ratan Tata is India's famous Industrialist. He runs the Tata group of companies.

http://www.tatachemicals.net/0_about_us/ratan_ta ta .htm

Carmack?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where the hell is Carmack?

EVEN SEVEN

[Anonymous Coward]

7. Linus Torvalds
7. Bill Gates ... i guess 7 8 9 ?

Odd choice for #1

[Hoi Polloi]

Shouldn't a person considered "Most Influential" at least be recognizable by a majority of people in that field?

Re:Odd choice for #1

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd choice?

No, ridiculous choice. I wasted no more time on this list after seeing #1.

Re:Heh, Steve Jobs

[Bin_jammin]

Steve Jobs wasn't the only one to pirate PARC, *cough, Gates* remember, Xerox corporate wanted nothing to do with what was coming out of PARC at the time, and the tech was going to be shelved. So I guess making affordable ethernet common, and developing a GUI that could be used by anyone on a relatively affordable machine are minor achievements. And yeah, the work he did with NeXT was a mere hiccup in the road towards 100% windows market share, but remember, if it hadn't been Steve Jobs doing it, someone else would have come along for you to hate. And if nothing else, in the days when it was Apple vs Mac divisions in Apple, what else could has Jobs done? How about single handedly driving up the price of Tums?

Come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, how can Bill Gates be in 7th place? Look at all he and his company has done to computers. It totally changed the way we use them and the way we live. You can badmouth him all that you want but you can't not acknowledge the importance of his accomplishments.

Re:Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux has made great strides in making computers accessible to the extremely computer litterate

Is that anything like making expressways accessible to formula 1 drivers? Or would it be more like making band-aids accessible to surgeons?

Hu Jintao

[hefa]

I have to agree with you on Hu Jintao.

My first reaction when I read his name was "Yikes! I thought this was nerds-only" (I am not aware of his being a nerd, even though he has a degree in engineering...) and my second thought was "Why the heck is he that low on the list?"

When reading their motivation, I was even further surprised that he has actually FALLEN (from no. 4 to no. 41), which is weird considering he has gotten more hold of the power now that Deng Xiaoping has given over his last formal position as Chief of the Central Military Commision to Hu.

Really, as practically the first person in history to get that much power in the world's most populous nation without use of (superfluous) force is quite a feat. We can probably imagine what would happen to the IT industry if China unleashed a war over Taiwan, you know... or decided to shut down some of its Special Economic Zones... No soup for you.

(Besides being an engineering nerd myself I am also a student of East Asian culture)

Re: MEG WHITMAN? MICHAEL DELL?

[telemonster]

Meg Whitman and Michael Dell? Why? The both run organizations that have horrible customer support!?!?

eBay makes Dell look good.

Sounds like Moses's plan

[ianscot]

There's an Old Testament incident in which Moses lures all the believers in a certain religion or sect into a feast at a church, locks the doors, and burns the place down. God tells him that it'll be okay as long as they ritually purify their weapons afterward.

Time-honored approach. Vlad was just reading his Bible closely.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[pnatural]

Could you site book, chapter, and verse, please? Or is this just Bible FUD?

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an Old Testament incident in which Moses lures all the believers in a certain religion or sect into a feast at a church, locks the doors, and burns the place down.

Other than the fact that there were no churches back then, nor any temples that Moses would have frequented (never having made it to the promised land), nor a citation in your story, people would be well advised to take this posting with a grain of salt.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[chris_mahan]

Isn't that what happened at Jericho? If I recall, the entire population of the city was slaughtered (except for the prostitute and her folks...) once the walls fell down.

Slightly OT, but does place a precedent on mass-killing.

BTW, it was God who brought the walls down and commanded the killing. I wonder what the 4 year olds Jerichoans had done to upset God that much...

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[MrHanky]

BTW, it was God who brought the walls down and commanded the killing. I wonder what the 4 year olds Jerichoans had done to upset God that much...

Well, four year olds can be extremely annoying and noisy. And as you know, God has a certain habit of resting on the seventh day of the week.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[pnatural]

The story to which you refer can be found (in part) here.

But the story of Joshua at Jericho has absolutely nothing to do with Moses.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[pnatural]

Oops -- wrong link. Correct link is here.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[killjoe]

"BTW, it was God who brought the walls down and commanded the killing. I wonder what the 4 year olds Jerichoans had done to upset God that much..."

Are there any passages in the Bible describing the people satan killed? It seems like it's always god killing people by the thousands. In fact he flooded the world killing everybody in it except one family and the animals.

If there is a bible expert out there could you please give a reference to where Satan kills a few thousand people.

Thanks.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, Satan rocks! Party on with the beastmaster!

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[ugauaauag]

"people would be well advised to take this posting with a grain of salt"

Tell that to Lot's wife!

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

That's great :)

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[operagost]

Everyone not saved by the sacrifice of Jesus is as good as dead.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

"BTW, it was God who brought the walls down and commanded the killing"

Not to question your theological knowledge or anything, but I believe God gave them the city, he didn't order Joshua to kill the children (unless you can point me to that verse).

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[killjoe]

" Everyone not saved by the sacrifice of Jesus is as good as dead."

s/Jesus/Allah and you'd have a quote from Osama.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[tootlemonde]

Are there any passages in the Bible describing the people satan killed?

Consider the book of Job.

And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. (1:12)

Satan subsequently kills most of Job's family and servants. Even here, Satan is acting with God's tacit approval, which Job understood when he responds, "the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away." (1:21).

In Biblical morality death is bad but not necessarily the greatest evil. The people God kills are sort of collateral damage. Their deaths serve a higher purpose although what that purpose might be is the real question.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

"s/Jesus/Allah and you'd have a quote from Osama."

More like "If they do not profess faith in Allah they will be tortured. If they still do not process faith, they will be killed and their women raped to death."

That's a tad different than "Love thy neighbour".

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[killjoe]

"That's a tad different than "Love thy neighbour"."

Which is still different then "kill them all, kill their women, kill their children, kill their animals and salt the earth so that not even the plants can survive".

That old Jehova was one ornery motherfucker.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[nacturation]

In fact he flooded the world killing everybody in it except one family and the animals.

So let me get this straight... God killed everybody on earth except for Noah's family? He then told Noah and family to go and repopulate the earth. So who do Noah's children have sex with? Noah's kids have sex with their brothers/sisters and with their parents, their kids have sex with their parents, siblings, cousins, etc... repeat ad nauseum. Ewww... I guess we're all the product of one big incestual orgy.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[chris_mahan]

Exactly.

