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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."
Um... Perhaps Bill Gates really ISN'T the antichrist...
Which leaves only Steve Ballmer.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
His head is much smaller in person.
Rockefeller, who was perhaps the richest man in all history, also used his fortune via nonprofit foundations, not only to enhance his character as publicly perceived (Gates has already done this), but also to mold and shape the American culture, especially the political culture.
In fact, arguably, plutocrat fortunes, as used to fund foundations, might be said to be the primary force used to direct and channel American leftism. Read more about this in Roelof's book _THe MASK OF PLURALISM. Basically, her main thesis is that plutocrats funded the large nonprofit foundations so that they could fund leftists who were not oriented towards economic oriented leftism, but instead towards identity politics. Thus, the white lower middle class was turned away from leftism in general. Well, there is more to it than that, but it was a major factor.
I doubt Gates could ever match the effect that Rockefeller, Scaife, etc had on American political culture. Too many other players in the game now...
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I think that many people, as their savings went into orbit, would decide to give more to charity.
Is giving ~2% of your fortune to charity each year really that amazing?
It is more worthy than all of the other donations by people, many of whom might be donating a lot more money in percentage terms, or actually donating their time to the cause?
It's good however, because you don't hear much about other mega-rich people giving to charity. Maybe they do, but don't claim as much publicity from it? And ~2% of a mega-fuck-load is still a fuck-load (20 kilo-fuck-loads!).
All men come to realize they reap what they sow. All mean come to realize they too will die, and whatever is said afterward, and how people remember you is all that will remain. Perhaps mortality finally caught up with him, perhaps not. We'll see.
Help me, help you. - Jerry McGuire
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?
If nature did have a way of weeding out idiots, you'd be in serious trouble!
Bill Gates has given more to charity than anyone EVER. Other billionaires, on the other hand (Trump, for example), have given almost nothing to charity. I think the guy deserves a little credit, regardless of why he's doing it. We can't judge his motives, since we don't know them. We can judge his actions though, and they speak pretty loudly.
Remember kids, tin foil doesn't work, so use LeadHat.
Yes, exactly, and that was certainly not a new tactic. In fact, the system of checks and balances built into the American constitution was actually imported from England where they implemented it because it tended to divide up the people'e power, and set them against each other, paralyzing the power of the people, thus making it harder for us proles to tax the rich more.
A political scientist named Fresia has a book online that talks about this. It's called _TOWARD AN AMERICAN REVOLUTION_.
Also, one Richard Bissell, an early CIA honcho who helped start the Ford Foundation with CIA and plutocrat money, said the tactic for destroying leftism was to not debate the leftists about their ideas, but instead to divert their energies to activities and interests that would be less harmful (to the rich and megacorporations, one presumes). The primary diversion created by the Ford Foundation and other nonprofits was Identity Politics/Pluralism/Multiculturalism.
Divide and Conquer, same as it ever was....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Gates has given massive amounts of money to various charities ever since Microsoft became successful. This isn't anything new. Maybe, just maybe, Gates is a genuine philanthropist? Of course, if you already hate the man, which so many here do, you could probably never come to accept that.
Get over it. He doesn't have any alterior motives here. There's no smoke and mirrors. He's just continuing to do what he has done for decades.
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Bill is doing a lot of good with his charitable work and that deserves recognition. But if he steps back guess who's going to be running the show. Steve Ballmer has shown himself to be more ruthless than Bill, more aggressive and much more willing to threaten competitors.
On the other hand Ballmer is also impetuous, and may lead Microsoft back to the law courts.
Will future versions be able to read what he saved? And even if they could will it render the same?
With lyrics like "yea yea yea yea"
Bono has lots of free time.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
it does
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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
Easy, you sell your characters on ebay.
"Quoting yourself is stupid." -Me
I'm so inspired by Bill's philanthropic spirit, that in future I'm going to use pirated copies of Windows, and give the retail price straight to charity. I'm sure he'll be pleased that I'm saving him the trouble of doing it himself.
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.
