A Real Bill Gates Rant

lou ibmix XI submitted an email written by Bill Gates a few years ago and turned over to the feds as part of the government's antitrust case. Great quotes like 'Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?' and 'The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind.' We like to think of him as an abstract, but I think this is interesting stuff. Also, this might seem familiar. Oops.

Comments

Massive Dupe

[Thelasko]

http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/06/26/026237.shtml

Re:Massive Dupe

[wisty]

It's been 6 years, and he still can't install it? Maybe he should install Wubi, and try apt-get, that usually works.

Re:Massive Dupe

[Sockatume]

No, no, this is deliberate. After posting a story which wasn't really news for nerds, they decided to post a story which is for nerds, but isn't actually news. They're giving up errors for lent and are trying to get them all out of their system first.

Re:Massive Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

Photons don't have mass.

Re:Massive Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

To install what ? Since we are talking about desktop, name atleast one decent desktop app thats much better (or atleast equivalent) than its windows counterpart. I am for opensource and all but give windows some credit.

Re:Massive Dupe

[cayenne8]

"They're giving up errors for lent and are trying to get them all out of their system first."

Hmm...well, this year for lent, I'm either going to stop giving up things...

Or...I'm going to quit not drinking.

Will worry about that later, tomorrow is Fat Tuesday, and NOLA is a wonderful place to live this time of year!! I feel so sorry for all my friends around the country, that not only will they not have a cold drink in their hand by 6am...but, will be actually going to work?!?!

Hmm, now, what to drink for morning beverage? Bloody Mary?...Screwdriver?...Beer?.....Bucket of Everclear?

Re:Massive Dupe

[el3mentary]

Yes they do M=E/(C^2)

Re:Massive Dupe

[1hurcoman]

I love NOLA as well. Had a client schedule a meeting for 10:30 tomorrow. Told him "I'm going to be drunk by then".

Re:Massive Dupe

[hardburn]

Connecting to the SMTP port directly and writing ASCII in base 13 is better than Outlook.

Re:Massive Dupe

[cayenne8]

"I love NOLA as well. Had a client schedule a meeting for 10:30 tomorrow. Told him "I'm going to be drunk by then"."

I hear ya!!

Happy Mardi Gras!!

Re:Massive Dupe

[cheftw]

Lol physics troll.
It is generally accepted that photons have no mass. They aren't particles as such, consider them as quantum force carriers.

Re:Massive Dupe

[Weaselmancer]

Using the stripped ends of two wires hooked to an RS232 port to enter it in binary manually. With your tongue.

Re:Massive Dupe

[achacha]

You must be popular with the ladies.

Re:Massive Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer to watch him jump over a chair:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxaCOHT0pmI

Re:Massive Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

Only real photons in a vacuum have no mass. The ones interacting with you right now have an effective mass (otherwise they couldnt have a longtitudinal polarization and travel at speeds other than the speed of light). Photons can also be virtual, that is have a negitive mass squared. You can even probe the parton distribution functions of those virtual photons.

Anyway I'm a little drunk and being overly pedantic and so unfair. However the above poster is an idiot because he mis quotes the formula, its really E^2 = (mc^2+ pc)^2. And for you, photons most certainly are particles in the quantum physics sense.

Re:Massive Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, "m" and "c" should be lower-cased in the famous Special Relativity equation.

Secondly, "m" is the inertial mass, which follows from a Lorentz transformation. It is not the rest mass, which is intrinsic to the object in question. "Rest mass" in Special Relativity is the intrinsic energy of an object in an inertial frame in which it is at rest with respect to a stationary observer at infinity, in a slice of spacetime with a set of coordinates that makes it locally flat (Minkowski spacetime).

A photon in the Standard Model must have zero rest mass. Experiment has demonstrated that the rest mass of a photon is actually << 1e-16 eV/c^2 (or much less than 1e-22 the rest mass of an electron). Cosmological observation puts stronger constraints on the rest mass of a photon, although those have not yet been demonstrated experimentally.

Photons have inertial mass when not at rest. Usually this is considered in terms of linear momentum (p) in the Special Relativity equation E=cp. However since this is equivalent to E=mc^2, there is an equivalence between inertial mass and momentum. This equivalence does not mean that they are the same thing, merely that an increase in linear momentum and in inertial mass gives an object more inertial energy, all relative to an observer.

Photons transfer energy from one object (or system thereof) to another; following a strict conservation law in nonexpanding/noncontracting Minkowski spacetimes. Usually this is considered in terms of a conservation of momentum, and is treated by statistical thermodynamics/statistical mechanics. An energetic system radiates away its movement in photons; photons bombarding a less energetic system heats that system up; in a closed system this leads to thermalization (equilibrium).

Beause of the equivalence of mass, linear momentum and energy, one can also say that photons carry inertial mass away from an energetic system to a less energetic one, but this sort of counter-intuitive use of equivalence is both unnecessary and liable to confuse people. This is mainly because inertial mass is not the same as intrinsic mass (aka rest mass).

Inertial mass comes from movement relative to an observer / measurer. Intrinsic mass is what is observed / measured when the observer / measurer is co-moving with the object under study (i.e., they are at rest with respect to one another). Lorentz transformations are used to determine rest mass when an observer is not co-moving with the object under study. The famous Special Relativity equivalence equations must be satisfied if the Lorentz transformations are correct.

Photon masslessness does not arise from Special or General Relativity[*]. It derives from the U(1) symmetry group in the Standard Model. The Standard Model is widely believed to be incomplete (thus the experiments at the LHC) but there are very, very few extensions to the Standard Model that predict a photon with a nonzero rest mass.

[*] In GR, photons are considered massless because they offer zero resistance to acceleration. They go from stationary (with repsect to an observer) to the relativistic speed limit (c) in free space and flat spacetime, given any acceleration at all (even exceptionally tiny ones). Giving a photon a small nonzero mass would mean giving a photon a small nonzero resistance to acceleration, which has enormous consequences for cosmology, but not on GR grounds per se. There would be Special Relativity consequences to a photon with nonzero resistance to acceleration, namely fringing or other evidence of directionality of travel when measuring the speed of light, but these were strongly precluded by Michaelson-Morley and other interferometry experiments, as well as microscale redshifting experiments (GPS for example) and the dipole anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation.

So, your parent should have said "rest mass" or "intrinsic mass" to be clear. However, I think requiring the qualifier on "mass" in a context that is

Re:Massive Dupe

[paimin]

This is a whole new beast -- a dupe that refers to the dupage within the dupe! A recursive dupe.

Gnarly.

Re:Massive Dupe

[Sj0]

RTFA. If you wanted to install a movie maker in most linux distributions, you open the package manager and search for "movie maker". Check the box, hit install, 10 minutes later you're making movies.

Re:Massive Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

* All the editors (except vim)
* Amarok and Banshee are both better than WMP, iTunes, QuickTime, and the other common Windows media players
* The file browsers are mostly better than Windows Explorer
* Using butterflies beats Outlook (XKCD ref)

I don't get it

[Spazztastic]

I don't understand all the hate for Bill. Unless if this e-mail was nothing more than a publicity stunt to make him look less evil, it shows that he wasn't happy with the way things were going. He clearly saw the direction the ship was going and he couldn't turn it in time.

Despite what you say about Microsoft now, Ballmer will always be funny to read about and watch on youtube.

Re:I don't get it

[QCompson]

I don't understand all the hate for Bill.

Stay off my lawn.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand all the hate for Bill.

Neither do I, but this is Slashdot, so get with the program.

Re:I don't get it

[Vellmont]

I don't understand all the hate for Bill.

Bill's the guy that's responsible for creating this monster. Obviously he didn't do it all by himself, but he's ultimately the captain of the ship.

He clearly saw the direction the ship was going and he couldn't turn it in time.

I actually don't really hate Bill (though I understand why some do). Even though I saw this email about a year ago I'm still greatly amused by it. It shows that even Bill Gates can't control the monster he's created. It's very interesting and amusing that Bill Gates, largest owner of Microsoft and (then) the person with the greatest control over it, reboots his computer nightly. That explains so much.

Re:I don't get it

[drinkypoo]

I don't understand all the hate for Bill.

You may hand in your geek card at the door.

If BillG's actions as the head of Microsoft we're enough for you, then surely his new mission of spreading IP law across the third world should get your attention? The Gates foundation makes for-profit investments that are killing people they claim to be trying to save. Bill is personally heavily invested in big pharma and Gates supports strong IP law in order to protect his profits.

Re:I don't get it

[AvitarX]

I tend to agree.

I also get the impression that of all the tech millionaires he appears to be the one smart enough to retire and enjoy his money and family best.

He really seams more human than Larry Ellison for example, and I definitely get the impression he is motivated by more than money and power (of course it is probably easy to look that way when you have plenty of both).

Re:I don't get it

[smallfries]

It's the law of unintended consequences. The vision at Microsoft has always been to try and reduce complexity. Whenever there has been a tradeoff between control and simplicity, Microsoft has chosen simplicity. Unfortunately some things are inherently complex, and as you try to wrap them behind simplistic abstractions there comes a point where you simply can achieve what you want. Suddenly you, and your current task is one of the things that the designers abstracted away. The quote about "we didn't realise people would try and download it from the downloads page" is a classic example.