And while we're at it, I don't think they waited until the girls were 18 to "plant the seeds".

Of course, there was no one there to arrest them, so...

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[glitch23]

FYI, the Bible has no FUD but you can call it what you want. But if you fear and doubt it and are uncertain about what it says then I guess you just created your own FUD didn't you? Don't spread it around.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Zork the Almighty]

I think the point is that God is actually evil, while Satan just encourages us to do whatever we want. What other reason is there for killing homosexuals and the like ? The whole book seems geared towards training people to tolerate injustice from those in power. That no doubt accounts for its popularity with leaders.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[The Lord God]

And as you know, God has a certain habit of resting on the seventh day of the week.

That's right. So all you knuckleheads who keep asking for the Raiders to win, would ya give it up and let a Diety get some sleep?

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Just out of curiosity, how much have you read (of the Bible...either old testament, or new)? It isn't a short read, and I'm wondering if you've picked up your opinion through honest thoughful examination, or just spouting something you've heard someone else say?

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Ohreally_factor]

One of my favorite stories is a variation of Satan's Rebellion. As the story goes, Satan was the greatest Angel, but he rebelled and sought to overthrow God with his army of rebellious angels. In the version that I like, Satan wins, and manages to usurp the throne of God.

But Satan is so slick, he puts out the word that God won and that Satan was cast out. So God is in his heaven and all is right with the world. It would certainly explain a lot.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[King_TJ]

IMHO, "Everyone not open-minded enough to think for themselves may as well be dead."

Statements like the parent poster made condemn everyone who is not "saved by the sacrifice of Jesus" --- pretty close-minded thinking.

What about people who live a righteous, good life by all accounts - yet don't choose to follow the beliefs of any organized religion? Your statement appears to judge them "as good as dead", without regard for their lifestyle or actions.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole book seems geared towards training people to tolerate injustice from those in power.

Gee, *ya think* ?!?!?

Consider it was written *by* people in power, what else would the reason have been? (For all the religious people reading, it was obviously *not* written by God: if God is omniscient, why does the church need to edit the bible?)

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Zork the Almighty]

About 10-15%, the majority from the Old Testament, but some from the New. I admit that's not very much, but I make a point of understanding what I read, and I think I'm generally familar with the most of the rest. Having reread my post, I don't want people to take my criticisms too harshly. Different people can draw very different lessons from the Bible, you should always read things for yourself. However, I found that God in the Old Testament was not very good at all, and Satan was somewhat of an enigma. A lot like George W. Bush and Osama, really.

That last sentence was just for the flamebait mod (which my other post somehow avoided).

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I once thought as you did (and I've probably read about 95% of the Bible thoroughly). I gave it much thought and thought that God is not all good. But after even more thought, I realized I was all wrong. When most think of good to compare God to, thoughts of Santa Claus come to mind (which God is not and can not be compared to): an immortal, or nearly so, working selflessly to bring joy into the world, but then rocks and coal come to mind as well, which does not seem purely good. Maybe we are so evil that we think that any bad consequences (for us or others) to our actions constitute not purely good. If there is a god who is bent towards evil, then what would he care about us doing any good or evil (nothing can harm him except for himself, which is why this god can not exist, as the smallest evil causes harm)? If there is a God who is completely good, then only He, and Him alone, could judge fairly, and prevent worse consequences down the road.

If you follow the Bible, God gave us free will, the most dangerous and awesome power we hold (even above our intelect, for history is filled with the not so bright that have changed the world, for better or worse). This accounts for the evil in the world: choices for evil (which we can not attribute to God). (A side note: all evil and sin can be summed up by selfishness.)

If God gave absolute proof to His existence all the time, then we would have no free will to choose otherwise (absolute proof, which God is powerful enough to provide, would transend free will). The last step must be faith. The New Testament has the same God, but now there is a mediator and ultimate sacrifice (if the sacrifices of the Old T. were sufficient, then they would have only had to been done once Hebrews 7:24-28). God making a way out for our evil is undeserved goodness (grace).

I do not have time to elaborate more, as these are very "meaty" statements, but they come after much, long thought. I am not a philosopher (there is no real money in that), but a software developer that gets ripped-off (so far, there is very little money in it =). So, my arguments and statements may not be perfectly formed, but these are a few reasons I believe in Christ. As my favorite series said, "The truth is out there," which implies the search to find it.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

> > "s/Jesus/Allah and you'd have a quote from Osama."

> More like "If they do not profess faith in Allah they will be tortured. If they still do not process faith, they will be killed and their women raped to death."

Now I am confused... Was that supposed to be a quote from Spanish Inquisition or the Crusaders? (Modulo s/Allah/God/g of course.)

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

> So let me get this straight... God killed everybody on earth except for Noah's family? He then told Noah and family to go and repopulate the earth. So who do Noah's children have sex with? Noah's kids have sex with their brothers/sisters and with their parents, their kids have sex with their parents, siblings, cousins, etc... repeat ad nauseum. Ewww... I guess we're all the product of one big incestual orgy.

Indeed, that was the second incestual orgy on such a large scale in the history of human kind. The first one was among children of Adam and Eve. This is why I don't think incest is a sin. Anyone can prove me wrong, though, but I think I am quite right on that.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Zork the Almighty]

Thank you for your insightful response.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[AvitarX]

There are deffinatly passages that say it is a sin (Leviticus 20:17

17: And if a man shall take his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter, and see her nakedness, and she see his nakedness; it is a wicked thing; and they shall be cut off in the sight of their people: he hath uncovered his sister's nakedness; he shall bear his iniquity.

Also says execute homosexual men and shun anyone who has sex with a menstrating woman (13 and 18 in same chapter).

So I would take the whole chapter with a grain of salt, but deffinatly incest is punishable by shunning and is wicked.

Re:Sounds like Moses's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

My point is that while it might be a wicked thing (and in fact I'm fairly sure it is) it is sometimes anavoidable and has indeed saved the human race on at least two occasions and that is the very reason why God hasn't killed Adam's family and Noah's family for their incestuous orgies (though we can be sure that they are burning in hell right now) like He usually did with sodomites (even though sodomy is a lesser sin than incest) because if He did kill them then there would be no Jesus (or even you and me) later. Adam and Eve as well Noah's family had to resort to large scale incestuous intercourses (known as "original sin" or "fall of man" euphemisms) in order to (re-)populate the Earth. It was a sin, they knew it and we know it (that's why we are born with the original sin, not because we are born through a contact with our mothers' genitalia like some say, but because we inherit the sin of incest from our predecessors), but instead of being killed on the spot, they were allowed to live and punished later after their death. Adam and Eve were brother and sister but they had no choice after they lost immortality. Homosexual men on the other hand serve no survival purpose whatsoever (unlike homosexual women who serve the purpose of visually stimulating impotent men watching them who might otherwise be unable to copulate with their women) and thus there are no exception in the Bible providing any examples on when they should not be killed. This is an important distinction. Not every sin is punished right away if it serves an important role.

