Slashdot Mirror
The Softening of a Software Man
theodp writes to tell us that New York Magazine has an interesting editorial stating that no one is afraid of Microsoft anymore. The article argues that Microsoft has noticeably been adrift in the wake of Gates' philanthropy, which some cynics suspect is a Rockefeller-like attempt to 'fumigate his fortune' as he makes a play for the history books. From the article: "Like the robber barons, Bill Gates has moved from trying to take over the world to trying to save it."
I'm by no means a MS fanboy, but.. c'mon already. The man and his family has shown more support for worthwhile causes than I'm sure some small countries have. He just can't catch a break around here, can he?
I still think a good case can be made for Steve Jobs being the antichrist. Without ever making himself look evil he manages to tempt countless people into sin through techno-lust, and the vitriol exhibited by rabid Mac-lovers towards basically anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest can hardly be thought of as "natural" hatred.
I guess now to stay afloat they're going to have to come up with some good ideas other than selling people antivirus software to patch up their crappy vulnerable OS. That was a good idea, if only for the irony.
I imagine the cynics would comprise mostly of the peanut gallery on this site.
Really, who else do you know other than maladjusted computer geeks really care that much about Bill Gates? What he does with his fortune is almost hardly noticed by the general public, until this year. And very few people would call Gates a robber baron at all.
The fixation with Bill Gates and Microsoft on slashdot is really unhealthy. You people need to get out more.
I believe he earned the money. I believe the market is actually free. Therefore I am not afraid of MS. I have never been afraid of MS. The market still gets to choose and up till now, it chooses MS, for many reasons fair and unfair. Natural monopolies may seem unfair, but you are still free to steer the market in a better direction. Only the zealots believe that MS is pure evil and that Gates would need to fumigate his fortune. I wonder what excuse the zealots will use to hate the new leader if it doesn't come from your team?
As pieterh said a while ago: "Watch my left hand... as my right hand takes your wallet."
If nature did have a way of weeding out idiots, you'd be in serious trouble!
IBM is not to be feared no more, Microsoft is not to be feared no more, who are we gonna hate and fear now? Google??
You just got troll'd!
What bothers me how fast people forget just how he has gotten theese money. For all we know computing as we know it would be years ahead if it wasnt for Microsoft and Bill Gates. The way Microsoft has taken over the market is disturbing. By killing the competition, not by selling better products. If it hadnt been Bill it would have been [insert name of choice here] that would be throwing money at third world countries to avoid taxes.
A killer does not become better in any way by saving equal amounts of lives as he has killed. Most of the problems in the third world is because of us in the developed world. We have made extreme amounts of money by exploiting them. The tiny fractions of it we "give" back is a mere drop in the ocean and nothing to bang our chests about.
Bill Gates sucks whatever he does because of what he has done to set back computing years just for profit. Nothing can change that unless he gets a time machine.
HTTP/1.1 400
that just making more money was pointless, and there were better, and more fulfilling, things to do with his time. I hope so, with the fortune he has amassed he could truly accomplish some amazing things.
Naaahhhhh!!! What was I thinking?
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Let us assume-- I've no way of knowing whether this was his intent or not, but let's just look at it hypothetically for a moment-- that Gates donated all this money for the goal of having people think positively of him.
Well, whether or not that was what he was trying to do, it worked. The parent and grandparent post demonstrate this nicely. Defenses of Gates on the basis of his philanthropy are immediate and "insightful". Rejections of the idea that money should be able to buy respect are "trolls".
I am posting this as AC. Why? Because apparently what Gates' billions to charity have bought is this: You are now a 'troll' on slashdot if you criticize Gates' motives. After all, those billions may have come from means which were destructive, unethical, illegal, or possibly outright theft; but, because he gave some of it back, it was all Good in the end. Bill Gates, the modern Robin Hood. Leeching from the computer users and industries of the world, and giving to the poor or AIDS patients or what not. How can we possibly question the motives of a noble hero such as this?
Truly, you can buy anything, if you are a smart shopper. $97 million to build a house, $10 or 20 billion (I've lost count of exactly how big the Gates Foundation is) to buy the hearts and minds of slashdot. At least we do not come cheap.
The $20M he gave to a University library buys him naming rights. $20M to Bill Gates is pocket change. How much "hurt" did he feel making that contribution? About as much as a regular guy would feel if he gave a quarter to charity. To Bill, $20M to see your name written over a prestigeous library entrance is cheap.
When he makes big donations in Inda or whatever it is a nice way of buying a good impression and some positive hype when they want to staff up Microsoft India. It is also a nice way of imposing some control. Don't piss off the guy with the dough or he might take his favors elsewhere.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Bill has amassed his fortune by copying the goods of others (e.g. GUI), by aggressive marketing, by the unnatural rights granted to corporations (IP laws), and by leveraging its initial monopoly which it obtained due to luck.