At the same time, Gates no longer cuts the profile he once did as a high-tech titan. While he's still respected, he's no longer scary--and the totemic company he built from scratch seems increasingly ordinary, even irrelevant
What the article doesn't go into is why Gates and Microsoft are no longer seen as scary. It's because their products are no longer the only choice. It used to be that for many things, you had to deal with Microsoft, because all the stuff you wanted to do required Windows to run. That meant that you had to agree to whatever terms Microsoft cared to offer, and they could be pretty onerous (and expensive). These days, with the easy availability of open source alternatives and the shift to web-based services, people are no longer compelled to accept lousy deals from Microsoft. If they don't like what Microsoft has to offer, they are free to go with something else. That means that (a) Microsoft has to treat its customers better if it wants to keep selling product, and (b) customers no longer have to live in fear of doing something that would anger the giant in Redmond.
So yes, Gates and Microsoft are no longer as scary as they used to be. But it's more because of the actions of Torvalds, Stallman, Jobs, and Berners-Lee than any change of heart by Gates.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
When he took such an obvious path as creating a nonprofit organization (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and pumping in record billions of $$$ to avoid tax
I guess you got modded "insightful" by people who are really bad at math.
Donating money to charity does not leave one with more money than one would have had if one didn't donate at all.
If I have 120 dollars and I donate 20, I get taxed on the remaining 100 dollars (let's pretend it's 35%) - so I wind up with 65 dollars.
If I have 120 dollars and I don't donate anything, and I get taxed on the 120 dollars (and let's pretend that the tax rate on 120 dollars is 40%) I wind up with 72 dollars.
So, you see, even after considering the tax benefits, one does not magically wind up with more money after donating than if they didn't.
But, you know - if reality were different, I guess maybe you would have a point.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
you can see that they pay out three times less in contributions than what they earn from investments
Thats the whole point of a foundation. you DO NOT give as much as your investments return. You have to account for things like inflation, which is not steady over time and which is actually at a low point right now.
You can say what you want about the Gates foundation but the fact of the matter is that is has done real work - and it is well-managed. It isn't just a billionaire throwing money at the latest fad, it is a self-sustaining foundation aimed at an important problem for our time. Bravo.
-everphilski-
Since Ballmer runs it, MS is both a BUISNESS and a chairity.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Bill Gates has given more to charity than anyone EVER. Other billionaires, on the other hand (Trump, for example), have given almost nothing to charity. I think the guy deserves a little credit, regardless of why he's doing it. We can't judge his motives, since we don't know them. We can judge his actions though, and they speak pretty loudly.
I knew a woman once that didn't have much money because she was a "housewife" or "stay at home mom", whichever you prefer.
She volunteered everywhere she could. The animal shelter, local museums, homeless shelters, Special Olympics walks, cancer drives, the list goes on.
Everyone thought she was the kindest person in the world, and one day I asked her why she did all of this stuff.
She said that she absolutely hated her husband and family and would do anything to get out of the house.
Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation has given, with inflation accounted for, three times as much money to charity as Rockefeller, who gave the most to charity before Gates.
Remember kids, tin foil doesn't work, so use LeadHat.
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.
You are correct. Billg said that he would donate $1 million over 10 years to fight aids in india. He then made a $1billion dollar investment over 4 years to setup microsoft institutions there to fight linux.
He also likes to play tricks with his money. A $25 million donation to kids in need that really equated to being $25 million in printed MS WinME licences. Nothing like printing your own money and claiming to be giving away vast fortunes.
He likes giving away money, you see. Thats why hes the richest man in the world.
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
I actually was around before Microsoft seriously entered the computing market. I remember computers costing $10k (the Apple Lisa). I recall small Unix boxes costing $15k, with the OS adding another couple thousand to that (Sun). I remember dozens of machines with no interoperability (TI 99/4, Atari, TRS 80, Exidy Sorcerer, Apple...)