Which of course was exactly the point that Neal Stephenson made in the essay In the beginning was the command line.

Re:I don't get it

[Hal_Porter]

No it doesn't. With software development the default is that software developers have great fun refactoring, improving architecture and so on. And they produce something which is appalling for usability. If you ever worked inside a software comapany you know how much work it is to be able to even build the latest code. From the perspective of developers once it builds and there aren't any showstopper bugs, everything is fine.

Users see things differently - if the install process is hard, they'll stop using the software. If the GUI is ugly or hard to use, they'll stop using it. Word of mouth will kill new sales. The product will die. If all you have is programmers on the same level, either they'll learn to love the product or they'll leave. If users complain, it's because they're too dumb to understand why the limitations are there.

The point of Bill's email is that he tries new products and tries to make these 'dumb user' type critiques of it. You need to do that with Microsoft products - people who use them don't love them unconditionally like Mac or Linux users, they barely tolerate them.

Re:I don't get it

[Locutus]

Bill Gates is the one who, with Steve Balmer, created a Microsoft where it is more important to win by leveraging Windows than competing on quality. He's also overseen them target one software technology after another which were cross platform and therefore threats and had to be eliminated.

What was once a tiny software company who made a Basic interpreter became a monster threatening anyone and everyone if they did not do things One Microsoft Way. This is Bill Gates' fault as much as it is Steve Balmer. Just look at the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation for more proof. From what I've heard, if any school or library takes funds from them, they are not allowed to use open source software. They just constantly limit choice and that has been Microsoft's business method for over 20 years. IMO

LoB

Re:I don't get it

[zappepcs]

I'm keeping a copy of this and some other beauties. Anytime anyone wants to know why I think they should switch to Linux of OSX, I just show them the emails. Even Bill G is tired of Windows and how it works, why shouldn't joe the pc user be?

Re:I don't get it

[markus_baertschi]

I don't understand all the hate for Bill.

In my view he is the responsible for some of the unethical beaviour of Microsoft. I'm thinking of the famous 'if DRDos then crash' in Windows 95, among others.

Markus

Re:I don't get it

[postbigbang]

>>The vision at Microsoft has always been to try and reduce complexity.

If this was true, then what's more onerous is that they failed, and did so in repeated, dramatically awful ways. The competing divisions, the lack of inter-disciplinary leadership, confused market views, the lie of 'customer-focused' decision making are all what were embodied in Microsoft's decided failure. Add in the mix of tawdry business practices, lack of belief in criticism, and an insular greed-based nature, and it's not a wonder even Gates could see and feel and experience the ultimate dysfunction. And Windows 7 cures none of that, years after this message. Instead, it continues the Microsoft habituation of trailing edge technology, executed poorly as an excuse to the madness of Vista. Ballmer needs to find a real replacement for himself and get the hell out.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

You may hand in your geek card at the door.

Why? I don't understand all the crap he gets either.

Has Microsoft done some not cool stuff? Sure...I guess. At the same time, Bill Gates created an excellent company from the ground up, arguably created an entire industry (which, if you work with computers, you can thank him for your job), and continuously made the company profitable over and over again.

And of course Bill Gates is supporting strong IP. Duh. You would too if you had that kind of money and industry to protect. As for "investing in big pharma" - so? He has to put his money somewhere. He's obviously not going to give it to someone who is going to cause him to lose his fortune. (And, despite what many people think, pharmaceutical companies are not as evil as everybody wants them to be - I know firsthand.)

Whether you like or don't like Bill Gates and Microsoft has nothing to do with your "geek card." I would say you need to work on your jealousy issues a bit.

Alright. Rant off.

Re:I don't get it

[AlHunt]

>Anytime anyone wants to know why I think they should switch to Linux or OSX,

You know, I try never to tell anyone that I think they should switch to anything. If I suggest it, they then feel free to use me as their personal tutor. If they're unhappy with their computing experience I don't mind suggesting alternatives. I've spent enough time being the guy everyone calls when their computers don't work.

Re:I don't get it

[aero6dof]

The vision at Microsoft has always been to try and reduce complexity.

Surely you jest.

Re:I don't get it

[porkchop_d_clown]

> It's the law of unintended consequences. The vision at Microsoft has always been to try and reduce complexity. Whenever there has been a tradeoff between control and simplicity.

Have you ever actually compared Windows to MacOS? Microsoft most definitely did NOT choose simplicity, rather they have always chosen flexibility - the ability to configure and reconfigure the system to run on different hardware and to do different things.

Re:I don't get it

[Vellmont]

From the perspective of developers once it builds and there aren't any showstopper bugs, everything is fine.

Usability is likely one of the hardest things to get right because it forces (anyone really) to look outside of their own perspective. I don't see this as a disease of just software developers, but everyone. Different users want different things out of the software, and sometimes those ends are at cross purposes. I won't defend developers as a whole class here, because I've seen some (and worse) of what you're describing. I will point out that it's a grand generalization though.

The problems Bill describes seem pretty inexcusable. It seems more a systemic problem than a particular one.

The point of Bill's email is that he tries new products and tries to make these 'dumb user' type critiques of it.

Heh. Dumb is an odd description for it. We've all experienced these same frustrations with using Microsoft software. Go to the horrible MS website, spend a lot of time looking for the DL, hopefully find it, wait wait wait while it DLs, machine locks up to being un-usable, finally install it.. but wait.. reboot! (assuming you survive the reboot).. now hope it works. No? Go to step 1.

If I had to identify the single biggest underlying problem here.. it'd be that the user doesn't have a single place to go to install new software that just handles it all for you (and doesn't make you reboot) like say..... a package manager under Linux ;).

Re:I don't get it

[drinkypoo]

(And, despite what many people think, pharmaceutical companies are not as evil as everybody wants them to be - I know firsthand.)

Heh heh heh. You almost had me. Nice one! I think this is where you blew it:

Whether you like or don't like Bill Gates and Microsoft has nothing to do with your "geek card." I would say you need to work on your jealousy issues a bit.

That made it too clear that you were trying to manipulate me.

If you really want to get me hot under the collar these days, you're going to have to log in :)

Re:I don't get it

[zappepcs]

What you say is true, no matter what you suggest they switch to. I most often get into the conversation because I verbally trash MS products. ooops

Re:I don't get it

[arendjr]

Has Microsoft done some not cool stuff? Sure...I guess. At the same time, Bill Gates created an excellent company from the ground up, arguably created an entire industry (which, if you work with computers, you can thank him for your job), and continuously made the company profitable over and over again.

You already say its arguable that he created an entire industry, and it is. I believe this industry would have existed perfectly without them. And working for a web company I can tell you that Microsoft is actively holding back the industry you claim they created.

And of course Bill Gates is supporting strong IP. Duh. You would too if you had that kind of money and industry to protect.

So the richest man in the world is lobbying for laws that will make him even richer at the cost of others. And now you claim we should feel empathy for him?? To me, it's kinda like the definition of greed...

Re:I don't get it

[mcgrew]

What cave are you living in??? How about Microsoft Asks For a Refund From Laid-Off Workers? That's just EVIL.

I don't hate Gates, but I sure as hell don't like Microsoft. How can anyone who'se ever used IE or written a web site NOT dislike Bill Gates?

Re:I don't get it

[Skim123]

What cave are you living in??? How about Microsoft Asks For a Refund From Laid-Off Workers? That's just EVIL.

How is that evil, let alone EVIL? To err is human. If a company or individual or bank or governmental body makes a mistake and overpays a person or company or bank or government body, the entity that was overpaid has a moral and legal responsibility to paying back the overage.

Re:I don't get it

[chdig]

Unfortunately some things are inherently complex, and as you try to wrap them behind simplistic abstractions...

Does anyone else see the irony in a poster reducing a company like Microsoft's approach to one of "simplicity", while he himself reduces the complex discussion down to a "simplistic abstraction"?

--
even worse, he's dead wrong.
Rather, the poster porkchop's argument that Microsoft chose flexibility is bang on.

Re:I don't get it

[cepayne]

Even though Bill is finally retiring from his position at Microsoft,
he really isn't retiring from MS. Instead he has created a new
position as the traveling spokesman working to protect his
former employer.

He is obviously toiling in separate issues to ensure that his
vast income stream continues to flow for decades to come.

First, Bill represents the money of the B&M Gates Foundation
(originating from donations of the wealthy, ie: Warren Buffet,
and various others) and NOT Bills own fortune.

The money is being used to buy drugs for the poor countries,
however, those drugs are produced and sold by big pharma
companies of which Bill G is a shareholder (millions of shares).

Curiously, the symptoms he is addressing with his drugs are
similar to the symptoms caused by breathing "off-gases"
originating from the nearby "oil refineries" that the B&M Gates
Foundation holds shares in.

Another hidden income stream for Bill, and deception afoot.

He portrays good faith providing free drugs to Africa, with a
subconscious side effect; Intellectual property protectionism.

The offshoot is to head off the next big interruption in his
income stream, the Operating System called UBUNTU. Ubuntu
is produced and supported from within Africa, and has the
ability to interfere with the MS Windows income stream.

It is not looking too honest, or very pretty from where I sit.