But now he is being generous. Should he be given credit for that? Maybe the donations should be made in the name of the public from which he has obtained his fortune while giving nothing in return.
Remember, it's your money he's giving away. By self-serving use and abuse of the US legal system, he stole hundreds of billions of dollars from people all over the world. He was convicted of this in a US court.
It's great that he's giving some of this money to charity. Personally, I'd rather have the few hundred dollars he's got from me back so that I could choose how to spend it myself. I'd also rather have the businesses he ruined back, and the generation of computer programmers he ruined back, so that the US could be another 15 years ahead techologically.
Excuse me if I don't light any candles for the man.
Bill Gates has given more to charity than anyone EVER.
I disagree. In the New Testament we read about a poor old widow who gave to the temple a couple of coins, which was what she needed to live. Relatively speaking, she gave much more than any millionaire could give.
On the other hand, if Bill Gates wants to become a good person, WHY DOESN'T HE GIVE US BACK WHAT HE FREAKING STOLE!?
I mean the monopolic practices, forcing us to pay licenses for Windows, etc etc etc.
It's as if a rich man exploited poor men but gave a lot of money to the church. You don't become a good person by stealing and giving a little to the poor. You become a good person by NOT STEALING in the first place.
I have some suggestions:
Why don't we judge companies based on the company's behaviour, and judge individuals based on the individual's behaviour?
Why don't we stop imagining that somehow a multibillion dollar company is still largely a projection of one man's personality?
Why don't we acknowledge that contributing to charity does not absolve anyone of responsibility they may have for wrongs they committed in the past?
Why don't we acknowledge that a person's psyche is not one-dimensional.. that an individual can do good in some contexts and bad in other contexts?
Does that sound reasonable?
-Laxitive
Let's not forget those rape victims, people with cheating spouses, medical professionals who get needle sticks while saving lives, children sold into sexual slavery.
Those people are idiots, too, right, Gravis Zero?
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Seriously, I think anyone who discounts Microsoft or doesn't fear them at this point, or who says "their star seems to be fading" needs to look around again. For some time now, there have been some saying that Microsoft is becoming increasingly irrelevant, now that we have companies like Google.
.NET slowly but surely keeps gaining more and more momentum. And Apple, though they may currently have the dominant MP3 player, are still slowly getting nipped at their heels by competitors, and it is beginning to look like their dominance may begin to fade at any moment... And the Macintosh continues to face shrinking market share, to the point where there are now more Linux machines than Macintosh machines out there.
But to anyone thinks this way, I warn you: some people once thought Netscape and the World Wide Web might make Microsoft irrelevant. Others once thought Java might make Microsoft irrelevant. Some once thought Apple might dethrone Microsoft. Some once thought the Playstation would kill Microsoft. I am willing to concede that the verdict may not be in on the last two points yet, but the XBox 360 is sure making headway in that market, and the iPod, though still the most popular MP3 player, is clearly by NO means secure in its position at this point, as competing music stores AND players are continually nipping at Apple's heels.
But my point is simply this: In EVERY case but the last two, Microsoft successfully thwarted or killed those technologies, sometimes only after quite a while of making blunders. Though it may have taken a couple years, Internet Explorer ultimately killed Netscape. Java, though still widely used, appears to be stagnating, not growing, as
And to anyone who thinks Firefox is dethroning Internet Explorer, check again: last time I checked, Internet Explorer still has AT LEAST more than 60% market share, even according to some of the most Firefox-dominant survey samples out there, like the audience who visits W3Schools. And for all the talk about ActiveX and its security flaws, that doesn't seem to have put much of a dent in its use--there are STILL quite a lot of applications out there on the web that depend heavily on ActiveX, particularly at places like banks and corporate intranets. It's all very well to say Firefox is right not to support ActiveX because of its insecurities, but for anyone who is stuck with a bank or a corporate intranet that requires ActiveX, there is basically no real alternative to Internet Explorer.
I doubt ANYONE in their right mind could seriously say the Apple, Sun, or Netscape are going to dethrone Microsoft anytime soon. Do *NOT* discount Microsoft. They might be down on this one round, but they are by *NO* means out. Last time I checked, they are STILL the dominant desktop OS, with over 90% market share, and the prospects for a successful Vista launch seem to keep getting better all the time. From the looks of it, Win Vista, whether we like it or not, is very likely to wow many people, and help Microsoft reclaim whatever ground they have lost to Apple, Google, Linux, etc.
I also warn you: Microsoft is clearing planning to move all of their MSN properties into Windows Live. The next version of Hotmail will be called Windows Live Mail, in keeping with this. Their plan is to integrate Windows Live (formerly MSN) heavily with the Windows operating system, and to market it and position it as *THE* web portal, Web 2.0 widget center (upon which other web applications will be built), and THE gateway to the Internet. By integrating Windows Live into Windows and making it platform-dependent, Microsoft still has a trump card here that Google can only DREAM of having.