Microsoft, love it or hate it, established a defacto standard. No one was forced to buy Microsoft products- even counting the "Microsoft Tax", anyone could have easily purchased a Macintosh or a small Unix box. But they didn't, because they were generally over priced and provided little or no advantage for all their extra cost. Every vendor back in the '80s was desperately trying to steal their piece of market share, and the concept of open common standards was effectively non-existent. If anything, Microsoft's dominance encouraged sufficient standardization to make it necessary for company's to actually compete on features and price: if this hadn't happened, I imagine we'd be buying $1200 operating systems for our $8,000 computers today.
I'm truly sick and tired of the people who can't unscrew their heads from their rectums long enough to realize that Microsoft and Bill Gates are no more "evil" than any other company out there. Don't like Microsoft products? Great, use what you want, but shut the hell up about it already.
As far as Gates' generosity being a "new" thing...no, its not. A decade ago, he said he intended to give away 95% of his wealth by the time he retired. This is nothing new. And he sure as heck isn't doing this to impress any of the people here on Slashdot.
How has Microsoft set computing back? The fundamental problem with this argument is that there is NO evidence that there were other more advanced technologies that didn't advance because of Microsoft.
There is plenty of evidence of this. There were far better GUI systems that Windows when it started (anyone who tried to program under Windows 1.0/2.0 as against a more rational system like GEM would have realised this). Even as Windows as developing, it was intended to move to a more stable and secure system (OS/2). Microsoft abandoned that effort, and moved us back to buggy Windows 3.0. There were plenty of ways Microsoft could have given a robust and usable system on the desktop, but they were still shipping (carefully hidden) DOS-based systems (Win95/98) until the late 90s!
Combine this with their proven abuses of monopoly in an attempt to supress competitors, and there is no question Microsoft has held things back.
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.
> I actually was around before Microsoft seriously entered the computing market.
Me too! In fact, I was around before MS entered the computing market, period.
> I remember computers costing $10k (the Apple Lisa).
And you can still spend that (or many times that) if you want. And there were computers that only cost a couple of hundred on the market at the same time. As there are now. So whatcherpoint?
> I remember dozens of machines with no interoperability (TI 99/4, Atari, TRS 80, Exidy Sorcerer, Apple...)
Yup, those were the cheap ones. And I was writing cross-platform apps for those machines with supposedly "no interoperability" at the time! And we did it basically the same way it's done today, with compilers to hide CPU differences, and libraries to hide other system differences. Sure, the overheads associated with cross-platform work made it a non-starter for, say, video games, but for business apps and such, it was clearly, even at the time, the wave of the future.
> Microsoft, love it or hate it, established a defacto standard.
No, IBM established a defacto standard. And, in the process, managed to kill of a lot of the existing market for cross-platform support (anyone remember UCSD Pascal or Fig-Forth?), and, arguably, set the industry back by a decade or more. Microsoft just happened to be lucky enough to be in a position where they were able to hijack the standards created by IBM. People didn't go with Microsoft because it was better (or even very good); they went with Microsoft because it was "IBM-PC compatible".
And, in fact, by the time the PC came along, the small business computing market had already pretty much standardized on CP/M, and Digital Research was already looking at porting CP/M to a new generation of sixteen-bit chips. All the indicators, at the time (before MS came along), were pointing clearly in the direction of cheaper, more powerful computers with more standardized interfaces and APIs. What bucket you were hiding under to believe otherwise I can't imagine!
> Every vendor back in the '80s was desperately trying to steal their piece of market share, and the concept of open common standards was effectively non-existent.
Complete, utter hogwash! How many vendors were supporting CP/M at the time? How many were supporting Unix? Dozens, if not hundreds! I call shenanigans! We even bought one of those Apple Lisa's you mentioned around that time, but we didn't buy it to run LisaOS (or whatever it was called)--we bought it to run BSD! Gee, there was already a FREE cross-platform OS even way back then! Kinda makes you go "hmm", doesn't it?
> As far as Gates' generosity being a "new" thing...no, its not.
No, but Gates' personal generosity towards humanity in general has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with Microsoft's role as an evil, predatory monopoly! My feelings for BG are completely separate from my feelings for MS, and my feelings for MS are that I haven't used any of their software since '98, and hope to never do so again.