I think it's obvious.

[soybean]

Jobs. He's the only one with personal vision. Torvalds and Gates were just in the right place in the right time. I think that Microsoft and Linux were BOUND to happen. If it wasn't either of thoes two, it would be others. Jobs on the other hand had vision. He produced the future. Gates and Torvalds just brough the present up to date.

Linus

[gimpimp]

excuse my ignorance, but does Linux actually CODE stuff that goes into the kernel, or does he just say who gets to put stuff in it, and manage the source?

Lets say he's not technically knowledgeable enough to understand ALL the code in there, who's to say he's the best person to say what does/doesnt get in?

That's not the biggest danger!

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The danger with things like DNA databases isn't if people use them properly, than if they abuse them.

Actually, from direct personal experience, the biggest problem with massive and centralised databases isn't malicious abuse. Rather, it's old-fashioned operator error, but now of the "one wrong number typed and someone's life gets turned upside down for months" kind.

Unfortunately, there is often an implicit culture of denial: the database is "almost perfect", so the procedures for fixing the effects of imperfections are rarely fully thought through, and often far more time-consuming and error-prone than they should be.

FWIW, I was over-taxed by several hundred pounds after someone at a tax office mistyped my National Insurance number (for our US friends: like a SSN, but in the UK) by one character, and inadvertently merged me with someone on the far side of the country. The scary part wasn't so much that I lost some money for a while, but that the first time I knew about it was when my pay-cheque turned up short and I queried it with my employer's accountant; no-one thought to check with me that my status really had changed. Worse, it took three months chasing numerous tax officials and accountants in several offices to get it fixed, because they didn't believe I existed -- the linked computer records had automatically messed up all my identifying information and confused it with the other guy's.

If that could happen to me a couple of years ago, think what's going to happen when your whole life -- medical records, benefits payments, criminal record and "unofficial" black marks, etc. -- are all tied in to the uebersystem, and then that same human in that same office has to type the same hundreds of nine-digit codes perfectly every day.

Re:That's not the biggest danger!

[WhiteDeath]

and then that same human in that same office has to type the same hundreds of nine-digit codes perfectly every day.

hence the need for little bits of plastic with some magic number on them.

Of course it will take some geek all of 30 seconds to learn to change that magic number, and randomly have you charged with everything from traffic offences to tax evasion, but gee, how often would that happen? (given that wizards have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten).

Re:That's not the biggest danger!

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

hence the need for little bits of plastic with some magic number on them.

Ironically, I have in my wallet my government-supplied National Insurance numbercard, which does indeed confirm my NI number. Unfortunately, it was in my wallet when some probably tired and underpaid office worker on the far side of the country mistyped the number, too. Glad that helped, then.

Re:That's not the biggest danger!

[Ohreally_factor]

This actually sounds like an argument for the DNA Db. Think of how much easier it would have been if all you needed to do to prove your identity was supply a bit of blood or a swab rubbed against the inside of your mouth?

Re:That's not the biggest danger!

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Think of how much easier it would have been if all you needed to do to prove your identity was supply a bit of blood or a swab rubbed against the inside of your mouth?

I think you must have missed the part where my whole life was erased and replaced with this other guy's...

I provided the tax office with numerous details that would have confirmed my identity, had any of my past addresses still been on their system, my date of birth not been changed to his, and my past employers still been listed on my tax records, for example. If everything is linked up to a centralised DNA database and then someone makes the same mistake -- but this time connecting my DNA to someone else -- how am I ever supposed to prove who I really am then?

"Can you give us a DNA sample, sir, to prove what you say is true?"

"Sure, here you go."

"I'm sorry sir, but our DNA database confirms beyond doubt that you are really Mr A. Criminal of no fixed abode. Now be nice and put the cuffs on, K?"

My take...

[MarkedMan]

Linus: Created a broad based open source project in such a way that it is effective, controlled and has a long term plan. Because of his personal shepherding and his ability to attract equally focused individuals to lead the charge, he has helped to grow the open source community by orders of magnitude. And although his open source project is slowly altering the way major corporations do business, it has a much larger social impact: It is opening up all aspects of application and OS creation and development (source code, online development community, unimaginably large and detailed technical reference library) to anyone who can cobble together a 7 year old PC and an internet connection - potentially allowing a middle school grad in Zimbabwe or Nepal to write the next killer app.

Steve Jobs: Has an incredible knack for spotting the core essence of emerging technology, and creating a viable, profitable, system around it. In the process, a huge portion of the technological vendors follows in his wake (or try to). His significance is not in how well his products work (although they tend to work very well) but in that they define what the industry should be striving for.

Bill Gates: This is not meant to be a BG blast, but his significance is only to Microsoft shareholders (although, he is hugely significant to them) not to the industry or society at large. Microsoft is like Dell - they take what is out there and develop a great business plan around it, and execute it with amazing forcefulness. But they don't bring anything new technologically to the game. And they don't take us in new directions. Most MS new technology is simply proprietary versions of things that already exist and are starting to catch on.

Where's Eric S. Raymond? What about the EFF?

[evilmousse]

Where's ESR?

Where's Brad Templeton or other EFF directors?

Re:Where's Eric S. Raymond? What about the EFF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitching about the idiotarians and calling himself obi-wan kenobi.

Re:Where's Eric S. Raymond? What about the EFF?

[evilmousse]

> Bitching about the idiotarians and
>calling himself obi-wan kenobi. ..and that doesn't get him on the list?? ^_^

-evilme

Re:Where's Eric S. Raymond? What about the EFF?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was beautiful. Thankyou.

Re:Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

OSS would probably exist without Linus

At the risk of being pedantic, no it wouldn't. Mr Stallman constantly distances himself from the term "Open Source Software". Without Linux, it would be "Free Software". And without Linux, we'd probably be all using one of the BSDs anyhow.

I vote Jobs

[Tablizer]

Jobs has a record of promoting innovative ideas. Linux may be great from an intellectual property standpoint, but it does not really DO anything new. And, Gates mostly steals and repackages fairly well-established ideas. Jobs stole the GUI before it was really known, Gates stole it *after* it was known. In other words, Jobs is the more original idea theif.