Do NOT discount Microsoft--they are STILL a force to be reckoned with, they are STILL in a VERY strong position, and they are STILL very dangerous... Do NOT be lulled into a sense of complacency.
He also blows big chunks of money on diseases that mostly affect non-whites.
He spends money helping people who need help. What's it to you, adolf?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Substitute 'Capone' for 'Gates' in your message and you will see why your argument sounds so ridiculous to some people.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
This is good for humanity. Having vast resources means nothing if you don't put them to good use. Can you think of the fantastic places the world could be today if Nazi Germany had for instance put their efforts into curing the common cold, instead of killing millions? I think it's fantastic that Bill Gates is trying to eradicate some diseases, and think more Billionaires should be taking on the role of world saviour. We all put our money into Microsoft, it's only right that he use that money to the benefit of all the people we didn't help directly, by making their lives [and our lives here] safer by wiping out viruses and other infections.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
2% may sound like a reasonable ammount to donate to charities but in practice I doubt many people actually donate that much of their non-megasized income. Lets say X makes an average sized $50k a year... 2% of that is what... $1000? (don't trust my math though...) and how many people really donate $1000 a year to charity? I don't mean they SAY they do on their taxes, or they donate an overvalued used computer or something else so that on paper it looks like $1000, but really donate it straight from their bank.
I'm not saying people aren't generous but usually that generosity is coaxed, like Bill paying for naming rights, people donating to PBS for the "free gift" that depends on how much you donate and the like.
I know that's neither here nor there but I just see that everyone is bandying about this 2% like it's pocket change they're used to throwing around and having seen the people that try to claim $1 buy-a-heart/star/shamrock charity donations on their taxes I know it's not as common as some people think.
The next time someone complains about Bill ONLY donating 2%, they should try adding up how much they donate (of course, now I'm going to have a string of posts after this from people saying "no, you're wrong, I personally donate 3% and so thus, EVERYONE must be donating 3%")
You don't know what "social darwinism" is, do you?
And very few people would call Gates a robber baron at all.
The parallels between Gates and the robber barrons of 1880-1920 are pretty obvious. Perhaps it is your healthy non-geek detachment that prevents you from observing it. Gates has profoundly distorted an industry of great promise and gathered tremendous wealth to himself through careful construction of a monopoly. He did so through maniacal competitiveness, and cunning much like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford. Has he affected history? Certainly. Positively? Doubtful. His legacy is DRM and the anti-virus industry. Like the robber barrons, later in life he chooses to disgorge some of that wealth in a very public way in an effort to whitewash his image. He may leave his name on a couple of buildings, but posterity will see him reviled like his predecessors.
an ill wind that blows no good
"Get over it. He doesn't have any alterior[sic] motives here. There's no smoke and mirrors. He's just continuing to do what he has done for decades."
So if I stole people's ideas and fortunes, claimed them as my own, and destroyed an entire industry which was flourishing with brilliant ideas until I nearly single-handedly brought it to stagnation, you'd be okay with that so long as I gave 2% of my spoils to charity?
Pardon me while I don't just "get over it".
I disagree -- the vast majority of AIDS sufferers are in countries and areas where there just isn't the education to prevent such things.
How can you disagree by paraphrasing what I said? I said:
"AIDS is a problem in underdeveloped nations that do not know how or have the means to do sex safely."
no-one deserves to die
Everybody deserves to die, it is a part of life. Don't want to die, be a rock or something.
I'm willing to admit that there's been people who have contracted HIV/AIDS from their own idiocy, but to call it "nature's way of weeding out idiots" is both insensitive and incorrect.
Although I agreed with the "idiots" thesis, I did not use the word. I talked about being unhealthy, uneducated, and unable to have access to decent healthcare.
If you take away the myth that people are better than other animals or even "made in God's image", and just think of us as mammalian animals like we are then you will understand that we are just like other living creatures and subject to the same problems. I've seen diseases an drought take out trees and animals. Oh, thats insensitive and incorrect. I've seen a fluctuation in oxygen in a creek that caused a whole species of fish to die and float to the top. Oh, I'm insensitive and incorrect. These things and others are nature's way of weeding out weak individuals that simply do not fit in the current environment. Humans are clearly not immune to nature. To have a different believe is simply incorrect, but not insensitive.
More people die from the influenza virus in the United States than the AIDS virus. Influenza kills very young and old people. Oh, I'm insensitive and incorrect. I already displayed what the insensitive and incorrect CDC studies have shown as far as the target population that gets and dies from AIDS. They are uneducated and poor people that do risky sex and share needles.
