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Bill Gates Speaks Out

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the amusing-stories-of-the-public-relations dept.

neoform writes "The Seattle PI is running an interesting interview with Bill Gates." In the article Gates comments on Vista, Google, and a few other pertinent topics. In an amusing bit of related news, an anonymous reader let us know that CNET is also running an interview with Gates. In the CNET interview Gates gives a very interesting response to one of the interview questions. "CNET: So that would be the philosophical difference between Microsoft and what Google is up to at this point? Gates: Well, we don't know everything they are up to, but we do know their slogan and we disagree with that."

3 of 571 comments (clear)

  1. What in heaven's name is he talking about? by CyricZ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Software in general, whether it was from Microsoft or somebody else, was not set up for an environment where all the computers were connected together. So it's not like there was some software that had this security capability and our software did not. As we use the Internet to connect everyone up, then the need to essentially have suspicion and only listen to certain other systems, and if flaws come up to have those updated very quickly, that became a new requirement.

    Of course software was set up for networked communication. Most UNIX (including *BSD and Linux) systems since the late 1970s have been network-aware in some form or another. And they have experienced nowhere near the problems that Microsoft's software has.

    Now it's intriguing that he's suggesting that it might be necessary to "only listen to certain other systems". That sounds an awful lot like a DRM-style situation for the Internet. Imagine not being able to connect to an FTP server running on Windows, only because you're using Mozilla or the FreeBSD ftp client, and such non-Microsoft products are deemed "insecure".

    --
    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
  2. Re:Thanks to Apple and Open Source by interiot · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Seriously, this ex-Microsoft guy has it spot on:
    There are specs I wrote for UI features in 1998 that are unchanged today, 7 years later, in a world where browser usage has changed dramatically.
    Why was the least amount of browser development done during the period of the greatest amount of web growth?
    "You're still here? It's over. We won. Go home. Go."
  3. Re:Is it an eeevil slogan? by shotfeel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    we are going to give people tools to let them organize the world's information

    Question is, after you let me organize it all, will you allow me to access it and how much will it cost?