And since nearly every household in North America has at
least one Windows computer, we are all guilty of being an
Accessory to Bill Gates' plan and actions.

Blame yourself, and take note what you have enabled Bill G to
do. An example of greed (aka Mechanism of Capitalism) in
motion.

Re:I don't get it

[digitig]

It's very interesting and amusing that Bill Gates, largest owner of Microsoft and (then) the person with the greatest control over it, reboots his computer nightly. That explains so much.

I turn my computer off when I go home in the evening, too. What's so amusing about that?

Re:I don't get it

[UnknowingFool]

Microsoft's modus operandi has been more features = more sales. You see this in why Vista had so many issues with the new driver model. For years they neglected to work on security and stability over features. When it became obvious that XP was/is a major target of malware, then they worked on it. But by that time years of bad programming practices by MS and 3rd parties led to many drivers breaking in Vista.

Re:I don't get it

[Hao Wu]

"KISS" has worked pretty good for Hotmail, supposedly. Just not for Windows.

Re:I don't get it

[Hal_Porter]

I think you've missed the point of my post. I'm not saying the users are dumb, it's that they point out the obvious. Like a bad UI, or a fiddly install process. Developers don't notice that - either they've been looking past those problems for months because they want to fix stuff under the hood, or they remember it when it was worse. If you stare at crap every day, you get used to it. The users have a fresh perspective, and they can point out it is crap.

And it's funny you should mention Linux package managers. My contention actually is that you need a manager who is not a developer or at least understands non developers to point this stuff out. And you need paid customers who can pressure the managers financially if that doesn't work by threatening not to buy stuff. Otherwise it's just a bunch of developers patting each other on the back and turning out something no one apart from them uses. Like the Suse package manager.

Re:I don't get it

[jmpeax]

That made it too clear that you were trying to manipulate me.

I don't think anyone was trying to manipulate you. But it does seem that your zeal to hate the great "evil" makes you look like you have a chip on your shoulder.

Of course Microsoft has made decisions people disagree with politically. The thing is, businesses are profit-making machines and not elected political leaders. That's what governments are for. If a government and market allows a business to convince them of certain policies to implement, then we should be blaming those elected to the decision-making positions who go along with it, not the businesses themselves.

Re:I don't get it

[maxume]

Counting their failure, they are still, by many measures, the most successful software company on the planet.

For instance, more desktop users have complained about how bad Vista is than have used Linux.

Re:I don't get it

[smallfries]

Well, when you point it out...

Re:I don't get it

[msormune]

What does it explain? That he does not leave his desktop machine humming away in the night, but turns it off? Like the rest of the world does also (well, except for leachers), including all the Linux desktop machines owners. Yeah, that totally proves Windows sucks.

Re:I don't get it

[JamesP]

Well, what if they do One Infinite Loop?!?!?

Re:I don't get it

[Tubal-Cain]

Ditto; except I turn off my home (Linux) computer late at nigh^W^W^Wearly every morning. Why should Gates turning his computer off be something special?

Re:I don't get it

[postbigbang]

There are statistical measures, and then there are qualitative measures. If quality counted, many different items would be in use today.

Microsoft had a unique historical lead, and a great idea in the original concept of Windows over DOS and MacOS. They squandered that. Yes, they're exceedingly rich in terms of dollars. For some, that's to be revered.

Re:I don't get it

[drinkypoo]

I don't think anyone was trying to manipulate you. But it does seem that your zeal to hate the great "evil" makes you look like you have a chip on your shoulder.

The question there has to be whether it's implied or just (incorrectly) inferred. I don't only despise Microsoft and I don't believe that they are inherently immensely worse than their competitors, or J. Random Corporation. What I believe is that they are in a unique position to do damage, and they take advantage. And they must be stopped. I do believe that the rise of the corporation signalled the end of personal rights, and if we want them back we're going to have to do certain things to limit the rights, powers, and abilities of corporations in general. Given a chance to attempt to create my own perfect society (snicker snort) I would propose a model in which all businesses are cooperatives.

If a government and market allows a business to convince them of certain policies to implement, then we should be blaming those elected to the decision-making positions who go along with it, not the businesses themselves.

If I hand someone a gun knowing that he will shoot you with it, then both he and I are liable when you get shot, albeit to varying degrees. The ability to do a thing has never been sufficient justification to do it.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

When you have billions of dollars, it's hard to be sure that all of it is doing good, and not doing evil.

Re:I don't get it

[deoxyribonucleose]

You wouldn't happen to have anything which actually substantiates a ban on open source software as a prerequisite for funding schools and libraries? Apart from Stallman's rants?

Re:I don't get it

[phorm]

Bill's the guy that's responsible for creating this monster. Obviously he didn't do it all by himself, but he's ultimately the captain of the ship.

... and the work of Einstein led to the creation of the atom bomb...

However to be fair I believe that Einstein's goals were a little more altruistic to start with.

Re:I don't get it

[elrous0]

And what are Steve Jobs and Linus Thorvalds doing for Africa? Oh yeah, NOTHING. Bill Gates isn't perfect, but at least he's TRYING to do some good.

Re:I don't get it

[drinkypoo]

When you have billions of dollars, it's hard to be sure that all of it is doing good, and not doing evil.

Ah yes, the "saving the world is hard" argument. That's what the Gates foundation said in a press release explaining why they would not be examining their investments for ethical acceptability. Of course, this immediately followed a press release claiming that they would review their investments for same.

This argument is of course pure horseshit. You have a responsibility to invest your money ethically. To do otherwise is to simply abstract away all your bad behavior on to a proxy. If you invest in genocide, you're a murderer. If you aren't sure your investment is ethical, then the only ethical thing to do is not to make it. To do otherwise is to admit that you have no principles!

You can not be considered an adult until you at least attempt to comprehend the results of your actions.

Re:I don't get it

[Ogive17]

Well, in defense of the Gates Foundation, they need to keep making money in order to keep helping people. When I read those articles I expected a bigger link between evil Bill and those being hurt.. the big culprit is poor pollution control in those countries. The Gates Foundation not investing in that oil company in Niger isn't going to change a thing, someone else will step up and take the profits. At least under the foundation we know at least 5% of the total worth will be uses for charity and helping people.

I think it's grasping at straws.. if the foundation wasn't actively trying to make money they wouldn't be able to keep donating as much as they do. Chances are anyone who invests a significant amount of money will probably have some sort of link to a company with a few skeletons in the closet.

Re:I don't get it

[Vellmont]

I turn my computer off when I go home in the evening, too. What's so amusing about that?

Because it explains why Microsoft thinks that "Just Reboot!" is an acceptable solution to so many problems. Bill will likely never send out any "I had to reboot my computer for some dumb update, or to fix the computer" emails. My perspective is really one that I shouldn't have to reboot the machine, ever if possible. Going into a low power state to preserve the memory is just fine with me (which my home PC does well).

(BTW, I've been in a lot of small businesses, and some large institutions over the past decade. Most people DO NOT turn off their computer every night), so you can hopefully see the disconnect here with how people actually use Windows and how Microsoft sees people using it.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's priorities have always been:

(1) Money, (2) Control, (3) Power.

Ohhhh, . . . . and

(4) Quality.

Re:I don't get it

[keefus_a]

I almost agree with you. But I would argue that if you've had complete and total success with all flavors of Linux package managers, then you haven't been using Linux very long. Much like any random Windows install, when it works it's great. But frankly when it doesn't work, I'd rather be dealing with a Windows box.

I will give linux the upper hand with "updates" though. It is nice to be able to update all of my software (assuming it was installed with the package manager) with one command or click versus only being able to update the OS. But let's be fair, Windows software installs that require a reboot are relatively rare and are more likely the fault of the developer. Windows updates requiring a reboot on the other hand...on that we can agree.

Re:I don't get it

[dem0n1]

Have you tried this: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/frustrations/388b/

Re:I don't get it

[IdleTime]

Six years since the e-mail was written and if anything, the situation is even worse today!

Obviously, Microsoft has ignored all the valid points made by Bill Gates and it makes him look quite bad as a leader of such a company.

Re:I don't get it

[Rich0]

Most likely the issue is that the Gates foundation can't afford to pay first-world prices for medicines and help huge numbers of people in the third world. So, he goes to Big Pharma companies and asks "hey, can you sell me Lipitor pills for a nickel a pill for use in Ethiopia?" The Pharma company says "sure - we'll even pitch in some of our own money and sell it to you below cost, but we need to make sure those pills are used to help people in Ethiopia and don't end up getting shipped back to New Jersey and sold for half retail."

It isn't an unreasonable request - the purpose of the donations is to help people, not enrich middlemen who want to sell to people who do have the means to pay full retail but would rather save their money for Plasma TVs or whatever they spend it on. If Pharma companies could price drugs in accordance with what people can really afford I'm sure they would do so. The problem is that with open markets the folks who get the discounts will buy more than they need and make a tidy profit selling to those who don't qualify for the discount. Then nobody pays full retail and the drug doesn't turn a profit, which means that when the next opportunity to cure some 3rd world disease comes along nobody bothers since there isn't any money in those sorts of things.

The current health care situation is a mess, and more should be done to help make drugs affordable for those who cannot afford them. However, the idea that you simply shouldn't make any profit at all on refining a drug and putting it through trials just doesn't work in the real world - at least not unless government funding really steps up to the plate. Sure, many modern drugs started out in government labs (at least in concept), but a LOT of effort goes from some PhD's lab in the NIH to pills that anybody can take safely - hundreds of millions of dollars worth. Either the WHO/NIH needs to fund drugs soup to nuts, or we need to stop complaining when those who do make money off of it. That probably means that drugs will neither be $300/month for poor people (at their own expense), nor $10/month for people making $90k/year.

Re:I don't get it

[theaceoffire]

The vision at Microsoft has always been to try and reduce complexity.

Surely you jest.

I am quite serious, and stop calling me Shirley.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a jest. It's utter bullshit. Microsoft has always chosen the complex over simplicity in an effort to ensure that you are spending your training dollars on it. If you are spending so much on training and you train for Microsoft then when competing products come out you are less likely to train for it. This is vendor lock in.

If it wasn't so complex you'd train more people on more platforms.

It's all about limiting competition. Your training dollars will only go for so much and they know it.

Re:I don't get it

[ericrost]

While I agree as a technicality you can certainly see how its in bad taste for someone who has just told you that you're an unneeded expense to come back and say they overpaid you for the privilege of disposing of you, right?

Re:I don't get it

[digitig]

Bill will likely never send out any "I had to reboot my computer for some dumb update

He did. Read the RA.

Re:I don't get it

[spacefiddle]

Yes.

I worked for a couple places that were funded by M$ or accepted donations. I suggested a FOSS solution for something, and was told quite explicitly, "We can't, its in the contract."

Now, it's certainly possible the man was lying to me, or mistaken, or if you want to get cute, there was no actual legal obligation to eschew Open Source but M$ reps *implied* that there was, and the folks in charge assumed, were cowed, or simply too slow of mind or weak of will to look at it closer, resulting in this gawdawful run-on sentence i can't seem to fix.

But why wouldn't they add an exclusivity clause to such agreements, and why wouldn't most FOSS-ignorant public school and library administrators agree to it, thinking "who needs crappy free weird software written by teenage hackers, when i have professional polished shiny software for free?" They have never heard the drug-pusher analogy, i suppose, which is weird considering they're in at-risk public schools. Ahem.

Now, you asked for proof. I obviously cannot (and would not) provide a copy of any documentation from former employers, but you DID ask. I am not posting anonymously. Therefore, if you discount my account, as it were, then *you* are now the conspiracy theorist.

Re:I don't get it

[Skim123]

While I agree as a technicality you can certainly see how its in bad taste for someone who has just told you that you're an unneeded expense to come back and say they overpaid you for the privilege of disposing of you, right?

I can certainly see that it's in bad taste, although how much bad taste depend on the discrepancy in payout. (E.g., if the severance package was for $25,000 and Microsoft accidentally paid out $250,000, then it is not in bad taste to ask for the overage back, but if it was overpaid as $25,100, then asking for $100 back is a bit boneheaded, IMO.)

But there's a very wide divide between EVIL and "in bad taste." You can certainly see that, no?

Re:I don't get it

[drinkypoo]

And what are Steve Jobs and Linus Thorvalds doing for Africa? Oh yeah, NOTHING. Bill Gates isn't perfect, but at least he's TRYING to do some good.

Do you believe that Bill Gates is an idiot? The stated mission is to wipe out certain diseases, impossible as long as you can't get in to every country where the disease is a problem, and you can't do that as long as your primary agenda is to deliver it only under certain conditions - which is to say, with your chosen IP laws attached. Gates is set up to personally profit from the exchange. Do I need to keep going?

But since you ask, Linux saves African governments money that they could potentially spend on helping their citizenry, while Microsoft has added cost to the OLPC program. Microsoft is Bill's baby and he'll always share in the responsibility for what it does.

Not sure how Steve Jobs got into this conversation, but as far as I know, the turtleneck does not have a position on Africa. Jobs might, but he's not permitted to speak.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

This is capitalism. Plain and simple, anyone, and I mean anyone who has the opportunity to do this and believes in pure capitalism would. Don't kid yourself, humans are greedy by nature. Capitalism killed communism in the 80s. It then killed democracy in the 90s. (that last bit was a quote I think, but don't remember by whom)

Re:I don't get it

[Penguin Follower]

(which, if you work with computers, you can thank him for your job),

Bzzt! Wrong answer. Computers, even before MS, were taking on more and more duties within business. Had MS not come about, we would be working with Apples or some *nix variant (or maybe something else entirely - who knows). The march of computers into everyday business would have continued without MS. I work in IT in health care, and although we have a slew of windows desktops and servers, we have plenty of Unix-base machines (and an AS/400 too).

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand all the hate for Bill.

Bill's the guy that's responsible for creating this monster. Obviously he didn't do it all by himself, but he's ultimately the captain of the ship.

These comments always remind me of the feeble minds blaming Einstein for the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.
He (arguably) created an OS, made a boat load of cash, hired poeple to help him by the thousands, many of them used harsh business practices (accepted on Wall street and done all the time), and many more created bugs in the products. Yet it's all Bill's fault like he signed every deal while he coded every line. He has been way to busy outside of M$ for at least a decade to be the Evil One. His business got out of (his) hand a looong time ago.

Re:I don't get it

[cayenne8]

"don't mind suggesting alternatives. I've spent enough time being the guy everyone calls when their computers don't work."

Hmm...why aren't you instead, the guy that is happy to help them fix their computers when they don't work...for $75/hr??

The only people I give free rides to on computer help are Mom....and maybe the latest girl I'm sleeping with....everyone else pays.

Sure keeps the phone quiet, but, it also makes me $$ from my friends with businesses. I mean, hell, if you are a dentist, you surely don't go around putting crowns on everyone's teeth for free do you??

Re:I don't get it

[Lonewolf666]

>>The vision at Microsoft has always been to try and reduce complexity.

If this was true, then what's more onerous is that they failed, and did so in repeated, dramatically awful ways.

I think they did (mostly) succeed for beginners' tasks. Take installation for instance:
You could do that with some limited knowledge about partitioning years before Linux got there. Plug & Play would do the rest for you. Only recently, distributions like Ubuntu caught up to that.
Similarly, you can do elementary tasks in other MS programs without much knowledge. Writing a document in Word, setting up a database with default properties in MSSQL Server - all of these are doable with minimum learning.

A GP wrote, the problems arise when you want to do more complex tasks that are not covered in the newbie-friendly GUI. Then you have to work with registry keys and APIs that are often poorly documented. Also, complex tasks are where the often poor software quality of MS application shows - weird behavior and crashes are not rare.

Re:I don't get it

[Bazman]

I have a counter-example.

About seven years ago I worked on some malaria data analysis which was funded by a grant from the B+M Gates Foundation to Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine who then paid for us stats experts at Lancaster University. I did the analysis in R, running on Linux. All open source.

If I'd had to use MS products for this I'd still be trying to implement modelling of Gaussian random fields in Excel. I'd only have the Markov-chain Monte-Carlo simulation to do then.

Re:I don't get it

[mcgrew]

But there's a very wide divide between EVIL and "in bad taste."

Not always; I've seen some porn that I couldn't decide whether it was more evil or in more bad taste. There was this one with farm animals, for instance... ugh.

Come to think of it, bad taste isn't always evil, but I can't think of anything evil that wasn't also in bad taste. Murder or rape, for example, is in VERY bad taste.

Re:I don't get it

[Skim123]

Bad taste and evil have two different meanings. Something done in bad taste means that the person showed poor judgment as to what is socially acceptable or appropriate for a given situation. Evil implies intent and it also implies willful hate or intent to do harm.

So murder and rape aren't in bad taste. Perhaps a murder scene or rape scene in a movie, play, or book may be in bad taste depending on how it's performed or its context in the story, but an actual rape or murder doesn't indicate poor judgment as to what is socially acceptable - it indicates a willingness and intent to harm someone.

If Microsoft purposefully generated a severance check in excess of what was contractually agreed upon, just so that they could later go back and demand a refund, then that is evil. If they mistakenly overpaid a former employee $5 more than he was due and are now asking for it back, that's not willful harm, but it is a case of poor judgment.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

An email from 2003 where the CEO yells at people to improve processes is the best you can do? Come on. Back in 2003 the world was square.

I've been e-yelled at by Bill Gates too. You wouldn't know it these days, though, because I listened to what he was saying and improved what we did and how we did it. He brought up great points, end to end, that we were too close to see.

Anyways, if you need to claw onto internal emails from six years ago in order to convince people to switch, more power to you. I'm going to go work on improving "code" so people look at you funny when you bring up past stupidity. Which no vendor/group is immune to. :)

AC'd on principle, sorry.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually don't really hate Bill (though I understand why some do). Even though I saw this email about a year ago I'm still greatly amused by it. It shows that even Bill Gates can't control the monster he's created. It's very interesting and amusing that Bill Gates, largest owner of Microsoft and (then) the person with the greatest control over it, reboots his computer nightly. That explains so much.

This just shows how you are too opinionated and unintelligent responsive to any microsoft post. First off, not everyone keeps their computer running 24/7. I shutdown my computer at night, Bill probably does that too. We both probably do it for the same reason, to save power regardless of the huge difference of income between me and him. He may have billions of dollars but it doesnt mean he is just wasting around his electric just so he can say he is l33t. He has billions of dollars, he doesnt care if people thinks he is l33t.