I have no judgment of these people or their actions. Every action has consequences both good and bad. Being educated, wealthy, or healthy does not cause happiness. But being at the bottom of any social group usually does. And those people at the bottom are weaker ones in the current environment.
I do not understand when I go on these frank and factual based posts here about humans that I get moderated all over the spectrum from informative, troll, overrated, and insightful. People seem to prefer to ignore reality.
So go ahead and shoot some dope with the same needle with your friends, and have unprotected anal sex with them, and live it up. Don't come crying to me if you get AIDS.
I have to say that I disagree with this, because the "idiots" in Africa that you mention afterwards are the disease's primary victims, and not being able to find out about these things does not make one an idiot.
For the record, do you know if the "unprotected homosexual contact" figure includes "accidental" (protection failing) cases? Because if not, that group is pretty much fully idiot (except for those who were misled by people that they were in a position to sensibly believe that they could trust, which can't be that many), yes.
As usual, the evidence of the ignorant falls somewhat short of being accurate.
You can contract AIDS not just from sharing needles, but from using another junkies' spoon. Too, used needles are all that's available sometimes. Street dealers sell them for convenience sake. They have to ... you can't buy needles in a store. Because that would encourage drug use and frighten churchgoers. There are needle exchanges in major US cities, but they only operate a few hours a week in various locations. Not to mention, many junkies fear they'll be marked by undercover narcs if they pick their rigs up there. It's not that junkies wouldn't use fresh needles if they were available, in fact they're preferable (sharper). They're not, though.
The relatively high percentage of AIDS in the black community is correlated to the relatively high percentage of black men who are incarcerated. One of the great unspokens within the black community is that many men have sex with one another in prison. Before the GNAA chimes in, you should understand many heterosexual men have sex with other men in prison. It's a different world no one can judge unless they've been there. It doesn't help condoms aren't distributed in prison. Homophobia, you understand. Don't want to look gay or anything. Same reason guys don't admit to it, same reason guys don't get tested, same reason guys give it to their girlfriends when they get out. Shame.
As for having unprotected sex being idiotic, if that were true we're all idiots. Well, probably not you. I'll let you in on a little secret, though -- condomless feels better. In the moment, it's pretty easy to convince yourself that you can beat the odds.
Microsoft still has plenty of venom and clout. It's still a dangerous company to deal with and one that is exerting a damaging influence on our economy and the advancement of our technology in general.
MS still takes every opportunity to attack open source software and open standards in general. Look, for instance, at the incredible attack that MS has launched, via it's pet columnists, at Mr. Quinn in Massecheusetts, who had the temerity to recommend that MA insist that the governement switch to software that used open document format, so that MS couldn't force the state to upgrade by changing file formats. Mr. Quinn has probably saved the MA taxpayers, like myself, untold amounts of money, and in return he's been attacked over and over in the press.
MS is patenting everything it can think of, obvious or not, in an attempt to preempt competition. Even if the patents are eventually overturned, they can be used to threaten software and hardware developers, retarding the advancement of technology in all the areas MS is getting patents in.
I think it's more likely that MS will become increasingly dangerous the more that Bill Gates retreats from management of the company. Ballmer has already shown that he is willing to do almost anything to increase the bottom line, legal or not.
MS still needs to be split up. It is still a monopoly and still defies the courts in the U.S. and Europe by continuing it's monopolistic practices.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
Dont forget that Africa is becoming the rape caital of the world. It's pretty tough to get your generic rapist to use a condom.
One in three of the 4,000 women questioned by CIET Africa, non-governmental organisation, said they had been raped in the past year.... In a related survey conducted among 1,500 schoolchildren in the Soweto township, a quarter of all the boys interviewed said that 'jackrolling' - a South African term for recreational gang rape - was fun.
Actually one generally does pay for open source software, just not always in the same way.
... then you post the information for all to benefit.
Anyone can sell open source software. Many have business models involving selling and servicing repackaged open source software.
If you aren't paying that way, then you pay by contributing back to the efforts of the developers so that improvements may be made, rather than just leeching off their hard work. If you can code, then you code. If you find bugs, you report them. If you have found innovative ways of using the software or can answer questions posted by other users
You encourage others to do the same because one day you may need the help, such as when you're such a dumbfuck that you don't know how to format a simple word document.
But I suppose the high and mighty Caspian, master of English, is way above all that.
Dumbfuck leech.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Who doesn't know that story? Let's hear something more recent.. Nobody wants to, or should be, overly judged on their actions from 25 years ago. Most people have done things they're not proud of within the past week, let alone the past two and a half decades. I'm not advocating a group hug or anything, but let's be realistic. Besides, there are much better examples of his autodiestic tendencies.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Hiring to offset taxes - why? An extra employee costs a LOT more than keeping the money and paying the tax on it.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows