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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."
[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:
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.
Physicists get Hadrons!
From scratch? You wish. Even Linus doesn't claim that.
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.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
They have only blocked people comming from slashdot. Copy paste link and it should work.
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
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Actually, Stallman inspired a movement to create an OS.
Linus manages and has managed the development of a kernel.
Big difference.
Ratan Tata is India's famous Industrialist. He runs the Tata group of companies.
a ta .htm
http://www.tatachemicals.net/0_about_us/ratan_t
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.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Oops -- wrong link. Correct link is here.
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.
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.
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.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.