I believe that computing would grow even if Gates didn't hog the market. Gates mostly just took market share rather than created it. If anything MS stiffled choices. Thus, Gates is only "great" from a financial standpoint, not an innovation standpoint.

Re:I vote Jobs

[Ohreally_factor]

Apple didn't steal the GUI from Xerox PARC. They paid something like a million in stock for the privilege.

MS, on the other hand, didn't just steal the idea. They got a lot of mileage out of imitating Apple, and will probably continue to do so.

Re:BBC gov subsidies work

[davidsyes]

But since he/she/it elicited your response, does that make him/her/it a "master bater"?

DOH!

Influence! Only influence

[Britz]

The Time maganzine does this once a year on the political world scale and they don't judge. That is the most important thing. This is not about good or bad or evil or funny. Hitler even made the race once and they only chickened out on Osama bin Laden because they couldn't afford to loose so many readers (privatly held and out for profit press can't do everything, you know) that are keen on censorship. Something that gained a lot of popularity right after 9-11 (among other scary things).

Re:Linus

[powerlinekid]

Are you trolling or just that uninformed?

Gates due to his charity

[mcguyver]

According to this site, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates has donated $7.3 billion dollars. I despise microsoft as much as the next slashdotter but seriously, the guy has given away $7 billion dollars to people in need of help. I wish Linus and Jobs were more successful than Gates however there are more important things than technology.

Re:Gates due to his charity

[Ohreally_factor]

So Gates is sort of like Robin Hood? He steals from the rich and gives to the poor? Oh, wait, he steals from anyone.

Re:Gates due to his charity

[mcguyver]

Get some perspective by looking into other promenent companies such as Wallmart, Enron, Yukos and Falcone and you'll see that Gates isn't so bad. Hiding billions from the govt in taxes, descriminating based on race and gender, selling arms to small countries and stealing entire retirement funds. That's bad. Creating a monopoly for operating systems? The world has bigger problems.

as right as their downtime?

[Anonymous Coward]

> You have been redirected to this page during a
> temporary period of planned downtime. We apologise
> for any inconvenience this work may have caused
> you. silicon.com should be available shortly and
> we encourage you to visit us again soon.
>
>-The silicon.com Team

*cough* yeah, planned....

I believe you, your list suck ass, like your messages. You *should* have planned for a good /.ing...

Planned Outage My A$$

[Beek Dog]

And I had a 'planned' puking last night. Right after my 'scheduled' passing out.

Maybe this is there 'novel' idea of dealing with Slashdotting. They're trying to get on the list for next year.

Cool vs Geeky

[numbware]

Hmm, Steve is above Linus and Gates in the Top 50, but then he's below Linus on the technology list.

Why?

Steve introduced a general "cool" factor to computers that seems to get normal people interested in computers instead of thinking they're only for geeks. On the other end of the spectrum, Linus introduced an OS that would bring out some of the best in geeks. That leaves us with little ol' Bill, who's creations drive away geeks AND normal people. I think the only reason Bill made the list is because of his fat wallet.

I'd say Bill

[TechniMyoko]

When has Torvald's donated a billion dollars to charity?

Rupert Murdoch???

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is the president of FOX News doing on the list???

No. 1

[daserver]

Everyone knows Tux is no. 1 on the list

This is quite simple to figure out

[Anonymous Coward]

Just ask yourself what will be around in 100 years?

Since most companies don't last more than a century, it's unlikely either Apple or Microsoft will be around; and people will have forgotten about them.

Linux and Open Source, on the other hand, will be. Since one of the key tenets with Linux is focusing on the best software, it will adapt to technological changes as they come, as it has done in the past.

And people will remember where Linux came from.

It sounds worse than it is.. well sort of. I know.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've worked with RIPA http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/20000023.htm

* all users arn't monitored.

* logs are kept as with most ISPs, however the length of time they are kept for varies.

* if designated people request information, you have to provide it. - no court orders etc.

* there are additional snooping features, which are quite ugly for all involved.

it is getting worse though. with the DPA http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/19980029.htm you can legally hand over data to help prevent deaths, harm to people or crimes. You didn't have to hand it over if you didn't think it was justified, without a court order. This was good, but the protection it provided is being eroded.

If Gates did not

[Anonymous Coward]

If Gates did not have the software he had, Linus might not have needed Linux.
They were made for each other in heavens.
But only one of them goes there when the dust settles... And you know who my pick is.

Gates

[Tom]

I'm actually surprised that Gates is ranking so high.

While it's true that microsoft has a huge impact on technology (usually of the bad kind, but impact nevertheless), Gates himself hasn't had any worthwhile vision for the past 6 or 7 years. His first book was a laugh to anyone with a clue, his second book was a laugh to everyone with even a fraction of a clue. Nothing he has said during the past two years was not already said elsewhere at least a year before.

His influence is, of that there can be no doubt, in bringing those things onto the world media stage. If Gates says it, it's suddenly news, even if 50 other people said it 6, 12 and 18 months before.

While that does count as influence, does it warrant 7th place?

I mean, what has Gates done this year that has influenced technology in any way? All I've heard from him was marketing bullshit.

screw that

[ru-486]

The REAL question is who would win in a street fight, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Linus Torvalds.

Re:Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Um.. why's this flamebait? It is merely speculation on his part, but it seems quite possible to me...

Slashdot sure seems like a bunch of assholes sometimes.

AC cuz sometimes the truth hurts.

Darl McBride

[doodlelogic]

Why funny? SCO have certainly been influential this year, if not necessarily for the better.

Re:Darl McBride

[Ohreally_factor]

Entertaining sideshow =! influential

Shouldn't this be modded funny?

[LilMikey]

Mods? I think he was making a joke.

Re:Shouldn't this be modded funny?

[mdfst13]

"Shouldn't this be modded funny?"

No, it really shouldn't. Joking is not like gift-giving; it's not the thought that counts.

Re:Oh, boy! It's "Let's Adore the 'Geek Elite' Day

[Dingbat1066]

Its gawking, nothing more.

Just because one might exhibit some interest in such a table does not imply any sort of reverence. Its just at some level some sort of thrill of watching people "duke it out" in a manner and seeing who won, similar to watching a sporting event, seeing what movies win big at the box office, or who won a spelling bee. Nothing more.

Interesting Tie

[sputnikid]

I guess if it wasnt a tie there would be problems.
If Bill Gates was ahead of Torvalds, all of the Linux zealots would claim that the list was put together by an underground Microsoft operative.

If Torvalds was actually in front of Gates the whole list would be considered a farce.

The only reason that Jobs is ahead of both of them is so that is ego doesnt explode and kill innocent bystanders.

No, Osama bin Laden

[nightsweat]

An awful lot of the tech budget these days is going into war/espionage activities and worries about security.

Sadly, OBL and terror/the response/overreaction to terror is #1.

Re:No, Osama bin Laden

[nightsweat]

I'm going to use foul language here. Fuck you, it is not a troll. It's a serious assertion.

Re:No, Osama bin Laden

[Anonymous Coward]

Influential can mean good or bad. It just means he made a difference.

So, Osama Bin Laden is influential, just like Bill Gates is by holding the computer industry back. Not a positive influence, but a negative one.

ANTI-SLASH

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot sucks, join anti-slash.org, COCKSUCKERS!

Gate's rating is up

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict that Gates will jump to #1, once the world can finally realize all the enormous benefits what the cheap $35.00 XP for poor sucker nations brings to humanity - as featured in a Slashdot story earlier today.

Re:Linus

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

I know that anything is possible - especially in the corporate world: but I think most of the owners of Apple would strongly resist a buyout attempt by MS. Back to that ideology thing... I know people invest to make money. But I also think a lot of Apple's investors have a degree of loyalty, born out of disgust with MS.

Why anyone in FOSS?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Though it saddens me to say it, I'm amazed that there are so many people connected to FOSS in there at all. If this is intended to be a list of "global trend setters" in technology (no flames, please, I can't read the article either) then FOSS is really a very small blip in the ocean. Perhaps the credit to people like Linus and RMS is intended to be symbolic, but really, I doubt most people making serious decisions have ever heard of anything they've done recently, or appreciate what they are (and, for that matter, really aren't) responsible for.

I'd expect the big "trend setters" to be those with truly wide influence. For example, compare the number of developers working on all GPL'd projects with the number of developers using Java, and consider therefore the relative weight of RMS's opinion against that of, say, Gosling. Compare the effect of a slashdotting with the number of hits on a site like the BBC that laughs at one, and consider therefore the relative weight of slashdot editors against that of, say, the BBC News Online editorial team. Of course these comparisons are somewhat apples vs. oranges, but you get the idea.

In other words, if you're looking for people with the greatest influence on technology, I'd expect it to be those who control Big Technologies -- possibly including the obvious people from places like MS, Sun, IBM and Apple, but remember there's more to technology than personal computing and programming -- and those who commentate on those Big Technologies when that commentary will in turn be read by the next-level-down decision-makers.

Ummm ....

[gstoddart]

To commit heresy, though: should Linus be that high on the list? Sure, he's influential in linux, and linux should be represented, but in the happy world of IT shouldn't some Red Hat or Suse guy be higher?

Exactly what influence would someone at Red Hat or Suse have were it not for Linus?

They may sway more money nowadays, but with no Linus and Linux, neither of these companies means anything.

Re:Ummm ....

[Ohreally_factor]

There was a funny quote in the Linus bio:

The open source movement could get stung by the enforcement of software patents. Already Torvalds has spoken out on this issue and you know if a fight comes, Torvalds will be on the frontlines.

Yeah, right. If there's a patent fight, Linus will be on the frontlines IF he's served, subpoenaed, or otherwise dragged kicking and screaming to the aforementioned frontlines.

Linus has made it pretty clear that he just wants to work on Linux and not fight or evangelize. I don't think this takes away from his influence in the least, but the guy is just not a politician.

Re:Ummm ....

[gstoddart]

I'll concede that Linus doesn't go around wielding influence. He also doesn't go around trying to foist his agenda on people.

That's not the same as having influence, or having influenced things in the past.

Believe me, one well placed interview or opinion piece and a lot more people pay attention to what Linus Torvalds is saying than just any schmoe off the street. And since he's consistently a fairly level-headed and thoughtful person, he at least bears listening to when he finally chimes in.

I don't think this takes away from his influence in the least, but the guy is just not a politician.

So, where exactly in my post did I assert he was a politician? I said he was influential, and that the reason Red Hat and Suse had influence was because of something he started.

I respect the fact that he's not a political animal and isn't an evangelist. But anyone claiming he doesn't actually wield much influence is kidding themselves.

Cheers

Re:Ummm ....

[Ohreally_factor]

I know this is slashdot, but you're being paranoid and hyper-defensive for assuming that I was challenging your post or your contentions. You'll notice I don't say, "you're wrong".

Try rereading my post. Then ask if it's possible to hold a discussion or exchange views outside of the debate format that is the norm on slashdot.

If you really need to argue with me on some topic, then let's talk about your mom. If fat = influence, your momma would be the most influential person on earth.

Re:Ummm ....

[gstoddart]

Actually, I was responding to what you said, I was just having a bit of a disconnect of relating what you wrote to what I said since it seemed you'd yoinked off into a bit of a tangent that's a little away from my point. I was trying to clarify what I said.

I usually try and respond to people who reply to my posts, as I prefer intelligent discourse to what happens here on Slashdot most of the time.

If you really need to argue with me on some topic, then let's talk about your mom. If fat = influence, your momma would be the most influential person on earth.

Oooh, and yet again a demonstration by someone claiming to represent the intelligent side of discourse. Did that take long to think up?

So, I guess if cum buckets are influential, you must damned well be a senator then, eh? Mayhaps you're the second biggest asshole after goatse.cx boy?

See how quickly we devolve into inane school-boy crap when someone gets hyper defensive. It serves no point. Going into full-blown butt-head mode doesn't make me respect your position any more -- you seemed more intelligent in your prior post.

Cheers

Re:Ummm ....

[Ohreally_factor]

So, I guess if cum buckets are influential, you must damned well be a senator then, eh?

Good one. Obviously took more thought than mine. I'll trade insults with you any day. =) It was supposed to be a joke, and I'm glad you got into the spurt, I mean, spirit of it.

Sorry if I seemed to go off in a tangent, either joke-wise or otherwise.

Gates, Jobs, Colors: What is Most Important?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/28/1 66211

The most important people are...

[Anonymous Coward]

... Linus Torvalds and Gael Duval... in that order. Google for Gael Duval if you really don't know who he is.

Bill Gates is simply a lying, thieving, cheating, shit-for-brains idiot and shouldn't be on anyone's list.

Very interesting, however...

[jmcwork]

I think I would like to see the top 50 on 'silicone.com'

BZZT! I'm sorry, thank you for playing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows can be "rock solid" - if you remove the power cord. Security is never a problem in an unpowered Windows computer.

Still not good enough. My black-hat gear includes a standard computer power cord for almost that exact reason, along with the lockpicks and other goodies.

It's amazing how some foolish people think that their data is secure, just because it's stored on the hard drive of an obsolete unplugged server that's kept in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard."

Here, kitty kitty kitty....

Re:BZZT! I'm sorry, thank you for playing.

[Phragmen-Lindelof]

This should be modded "Funny" - or "Insightful", since I will never again trust my C-64 hidden away in the basement with ... Never Mind.

You have to be kidding me...

[dark_requiem]

TOM RIDGE?!!! Is this a list of technology trend setters, or the frontrunners in the battle to institute socialism and fascism around the globe? I mean, the guy looks like he could be a villain from an Ayn Rand novel!

Re:You have to be kidding me...

[o'reor]

OK, you looked at the photo, now when you RTFA, it can't be more clear:

Tom Ridge has set an agenda in the US and beyond with his practice of eroding civil liberties in the name of national security.

IMHO, this is the most insightful comment on the whole list of personalities presented here. This guy is a villain appointed by the Bush government. Which in itself is a tautology.

No, that list is not only about tech trend setters, but also about politicos, if you read the front page. And between the DMCA, the consequences of PATRIOT act, the extension of patents to software, yeah, those politicos are on their way to give tech users a hard time.

Google is represented

[EyesWideOpen]

"No. 9 Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO, Google

Larry Page and Sergey Brin may have founded Google, but it's Eric Schmidt who's shepherded the company from kooky start-up to big-time public concern. For that, our panel has elevated Schmidt seven spots from last year to mark his debut in the Top 10 (while neither Page nor Brin make this year's list)."

Jealousy

[michaelmalak]

The "flamebait" rating is intersting, isn't it?

I'll admit that I missed two things:

1. That Kindall would probably have been less monopolisitc than Gates (though money has a way to corrupt -- e.g., is Ellison-cum-Peoplesoft benevolent?)
2. That BSD would have filled the role in place of Linux.

But I think the motivation behind the "flamebait" rating is the present-day analogue to why those of my generation revile Bill Gates -- that he didn't do anything special and any one of could have done it instead. The new generation evidently feels deeply inside the same regarding Linus and Linux.

Now if that isn't flamebait, I don't know what is :-! Seriously, the hostility to giving Linus credit on Slashdot is surprising. If not this explanation, then what?

Hah!

[leonmergen]

But clearly, mr. Gates links to 08.html, and mr. Torvalds to 07.html ! So apparantly, they *were* able to seperate them, they're just afraid to admit it! :)

Not exactly.

[mattdm]

Sure, they like to let you think that. But increasingly, you're the product.

Well, according to my Dell support policy...

[Slime-dogg]

The most important guy is named "Abu," and he doesn't really speak English.

I heard that the Republican party used this guy to develop their "vault," or whatever, where they keep clones of Abu clothed in white armor. Naturally, the republicans don't speak Abu's language, so they used their secret weapon "W" to make monkey sounds at him.

Next thing you know, the Democrats are going to be outsourcing software to the Republicans to work on.

I'll take a crack at it.

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, here's some of who you missed:

# 3. Niklas Zennstrom

That's professor Farnsworth's arch nemesis; the mayor would have fired him, but he has tenure.

# 6. Richard Granger

Hermione's father.

# 14. Sir David Tweedie

The guy who invented the suit with the leather elbow patches. Rumor has it they're gonna make a big comeback among geeks next year.

# 16. James Murdoch

He was the chopper pilot from the A-Team.

# 25. Joe McGeehan

He played Number 5 on "The Prisoner"

# 31. Len Hynds

Former bass player for UB40. Married to Chrissy.

# 33. John Connors

The leader of the resistance, responsible for the creation of time-travel (as skynet wants to kill him)

# 41. Hu Jintao

Maybe Intao is slang for 'Dick' ? :o)

# 47. David Sainsbury

He invented hamburger helper!

# 48. Andy Duncan

70's sitcom star. She had her own show in 1972.

I emailed them

[emtboy9]

and my write in vote is Cowboy Neal!

Big Brother..??

[mantera]

"Blunkett has also revamped telecoms and internet access in the UK, although the difference to most UK web users may not be apparent, by making sure each web page visited or phone call made is monitored by the mobile operators, telcos and ISPs."

Is this true?

What a load

[Anonymous Coward]

Torvalds shouldn't even be in the top fifty. I mean, I know all of you guys worship him, but he really hasn't done anything more than the average engineer has.

On top of that, his engineering principals and design skills are unsound. There's no sense in glorifying poor engineering.

Snowballs and FUD

[rumblin'rabbit]

You are undoubtedly correct. SCO never did have much of a chance. I suspect SCO wanted someone to pay them off or buy them out before it ever got this far. The last thing they probably wanted was to have their bluff called.

And you are also correct that the SCO case is not going to change any laws. I don't think anyone thought it would.

So far as changing the law, I would be astonished if much happened in "a year or two". In the last few decades, however, the tide has flowed mostly one way - that is, towards ever stronger IP rights. Groklaw and others like it might help to stem the tide. There are even hints that some judges read Groklaw, going by their writings.

And no, Groklaw, is not just about SCO. Two-thirds, perhaps. I've read a lot of interesting non-SCO articles on Groklaw.

very interesting question

[zogger]

If something were to happen to Linus, what exactly happens with the kernel? Who makes the decisions then? Is there a legal "progression" of authority, or what?

Bill Gates

[bluemonkey123]

Bill Gates should be #1. I mean, everyone knows that his innovations include:

• Including bugs in software
• creating security flaws to make people upgrade
• charging too much for software that doesnt work...

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

oh man that just made my day man. i cant believe no one noticed that yet.

if you're looking for a cite

[alizard]

I think the incident you're thinking about happened hundreds of years after Moses... try I/II kings, I/II Chronicles, or the minor prophets.

There's a Bible search engine here that's an OK keyword search setup, I'd look this up myself if I had time.

Re:BBC gov subsidies work

[Anonymous Coward]

But since he/she/it elicited your response, does that make him/her/it a "master bater"?

Putting together two words that sound like some other word is not exactly the height of humor. It's not even a pun, because there's no particular reason for the second interpretation. Had he been talking about sex or something, then it would be a pun, and slightly less sophomoric than your post actually was.

How about the creators being listed?

[Billly Gates]

First instead of mentioning Bill Gates, I suppose you could mention the father of the Altair and IBM for making pc's marketable and into businesses as homes as genuine tools.

Without that Microsoft would never be.

Second, Jobs did do a great job with the Apple1 and II and being one of the first micro computer companies. However the gui that changed the world and led computers into classrooms for children and techno illiterates came from Xerox.

Also worth mentioning Xerox labs invented the ethernet. That in itself is its own innovation that changed networking and corporate communications overnight.

Last Torvalds only wrote an OS because he hated DOS and had no real alternatives. Its a great operating systen and a hard accomplished but Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie invented C and Unix for him to model his OS after. Also worth mentioning is RMS. IT was his vision of free software and the C compiler from the free software foundation that enabled Linus to write his os and port software to it. Free software was around before RMS in the term of posix tools(BSD's use these in addition to gnu) but there was no C compilier.

Give credit where its due.

Its sad to see that the true innovaters are not really reconigzed today. It only shows who is sucessfull and marketable.

Re:The funniest slashdotting message. Ever.

[Billly Gates]

Never heard of that one.

A former employer of mine tried to have me tell his customers we were upgrading our systems to our clients.

As you can tell I did not last their for long. Why is it never ok to lie but in business its expected?

Stallman Made It

[LuYu]

It is good to see that RMS made the rankings this year. But one odd thing is this:

No. 44 Richard Stallman, free software advocate

Last year's position: Not placed

I think it is important to remember that if it were not for RMS, Linus could not be on the list. RMS's influence cannot be understated, and most (if not all) of the freedoms currently associated with Linux were his ideas. He should have been on the list since its creation.

In any case, more exposure for him means more freedom for me and everyone, so I am happy he has finally been recognized by this ranking.

Breakdown

[thejakeman135]

Here's how I view it: Jobs dictates the style of things. Gates dictates the little frills and add-ons. Torvald dictates stabilily and substance.

The word is "design"

[Infonaut]

Jobs: most influential in fashion.

"Fashion" and design are not the same thing. Fashion exists for its own sake and doesn't require any functionality. Just ask anyone who wears pants so baggy that they can barely walk. Good design is the creation of things that have pleasing form while providing excellent functionality.

Jobs and Apple have always valued design as a vital component of their products, because they understand that technology can be made more useful if it is more approachable. After all, the Convergence hasn't arrived yet, and most humans like technology that works for them, rather than technology that forces humans to work for it.

As far as influencing the development of technology, being an ubergeek doesn't mean you'll make the list. The entire personal computer industry owes a huge debt of gratitude to Apple, and now so does the music industry. As the guy who led Apple in both of those endeavors, I'd say his influence on technology has been tremendous.

As for ranking Gates, Jobs, Torvalds, et. al. against each other in some sort of pageant, it seems like we as a society have become a bit obsessed with lists. I mean, there is no real way to quantify something like this, so it's all just opinion anyway. I feel like I'm reading Seventeen magazine when I see stuff like this.

Re:Linus

[wobblie]

Part of this may be because (right or wrong) people see Linus as non-political, whereas RMS's views seem to be more political. My bet is this attracted people who were neutral about the GPL and Free software, as well as the zealots.

True enough. However, Stallman is one of the few vocal people out there who realizes the importance of technology in politics, and the enormous effect it has on society. This is boiling down to a black and white issue and he knows that - there'll be no fence sitting in the coming years.

I can't count the times I've been "admonished" for using software for "political reasons." There could not be a better reason.

That's Ratan Tata of bodacious-tatas.com fame

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/21/magazine/21NAMES .html?pagewanted=all

Re:The funniest slashdotting message. Ever.

[Night Goat]

Why is it never ok to lie but in business its expected?
Because businessmen are, by and large, more interested in money than in being a decent, honest person. There are very few principled businessmen.

Re:Linus

[cranos]

Okay Linus, use to code a lot, however with the size of the kernel now it just wouldn't be feasible.

I'm pretty sure that Linus has enough technical knowledge in a lot of areas within the kernel to say what goes and what doesn't, also keep in mind that he has a group of sub project maintainers whos job it is to look after specific areas.

umm, the guy from google

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, I'd say the guy from google is most important

Yay for UK's NPR

[Anonymous Coward]

So BBC is basically the NPR of Britain, with a bigger budget and more things to do (more media to get into than just radio). Yay for media from taxes!

Re:The funniest slashdotting message. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me-- I'm about to go live with a Pfizer website. What political easter eggs should I plant in the php code?

Torvalds - Most influential?

[idamaybrown]

With who - nerds?

Favorite line from The Brucercist

[Ohreally_factor]

"The Power of Bruce impales you!"

Re:Favorite line from The Brucercist

[davidsyes]

Well, based on YOUR quoted line, I now am recalling the Exorcist.

"The POWer of CHRIst comPELLS YOU!" Impale, impell, compell, dispell, repell, derail... hehhe (without referring to "rhyme" at the CLI...)

OK, you add a few now...

did bill gates really deserve that distrinction

[Exter-C]

Yes, Microsoft is great blab blab blab.. But realistically what makes bill gates more important than the guy that runs the coders in the bacement ? really has bill gates actually coded anything at all in the last 20years? has he ever written any code.. If so was it any good?

Bill gates has got some good business sense if somewhat unethical to many people. But the tallents of people are on different planes so putting them in a tie is a little daft in my opinion.

Not important. Not Powerful. It's "Agenda Setting"

[SuperKendall]

People seem very confused, describing who is the most powerful or infulential.

Those answers are very different indeed than who is the Agenda Setter. While Torvalds in the end may have more of an effect on teh world, in terms of agenda for the computer industry I think you still have to hand it to Jobs.

Microsoft in playing catch-up in the OS (moving to support stuff like Rondevous, and real accellerated window systems), and is really chasing after Apple in the music industry (online store) and consumer electronic space.

There are some areas to be sure where other people are ahead of where Jobs is going, but few people get other companies chasing after them more than Jobs and Apple manage.

too easy

[Anubis350]

...and, no, I'm not touching the whole "Tata" thing...
thats because you post on slashdot....

Leaving Carver Mead off the list is a JOKE!

[Old.UNIX.Nut]

Carver Mead has done more for the computer industry than Linus, Mr. Bill, or most of the others on that list.
READ about him before you judge this statement.
Not having him on this "Agenda Setters" list undermines it's validity.

Jobbs

[vegasbright]

I see jobbs as an andy warhol of the computer world. He's a drugged out guy with some cool ideas who in the end wants everyone to believe that duplicating soup cans on canvas is art.

Time Magazine's Man of the Year

[Ohreally_factor]

1938- Adolf Hitler
1939- Joseph Stalin
1942- Joseph Stalin (2nd time)
1958- Charles De Gaulle
1979- Ayatollah Khomeini
2000- George W. Bush (Person of the Year)

It's interesting to note that Jeff Bezos (1999) and Andy Grove (1997) have both made times list, but so far Billy hasn't.

I think part of the problem is that Gates and MS have squandered much of their influence in their quest for coin. In the quest for profits, MS has taken many shortcuts, which is not something I look for in a leader.

Not really

[Kjella]

The market is important. The customer is not. You start out with "everybody". From there, you pick a target market. From there, you have a considerable number of people in that market that aren't willing to pay, have too wierd taste, strange hang-ups and whatnot.

And of those that *are* your customers, many are not important. Those that only hunt the bargain bins and blow-out sales aren't contributing much to your bottom line. Typically, you have a 80/20 relationship where 80% make up the "volume" with all the economics of scale, and 20% that rake in your profits.

Of those 80%, you don't really do much to appease a small portion of them - you still mostly get the volume and don't need customers you lose money on. The 20% are those where the customer is important, really important.

Of course, there's more than pure financials, you can e.g. have trendsetters in fashion. Those are very important too. But it follows much the same pattern. Some are too "freaked", some you lose to cheaper store and so only, only a fraction of your customers are important.

Of course, you're always supposed to give the impression that each and every customer is important, and is sounds very friendly and helpful. But that doesn't make it any more true.

Kjella

Re:Linus

[Ohreally_factor]

know people invest to make money. But I also think a lot of Apple's investors have a degree of loyalty, born out of disgust with MS.

You probably think wrong. Seriously, other than a few big holdings (Jobs owns 5 million shares, for example), the majority of the stock is held by mutual funds, pensions, and other institutions. The purpose of these institutions is to make money, and if there was money to be made by selling to MS, they'd leap at it. No personal feelings of loyalty enter into it.

Thankfully, I don't think MS ever will attempt to take over Apple. Where would they get their free R&D if they did?

Al Gore

[Anonymous Coward]

why, he invented the internet!

Re:Heh, Steve Jobs

[Ohreally_factor]

Wrong. Apple paid Xerox for the PARC research and technologies that they used.

Seperation of Linus and Gates

[Anonymous Coward]

And others. The easiest way to me is to say if they were dead would technology accelarate or stutter in the respective areas?

Linux would stutter I think. But then possibly surge in memory.

Areas in which MS have their tendrils would surge because: The market would be rocked. That would hit MS. In the disturbance they would lose some of their death grip. Other technologies would get some footholds. MS would regroup and buy up lots of those innovators... major step forward occurs.

It's always a good question to ask but if they were dead?

Re:Linus

[jonadab]

> if it weren't for Linus, the OSS movement would now stick to a free OS based
> either on 386BSD or GNU/Hurd

It would be BSD. The whole lawsuit thingy was settled and the caveat-free
version released a couple years after Linux started to really get popular
in the OSS community. Hurd wasn't anywhere near finished yet at the time.

However, I don't think OSS would be as popular as it is without the influence
of the Linux kernel. I believe there are *more* people using BSD today than
there would have been if Linux hadn't been written, because somehow Linux
shone a light of popularity on OSS, and people took notice. There are quite
a lot of people who start out experimenting with Linux and then move on to
the harder drugs of BSD as it were.

Heck, without the influence of Linux, Hurd might _still_ not exist.

But Hurd isn't the largest influence that Stallman or the FSF have had.
Emacs is much more influential than Hurd, for example. So is bash. Still,
I think these things are more popular and influential than they otherwise
would have been because of the popularizing influence of the Linux kernel.

Rat

[Anonymous Coward]

Who gives a rats ass??

Re:BBC gov subsidies work

[davidsyes]

Yeh, right, Spock. (There was a signature on /. I saw which seemed pretty funny and obvious.)

Points for you, though, for you appear to be in complete control of your emotions, Spock.

Re:BBC gov subsidies work

[Anonymous Coward]

Points for you, though, for you appear to be in complete control of your emotions, Spock.

If by "complete control" you mean not thinking a juvenile sex reference is hilarious, then yeah, I'm in complete control. But don't take my word for it, ask one of your classmates.

Re:My thoughts -- try applying to Paris Hilton

[elwinc]

There is nothing called lucky opportunity. Unless you are smart and prepared enough when luck or whatever comes calling, you won't make it.

[sarcasm] Oh yeah, when Paris Hilton was born, it was touch and go whether she would live her life rich and pampered. Smart and prepared, that's our Paris to a fare-the-well. Likewise Prince Charles and the whole British Royal Family. I am just so impressed with how they got to where they are today! [/sarcasm]

This list is a farce

[Pan T. Hose]

Donald Knuth number 40? With Steve Jobs number 2? Please don't get me wrong, I am all for gay and fashionable cool gadgets, I own many of them myself as well as recommend Macs for workstations in my institute which adds a little bit of fashion, bright colours and life to an otherwise sad and boring scientific laboratory, but I believe that an author of The Art of Computer Programming which American Scientist has included among the best twelve scientific monographs of the twentieth century, as the only one on computer science, along with works of Albert Einstein, Paul Dirac, John von Neumann, Richard Feynman and Benoit Mandelbrot, just from the top of my head, rated as number 40 in this pathetic list is an outrage, for not only it proves that the author of this laughable list is an incompetent moron, but it is also an insult to our intelligence that we as a Slashdot community are linking and promoting such an idiotic stupidity. Misplacing Richard Stallman may be understandable and perhaps even justified in the context of popular opinion that one should avoid GNU in GNU/Linux but misplacing Donald Knuth is plainly an utter outrage and I would hereby like to sincerely apologise Donald Knuth in the name of the entire Slashdot community. Please do not identify us with the outrageous incompetence of the abovementioned list of "important" people.

Very true

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true, man. I stopped RTFA when skimming through the list I saw Don Knuth on 40th place. I totally agree. Your post should be modded up.

OT: your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I post, slashdot runs a port scan on 80, 1080, 3128, 8000 and 8080. wtf? anyone else?

Well, duh... How else do you see whether the connection is made by proxy? I do the same on every hit of my webpages plus I connect to port 113 and log the ident response to log the username.