And I also say you had an unintelligent post because if you read the whole email chain following his email, it was about the user-friendly interface and usability of both windows and the website, which was under control by the marketing division. He tried to install movie maker and after about an hour he couldn't get it installed. Thats what he was complaining about, not some monster OS.

Linux is not so much better, I could tell you horror stories that makes Windows ME look better.

Re:I don't get it

[amn108]

Usability is likely one of the hardest things to get right because it forces (anyone really) to look outside of their own perspective. I don't see this as a disease of just software developers, but everyone.

www.tunes.org and many brainy researchers came to a respectable conclusion that the only true way to give users their usability is to give them the interface to program their computer themselves to suit their access and interaction habits, however personal and perverse these are. The old idea that users are not programmers and programmers are not users falls away (just like it sort of does with Linux, which annoys great many trolls everywhere). You give them the interface that allows them to reprogram their software to suit them, beyond 'target audiences' and 'looking outside own perspective'. Computers, unlike furniture, can be reprogrammed, so they do not strictly require designers to set the interfaces in stone, and hope the majority will find them usable. Teach people how to easily adapt the interface to their needs - again, beyond moving toolbars, changing keyboard shortcuts and the already taught habit of moving windows around - and they will thank you for the most useful programming you did - you programmed the program to let its users to program its interface.

Re:I don't get it

[jedidiah]

...except Einstein wasn't the responsible party. He was just an well respected expert.

The people that actually did the work were people like Oppenheimer
and the people that were actually "in charge" were people like
Roosevelt and Truman.

Invoking Einstein is such an obvious strawman because they are NOT analogous.

Microsoft is Bill's company. He's the boss.

He's not just some nutty professor that decided to get all Cassandra all of a sudden.

Bill is the man that was signing the relevant marching orders for 20+ years.

Re:I don't get it

[jedidiah]

Larry tried to retire and was dragged back to the company after that didn't go well (for the company).

Larry has interests outside of Oracle other than technology and pretending to be Andrew Carnegie.

Larry doesn't need to retire. He already has a life.

Re:I don't get it

[jedidiah]

"capitalism" didn't kill communism, corruption did.

The Soviet union was very much a crony-ism. Everyone that could,
robbed the state blind. This went all the way from the factory
floor up to the politburo. After awhile, the system just couldn't
take it any more.

Capitalism needs a little reigning in so it doesn't devolve into
cronyism. At that point, the positive incentives to do well start
to evaporate and the system loses it's ability to sustain itself.

Considering where Russia started at the start of the 20th century,
they still managed to do very well for themselves despite of
everything. Ultimately, they did themselves in and we will follow
right behind them if we don't pay attention.

Re:I don't get it

[Greyfox]

I bet they'll have better results than the last time I asked them for a refund for the copy of Windows I wasn't using with my last PC...

Re:I don't get it

[Skim123]

I bet they'll have better results than the last time I asked them for a refund for the copy of Windows I wasn't using with my last PC...

Apples, meet oranges.

(And last time I checked, no one forced you to buy a computer that had the Windows OS installed. There are plenty of companies that sell computers without Windows installed.)

Re:I don't get it

[AliasMarlowe]

The vision at Microsoft has always been to try and reduce complexity.

Alas, their hallucination has morphed into a very bad trip indeed.

The quote about "we didn't realise people would try and download it from the downloads page" is a classic example.

Who the hell mixed PCP into their acid?

Re:I don't get it

[AliasMarlowe]

But I would argue that if you've had complete and total success with all flavors of Linux package managers, then you haven't been using Linux very long.

OK, I'll bite. I've used linux since the late 90's. Package managers were rare in those days, so that puts a limit on how long I could have used one.

Our home net has been linux-only for at least 4 years - the last WinXP and Win2k machines were migrated long ago. It's been part-linux for longer, initially using SUSE. Today, it's all Ubuntu, apart from some bastardized linux distro on a Synology headless server, and whatever the printer/scanner/fax thing has inside it. For our six regular PCs (laptops & desktops, varying from 2 months to 10 years in age), it's Ubuntu, and we've yet to see any real issue with a package manager, even with a few unofficial repositories added and some commercial (paid-for) linux applications installed.

Re:I don't get it

[Vellmont]

www.tunes.org and many brainy researchers came to a respectable conclusion that the only true way to give users their usability is to give them the interface to program their computer themselves to suit their access and interaction habits,

I had this same thought when I heard about the latest sucky interface for MS Office. (They moved everything around, and everyone I've heard from, including myself, hates it). Why not make a skinnable interface, one of which is the old interface? Then let a community re-arrange the UI however they see fit, exchanging templates OSS style.

Re:I don't get it

[Vellmont]

I've been using Linux since the mid 90s, so a little longer. I've definitely seen problems with the RPM repository suddenly needing to be "rebuilt" on very old versions of Redhat, maybe circa 1999. I haven't really run across a problem involving the package management for maybe 7 years though.

Re:I don't get it

[aaron.axvig]

I keep around a copy of the Unix Hater's Handbook. http://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to the horrible MS website, spend a lot of time looking for the DL, hopefully find it,

Absolutely correct. The search engine on Microsoft's website sucks hairy goat balls.

It is much easier to find things using Google to search Microsoft's website. You would think Microsoft would index their own website a bit better.

Re:I don't get it

[ericrost]

Conceded.

Re:I don't get it

[amn108]

I strongly believe the reasons things are the way they are are buried deep in the human condition, which is also the most natural thing sadly, ironically or however it may be.

Re:I don't get it

[BeanThere]

I don't understand all the hate for Bill.

Then learn some history. Take it from some of the slightly older folk here, you're mistakenly just showing your own ignorance.

Re:I don't get it

[Dr. Spork]

You want to see an archive of my angry rants which spewed out when I was trying to do something simple with Linux? Actually, you don't need mine - the internet is full of them.

No doubt that Windows has many dumb design elements that are rude to the end-user, but Linux is surely the champion in this category. And I say this out of love.

Re:I don't get it

[russotto]

No it doesn't. With software development the default is that software developers have great fun refactoring, improving architecture and so on. And they produce something which is appalling for usability. If you ever worked inside a software comapany you know how much work it is to be able to even build the latest code. From the perspective of developers once it builds and there aren't any showstopper bugs, everything is fine.

The reason it's difficult to build the latest code in many software companies has little to do with developers not being able to produce usable products. It's more an issue of the shoemaker's daughter going barefoot -- there's no time allocated to improve the build process and >100% of the time allocated to everything else. Personally, I can't stand that and I will take the time to make a usable build process, because I _know_ it'll pay me back in time manyfold. A lot of people just don't get that.

The problem is more that software developers don't know how to make the product usable for the audience of their software. Why should they? Neither usability nor whatever group their software is meant to be used by is their area of expertise. It _should_ fall on someone else to design the interface so it's usable. Unfortunately, in most companies either there is no someone else, so the developers do it, or marketing does it (which is even worse -- I think that's the case for Microsoft). Personally I blame Apple for this situation; I think they've almost cornered the market on good UI engineers.

Open source hits the same problem, of course. Software written by and for developers can be quite usable by developers. Software written by people in another field who know how to program tends to be usable for the particular problem the person was trying to solve, but inflexible and often fragile.

Re:I don't get it

[friedman101]

I actually don't really hate Bill (though I understand why some do).

You do? You understand why some people "hate" a guy that has created thousands of jobs, a wildly profitable US company, and is doing more to help the global effort against AIDS and hunger than (most likely) any other individual on earth? So the OS isn't the best and they aren't great about adhering to open standards or publishing their source code... Hate is isn't felt by any sane person towards Bill Gates.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Note the phrasing: "TRY and reduce complexity". And I actually think your example of flexibility shows that they do really try to make things simpler -- it's not that they ask user to figure out how to configure things, but try to make Windows figure it out. Sometimes it works, other times not.

Also: to be completely fair, Microsoft has toughter situation wrt the platform: x86 hardware is loose pile of crap, compared to tightly constrained environment Apple has created. That helps Apple engineers a lot. So delivering true simplicity is much harder for MS -- not that that's the only reason for failure, but it is a big contributor.

Re:I don't get it

[Peji]

Everyone should read "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum" by Alan Cooper. You'll laugh, you'll cry...and I guarantee anyone that has designed hardware or software will shout YESSSS! I wish I had written the book.

Abstract

[msuarezalvarez]

We like to think of him as an abstract? Huh?

Re:Abstract

[Metasquares]

Like Big Brother. We tend to know little of his personal actions and convictions; we think of him primarily as "the head of Microsoft". In a way, he's synonymous with the company, so it's strange to see him doing something so personal as complaining about a product he downloaded (although as he says, it's part of his job).

That's what I got out of it anyway.

Re:Abstract

[eln]

You know, composed of a lot of straight lines and sharp angles, both eyes on the same side of his head, lots of colors everywhere, that sort of thing.

Re:Abstract

[icepick72]

I think more like a mime, or maybe that's just some weird fantasy of mine.

Re:Abstract

[Skim123]

From Microsoft's website:

The abstract modifier indicates that the thing being modified has a missing or incomplete implementation. The abstract modifier can be used with classes, methods, properties, indexers, and events. Use the abstract modifier in a class declaration to indicate that a class is intended only to be a base class of other classes. Members marked as abstract, or included in an abstract class, must be implemented by classes that derive from the abstract class.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sf985hc5.aspx

Re:Abstract

[Anonymous Coward]

That's cubism, you insensitive non-art connoisseur! Besides, Bill has not been in his cubicle for quite a while.

Re:Abstract

[wolfemi1]

I was thinking more that we couldn't instantiate him because of a pure virtual function, but that works too. :)

Re:Abstract

[Livius]

I wishfully think of him as static and final.

Re:Abstract

[Jesus_666]

Nobody bothers to really learn about Microsoft, they just look at him and the citations.

Since CEO performance is in the news...

[Dolohov]

"'This is a shocking e-mail. Shocking!' And I said, 'What do you think I do all day? Sending an e-mail like that, that is my job. That's what it's all about. We're here to make things better.""

Apparently he either really sucked at his job, or it was the job of the people who worked for him to completely ignore what he said.

Re:Since CEO performance is in the news...

[Cowmonaut]

Why is this guy modded troll? He's quoting what Bill Gates himself said (and was included in the submission over half a year ago) and then the point he makes is completely valid. Either Bill Gates was bad at his job (e.g. making things better by sending out e-mails like that) or the people working on Windows completely ignored all the complaints and negative feedback (which should be obvious, even to Windows fanboys which I typically get labeled as).

I'd fix it but I used my last mod points the other day. =/

Re:Since CEO performance is in the news...

[ebuck]

He had a brash leadership style, which basically consisted of deciding the quality of an idea by how well someone stood up to being torn apart by the ruler-king-tyrant of Microsoft.

From what I've gleaned (never worked there myself) those that managed to survive the beating by backing up what they presented were given the green light, while those that cowered under the barrage of attacks lost their opportunities.

There are obvious non-fatal problems with this style. It didn't immediately hamper Microsoft, but I wondered how deeply Bill could really analyse all those he berated. Certainly he couldn't be prepared for every pitch, so how many pitches won on the basis of a strong (headed) arguing techniques instead of technical merit?

Re:Since CEO performance is in the news...

[chromatic]

Certainly he couldn't be prepared for every pitch, so how many pitches won on the basis of a strong (headed) arguing techniques instead of technical merit?

Yet people still think the Internet caught him by surprise.

Even the mighty Bill Gates doesn't like the reboot

[JoshDmetro]

I gust converted dad over to Linux and that was one of his peeves. Also the endless HD churning when he wasn't using it. Never mind how sick he was when he seen Open office. "I gust paid $250 for MS Office"

it's actually a fantasy game!

[Dekortage]

FTA: "In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations."

Finally, someone at Microsoft admits that you have to use magic to make Windows work right... I would comment more, but I am on my way to my daily Ballmer goat and bull sacrifice.

Re:it's actually a fantasy game!

[Scrameustache]

FTA: I would comment more, but I am on my way to my daily Ballmer goat and bull sacrifice.

Ah yes, where you let a live goat or bull into the Ballmer enclosure at feeding time.
Because Ballmer doesn't want to be fed... he wants to hunt!

Re:it's actually a fantasy game!

[Saffaya]

Though Ballmer could take a few pointers from Kempin about hunting :

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/04/ms_execs_hunting_trip_illegally/

Re:it's actually a fantasy game!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Ballmer definitely lives for the kill.

Re:it's actually a fantasy game!

[Bryansix]

Does he hunt with a chair?

Hey BILL!

[argoff]

I know how to make site and downloads more responsive. Just use Apache on Linux. ..... You're Welcome.

Really old news

[home-electro.com]

I mean, REALLY OLD. I've seen this email about a year ago when the Vista Capable story began.

Re:Really old news

[Anonymous Coward]

Give the slashtards a break. They need something anti-microsoft or they'll fall into a depressive funk. When they become despirate they'll take anything they can get their hands on even if it is stale old jokes.

Without this they may have to face facts that their little pet project only has 1.2% marketshare even though anyone can have it for free.

Re:Really old news

[Anonymous Coward]

^proud illiterate moron

Also that letter make Bill sound how should I put

[JoshDmetro]

it? Like a complete moron who has not even the slightest clue what a computer is never mind how to use it for even the most basic functions. But hes a business man not a nerd he gust acts like one so as not to make the employees uncomfortable. Yah right like he ever gets close to an actual nerdy employee.

gust?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like your dad wasn't exactly "blown away" by his Windows and MS Office experience...

I'm not exactly "blown away" by your command of the English language, either. It's hard to believe that we let people like you vote.

Re:gust?

[JoshDmetro]

Actually I don't vote and blame it on the spell-checker...really whats it there for anyway if it does not check spelling. Also triple dot dot dot it not the proper way to end a sentence mr english major...

Re:gust?

[dougisfunny]

You're right, it should be four. An ellipses followed by a period.

Re:gust?

[darien]

Ellipsis.

(By limiting my post to one word I hope to minimise the risk of my making an equally embarrassing mistake.)

Re:gust?

[PenguSven]

You don't vote huh? Sounds too much like hard work huh? Besides, why bother, the last guy you cunts elected has REALLY been great for the world. Spell check is intended to pick up mistakes. Unfortunately it can't deal with the mistake in your case, because YOU are the mistake.

Re:gust?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. You only put a period after an ellipsis (note spelling, BTW) when you're omitting quoted material at the end of a sentence. For the ellipsis' other usage, i.e. a "trailing-off" pause in speech, the period is unnecessary since the ellipsis is a punctuation mark in its own right.

Re:gust?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ellipsis.

(By limiting my post to one word I hope to minimise [emphasis mine] the risk of my making an equally embarrassing mistake.)

You failed.

I have no parenthetical statement. Treat this as a grammar Nazi combo breaker.

Re:gust?

[Anonymous Coward]

It did check spelling. Gust is spelled correctly. It's just not the word you were looking for. Spell-checkers and grammer checkers (which might have caught your mistake) are still just tools, and you need to know their limitations.

Re:gust?

[xouumalperxe]

Next time you want to troll someone's spelling, check it first. Minimise is just fine.

Re:gust?

[MrMr]

Now I'm confused. Did you mean three ellipses or one ellipsis?

Re:gust?

[agrounds]

The 's' and 'z' are interchangeable depending on whether you are using American English or a more International English. This is no different than adding a 'u' in certain words.

e.g.
realize vs realise
honor vs honour

Download page to download? No way!

[exloterum]

"So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." Microsoft in a nutshell.

Re:Download page to download? No way!

[ben0207]

No, this is MS in a nutshell:

"Help help, I'm trapped in a giant nutshell. What kind of a nut has a shell like this?!"

Totally believeable

[zoomshorts]

It is nice to see this, even if it is fake or stale.

If Microsoft execs had to endure the convoluted mess
that Microsoft.com is, they would at least try to fix it.
Sadly, auto-updates allows them to miss all this fun!!!

That or their IT staff pushes the stuff for them. Grrrrr.

Carter Pewterschmidt

[Red4man]

"Hey Bill, can you help me program my Zune? Ha ha ha, I'm kiiding, I have an iPod like the rest of the planet."

Re:Carter Pewterschmidt

[MindlessAutomata]

Ipods are pretty overrated, at least in terms of price vs. features + performance.

Re:Carter Pewterschmidt

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you are just too highbrow to spot the Family Guy quote.

Re:Carter Pewterschmidt

[Anonymous Coward]

Ipods are pretty overrated, at least in terms of price vs. features + performance.

Your mom is overrated.

Re:Carter Pewterschmidt

[Anonymous Coward]

Ipods are pretty overrated, at least in terms of price vs. features + performance.

That is completely true. They only outsell the competition five to one because they're well designed and easy to use.

Re:Carter Pewterschmidt

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends upon how you define "features" and "performance." If you think that having an FM radio, ogg support, or a user replaceable battery are important features, then yes, price vs. features there are better choices. If you think that having a very easy to use interface both device to user and device to host system, then no, it is not over-rated one bit.

Re:Carter Pewterschmidt

[UnknowingFool]

The website and the PlaysForSure players showcase why MS doesn't get it. Technically the iPod is inferior to other players. Where Apple got it right was they realized most average consumers care more about being able to use their devices than one or two features that they will barely use. MS has some software that consumers would like to have; however, they spent so little time and effort making it easy for them to get it from the website. Remember MS for the most part doesn't sell directly to consumers and they don't have a lot of experience in this. They typically go through OEMs and partners. Apple does have to sell and interact directly with consumers so they understand about the concept of usability.

Re:Carter Pewterschmidt

[dino213b]

A smooth line from the Seattle thrift store t-shirt roundup:

"Think your iPhone is cool? Let me show you a thing or two about Windows Mobile."

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5144493/the-shirts-off-of-microsofts-back

Re:Carter Pewterschmidt

[jaavaaguru]

I've not had any performance issues, and I'd rather have simplicity over features. In fact, it probably has many features I don't use. I suspect a lot of people like simplicity over features when it comes to something like an MP3 player.

Re:Carter Pewterschmidt

[MindlessAutomata]

So Windows sells more because it's well-designed and easy to use?

Sometimes it really is just marketing. Not that the Ipod isn't easy to use. I've found most people I talk to just buy it because that's all they hear about.

Other MP3 players are pretty much just about as easy to use.

Re:Carter Pewterschmidt

[MindlessAutomata]

Most people don't sit down and compare MP3 players; they buy the Ipod because it's well-marketed.

Re:Carter Pewterschmidt

[UnknowingFool]

That's tired reasoning that has been debunked plenty here on slashdot. The MP3 player existed long before Apple got into the market. It was a niche product used by geeks because only geeks would put up with the difficulty of using it. I had a Rio Diamond PMP300. I would leave songs on it for weeks because the hassle of changing music wasn't worth it.

What Apple understood was that if you wanted an average consumer to use it, it has to be easy like eliminate as many interactive steps as it takes for syncing. If you accept the software defaults, it's as simple as plugging in the cable. To rip a CD and put it onto your iPod, all you have to do is insert the CD. Later versions even got your album art. When the iPod was launched there was not any easy and legal way for users to get music online. So Apple built an online store that the music companies would allow. Sure they marketed the hell out of it, but if the player and store sucked in terms of usability, it would not be as popular as it is today.

That's one of the barriers MS had with Vista. They marketed the hell out of it. However, its negative reputation proceeded it and many consumers got only negative reviews from friends and online reviews. Even though the initial problems of Vista have been solved, most consumers still perceive it as buggy and unstable.

Re:Carter Pewterschmidt

[MindlessAutomata]

No, I don't doubt that. However, that is very different from their continued success today. The market today has much better MP3 players.

At the time it was probably the best, but nowadays, there IS better.

Re:Carter Pewterschmidt

[UnknowingFool]

I agree there is better players but unfortunately no one has the entire ecosystem built like Apple. MS comes close but their Zune marketplace doesn't have as many songs or media as iTunes. Amazon had one advantage in that its tracks were DRM free. It still has a cost advantage though.

Give CmdrTaco a break

[Anonymous Coward]

Cut this CmdrTaco guy a break. He may be new here & hasn't seen this post before.

Or else he's been here so long he doesn't remember diddly squat. :)

Let me 'Summarize'...

[Sfing_ter]

Bill Gates has become a Luser - one that requires the application of a LART.

So it's not just us that think their shit is whack... like printing a test page for a printer...
why after all these fucking years is it not a right-click context option for printers or at the very least in the left hand side of the 'Printers' folder 'Info' section. And let's not talk about the mouse focus that KDE has had for years now...

Re:Let me 'Summarize'...

[socsoc]

how many test pages do you print?

Re:Let me 'Summarize'...

[SCHecklerX]

I was about to say the same thing, and don't have mod points today. A test page isn't something used frequently enough to have a context menu item for. How broken are your print drivers? I haven't printed a test page since the day I set my laserjet up 3 years ago.

Bill said it best

[rjune]

Reading through the rant:

"So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated."

He really does understand Microsoft. I wonder if he felt like throwing a chair or something.

Re:Even the mighty Bill Gates doesn't like the reb

[MortenMW]

You can borrow some J's from me if you want.... I can even give you a lower case one: j

Nice rant!

[Mr Z]

It's rather cool that Bill himself sent such rants internally. I know I've sent rants and/or filed numerous bugs on our own products at work from the standpoint of usability and usefulness.

I'm not the greatest at designing a UI, but I can certainly highlight what doesn't work. What's least likely to work is stuff that crosses organizational boundaries, and it looks like Bill's experience here is one of those: The integration just isn't there.

I'm not a big fan of Microsoft or its tactics over the years, but I still admire Bill Gates at least a little.

Re:Nice rant!

[fwarren]

How can you admire him?

Northing changed.

Is it really that broke? If they are trying to maintain a monopoly, yes it is. They have to maintain lock in at all costs. Any broad range fix to usability is likely to damage lock-in. If there goal is to make simpler and better working products. Then no, it is not so badly broke that it can be fixed

The fast that nothing has changed is illuminating of what kind of company Microsoft currently is.

Re:Nice rant!

[Mr Z]

I admire, or at least complement this aspect of him. I'm no fan of Microsoft as a whole nor am I an adoring fan of Bill, but Microsoft is not Bill Gates.

He probably didn't just stumble into the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing that Bill Gates didn't randomly decide he needed MovieMaker. Someone pointed the problem out to him and he explored it fully. I'm also guessing that he had one of his minions at his side making sure he didn't miss any of the gory details.

As much as I don't like him, I have to admit that Bill Gates is far from being an idiot. The chances that 99.999% of us would have done a better job are just about zilch.

Usability and the Bottom Line are Incongruent

[stewbacca]

Maybe had Bill been more hands-on in a Steve Jobs sort of way, the focus might have been more on usability and less on feature-lists. Bill gets what he gets. It's his fault that usability sucks, because he didn't cut into the bottom-line to make it better. It's also Bill's "fault" that Windows enjoyed a 95% market share for a decade.

Re:Usability and the Bottom Line are Incongruent

[cabjf]

It's also Bill's "fault" that Windows enjoyed a 95% market share for a decade.

That's more IBM's fault than anyone else. Bill just happened to be in the right place at the right time (like not out flying an airplane when they called).

Re:Usability and the Bottom Line are Incongruent

[Hasai]

It's also Bill's "fault" that Windows enjoyed a 95% market share for a decade.

I must disagree. It was not Bill who made a shoddily written excuse for an OS the dominant player in the market, but rather the boggling level of ignorance on the part of the overwhelming majority of said market as to what an acceptable OS should be, and Microsoft's exploitation of that fact.

There has always been a grim joke among IT personnel that while the sales personnel from IBM, Novell, Sun, etc., are talking to the IT manager, the Microsoft salesman is playing a round of golf with the CEO. A grim joke, because it's true.

Re:Usability and the Bottom Line are Incongruent

[Anonymous Coward]

...but rather the boggling level of ignorance on the part of the overwhelming majority of said market as to what an acceptable OS should be, and Microsoft's exploitation of that fact.

Bollocks. In the early 90's the only quality OS available ran on a mainframe. And most of us couldn't afford one.

I worked on an app that ran on more than 50 different versions of UNIX (that we knew of). They weren't terribly compatible and they all had their quirks (aka monster showstopping bugs). While all these UNIX vendors were busy fighting each other Microsoft developed NT - a portable OS with 100% source compatibility across platforms - and ate their lunch.

We started using NT with great success. Like UNIX, it wasn't good, but it was cheaper and it was good enough.

And that's why Linux will win. Not because it's better (in some ways it is, in some ways not) but because it's free.

Re:Usability and the Bottom Line are Incongruent

[spacefiddle]

And VHS is technically superior to Betamax in every way.

Re:Usability and the Bottom Line are Incongruent

[iluvcapra]

Now you're just trying to start a fight...

Re:Usability and the Bottom Line are Incongruent

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope Linux currently has no hope of winning. There is a very simple problem: Too many freeloaders/ people expecting all software for free and no market to exploit. Jobs has recognized this in a very classical sense. You do small things right and charge a huge markup and people will pay. Americans are huge fans of "turnkey" solutions and don't mind paying for those. As long as you can't sell average commercial software (Think photoshop, games, 3ds max) on linux you wont see linux gaining ground and will always remain a "poor mans" operating system.

Re:Usability and the Bottom Line are Incongruent

[spacefiddle]

Honestly, no. Just pointing out the shortest short-circuit to the success==superiority we seem to fall back on, even when we know better.

Re:Usability and the Bottom Line are Incongruent

[stewbacca]

but it was cheaper and it was good enough.

Pretty much sums up the entire history of Microsoft. The one small thing though is that it isn't good enough for me...but then again, I'm not buying 500 + workstations for my employees to use. What really starts buggin' me is when people start equating "cheaper" to being in some sort of perverse way, "better", which is exactly what has happened in the past 10 years.

thanks but I need more than a lower case j

[JoshDmetro]

my little boy ripped most of the keys off my laptop so its kinda hard to type. It also doesn't help that I type with 3-4 fingers while looking at the keyboard.

Re:thanks but I need more than a lower case j

[xerxesVII]

Oh, great. So you're reproducing.

Thanks.

Re:thanks but I need more than a lower case j

[socsoc]

Yeah, I didn't realizes that Idiocracy is a documentary...

Re:thanks but I need more than a lower case j

[SoulRider]

There seems to be a jlut of infantile MS shills out on the net lately, and none of them know how to spell. Either that or MS has finally developed the astro-bot (or would that be turf-bot).

I know it's a dupe, but...

[Valtor]

I know it's a dupe, but I still love to see Gates say: "But that is just the start of the crap..."

It says it all right there. At least Microsoft knows about the problems with Windows. It is said that realizing there is an issue is the first step to resolving it :)

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

>It is said that realizing there is an issue is the first step to resolving it :)
If only it worked all the time.

They seem to be making some of the exact same mistakes they made with Vista in Windows 7...
I guess all this "modular OS" talk was just for the shareholders... so far anyway.
At least MinWin has been done, have to say that was one of the better things they have done for a long time. (even if it does have some nastier secrets behind being "created")

It still has the horrible Vista GUI that wastes space.
Well, it did on the last Beta i saw running. (forgot what one it was, friend installed it on his laptop)
All i can remember was that his taskbars would sometimes come out awkward.
Take MSN (or WLM) for example, the system tray icon for it would appear in the taskbar, instead of the system tray...

Although speed- and resource-wise, they have made some big steps.
I almost wonder if Vista was "bad" on purpose. (and they never told Ol' Billy boy to get a reaction out of him)

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[goofyspouse]

"It is said that realizing there is an issue is the first step to resolving it" It has been over six years since that tirade went out. They must be stuck on that first step still.

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[Dallas Caley]

Exactly, I wonder if Apple realizes that there are problems with its software/hardware as well, so far my guess would be no. All i ever hear from apple people is how everything "Just Works".

yea well it don't. "Just Work" and if they don't start fixing their problems soon they are gonna be in the same boat as Microsoft is now

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

It says it all right there. At least Microsoft knows about the problems with Windows. It is said that realizing there is an issue is the first step to resolving it :)

Yeah right, that is what they told me in AA, yet here I am, drunk as a dodo...

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[badasscat]

I know it's a dupe, but I still love to see Gates say: "But that is just the start of the crap..."

It says it all right there. At least Microsoft knows about the problems with Windows. It is said that realizing there is an issue is the first step to resolving it :)

I don't think Bill Gates is really responsible for the problems with Windows. In fact, I think it's probably one reason why he left when he did. The company just got too big for him to manage day-to-day - he wasn't the one making relatively minor decisions like where Windows Movie Maker sits on the Microsoft web site or how to install it, somebody else was making those decisions. And little decisions like that, all added up together, are 95% of what makes Windows as maddening to use as it is. And he was as annoyed by that stuff as everybody else.

Worse for him, it was his job to defend it, which probably gave him never-ending heartburn.

I think he built this thing, saw what it had turned into, saw no easy way of fixing it (especially at his age and point of his career arc), and so decided to get out and leave it up to someone else. The two questions are:

a) are the people he left behind smart enough to recognize the problems he saw?

and

b) are they actually up to the task of fixing the OS's problems?

So far, Windows 7 seems like a step in the right direction, as is its quick turnaround time (suggesting these guys don't have their heads in the sand about Vista anymore), so I think there's some hope.

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[Mister Whirly]

Bill Gates didn't get to where he is today by being ignorant and in the dark about Windows.

Bill Gates realizing and complaining about something that could work better in Windows isn't a huge "discovery". It is his job.

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[fastest fascist]

It is said that realizing there is an issue is the first step to resolving it :)

It is also the first step to ignoring it.

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I loled at:

It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

Bill Gates - Forever a hero

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[uberjack]

I'm not sure that's the case. Apple has something Microsoft does not - a cult following, and a completely different user base (). It would take some catastrophic off-the-charts fuckup to put Apple into the same boat as M$.

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[Jon Kay]

I don't think Bill Gates is really responsible for the problems with Windows. In fact, I think it's probably one reason why he left when he did. The company just got too big for him to manage day-to-day - he wasn't the one making relatively minor decisions like where Windows Movie Maker sits on the Microsoft web site or how to install it, somebody else was making those decisions. And little decisions like that, all added up together, are 95% of what makes Windows as maddening to use as it is. And he was as annoyed by that stuff as everybody else.

Don't we wish. The fact about Windows is that MS OS' have always been bad. And it's not because knows no better - he's used Unix and other 'real' OS' plenty in his life. No, I'll leave you with a choice between "doesn't care because he's puts lots of successful effort into not having to" and "likes it that way." Clearly Ballmer DOOES like it that, because his watch shows aBD-style security system.

Life even as an Evil Imperial CEO does get old. You have all the power, which is great stuff, especially if you're like Gates, but it's also tons of work and especially stress. The stress gets too much for everybody, in fact, especially if you're in the same CEO slot long.

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[Sj0]

Who cares that it wastes a few precious milimeters of space with an icon, since the entire system is so unbelievably space efficient and usable?

There are lots of problems with Windows, but the new taskbar is pretty nifty.

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[speedingant]

Like Steve Jobs dying without Apple hyping up someone new and exciting to lead the company beforehand? I could see that happening.

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Steve Jobs dying without Apple hyping up someone new and exciting to lead the company beforehand? I could see that happening.

Why would they need to hype someone up? All they would have to do is announce a name and the fanboys would be falling all over themselves giving praise to their new messiah.

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[russotto]

Exactly, I wonder if Apple realizes that there are problems with its software/hardware as well, so far my guess would be no. All i ever hear from apple people is how everything "Just Works".

Apple marketing never admits to them, but Apple does sometimes find and fix problems. Note the re-appearance of Firewire on the latest MacBook. The increasing robustness of AppleShare when the server is disconnected in OS X (terrible in 10.1, usable in 10.3, almost transparent in 10.5). The existence of Boot Camp.

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[stephanruby]

And it's not what I would call a rant either, it's actually quite specific and actionable.

Re:I know it's a dupe, but...

[Dallas Caley]

You forgot to mention the utter worhtlessness of iTunes (at least on a PC anyway). I've had an iPod now for 2 months and I cant figure out how to get more music on to it (without loosing everything thats currently on it). That is simply utterly rediculus. Why can I not just drag and drop a file onto it?. Oh and how about their wonderful customer service? I read the small print that came with the iPod and it says you are entitled to exactly 1 free call to customer support. Wow really 1 call! well at least I didn't pay $200 for the same music storage capacity that I could have got for about $50 with any other MP3 player (oh wait I did!)

Oh yeah and the FireWire thing. thats about the first smart thing they did (getting rid of it) Yeah I know its faster slightly than USB 2.0, but wait till USB 3.0 comes out later this year.

You see here's the thing with Apple, they may not have as many errors technically with their software, but it's because their software is not as flexible as PC software. The "Problem" with Apple software is that if you don't want to do something exactly the way they want you to then your screwed

At least that's been my experience

NEW!

[Cornwallis]

I've got a news item about Craig Shergold. Really, it's news. Can I post it here?

That's one way KDE/GNOME should emulate Windows

[bogaboga]

Now let's turn the conversation the other way...to KDE and GNOME. Bill Gates here, is just being a typical newbie if he is anyway. No offence to him here. But if he were to send such a "rant" to the GNOME folks, you all know what kind of answers he'd get.

This is not to say the KDE folks get it either. But for Linux to succeed even in the minutest way, it must meet Joe Public's expectations...and this can be done while at the same time meeting expectations of whoever it is at present.

I guess I will be labelled a troll but what I am saying is the truth...so go right ahead and mod me down.

Re:That's one way KDE/GNOME should emulate Windows

[morgan_greywolf]

Oh, you are so right. If I had read that rant on the Gnome list, I know what the answer would be: "shut up, n00b, you don't know what you're talking about."

Here's what it boils down to: programmers are, in general, notoriously bad at taking criticism. Developers: think about it. How many times have you gotten ticked off become someone told you they didn't like the way you implemented X? Be honest.

Re:That's one way KDE/GNOME should emulate Windows

[ConceptJunkie]

Generally never. I haven't done any GUI in about 4 years, but I always had a very good reputation with users and enjoyed working with them. I also tried very hard to see things from their point of view, which I think helped me create GUIs that facilitated productivity and were reasonably easy to understand. The biggest problem Microsoft has with trying to make things simple is that usually succeed, but only for an extremely narrow domain of problems, and the moment you try to do something outside of that domain, you are immediately deep in the woods.

My problems with using software is that I generally think differently (that's grammatically correct, Apple), and tend to do all the "wrong" things. I recall coming up with the clever idea back in the Windows 3 days of using subst (or whatever it was) to associate w:\ with c:\WINDOWS to help shorten my path. You wouldn't believe all the kinds of havok that wrought for no good reason.

Re:That's one way KDE/GNOME should emulate Windows

[SCHecklerX]

But for Linux to succeed even in the minutest way, it must meet Joe Public's expectations

Why? It's a tool. The majority of "Joe Public" don't have specialized tools to work on bikes/cars/woodworking/electrical/floors/whatever. Does that mean that professional tools for those tasks should be re-designed for those "joe publics" to use without skill?

I don't want my tools to be n00bified, they work great as they are, and appreciate them going in a direction that doesn't ape a broken paradigm. Thanks.

Re:That's one way KDE/GNOME should emulate Windows

[jmpeax]

You have to understand that the original poster was coming from the "my dream is that Linux becomes the only OS used in the world" perspective.

The idea that different software suits different people is lost on those with this mentality.

Re:That's one way KDE/GNOME should emulate Windows

[Draek]

But for Linux to succeed even in the minutest way, it must meet Joe Public's expectations...and this can be done while at the same time meeting expectations of whoever it is at present.

Define "success", then prove meeting "Joe Public"'s expectations is a requirement for such, and *then* prove that meeting them can be done doing only changes that don't alienate any of the current users. Good luck with that, you're gonna need it.

As it stands, your post is just unsubstantiated opinion, off-topic as it pertains to Linux instead of Windows, and very likely a troll since you're using a CEO's letter to his employees to imply that the Gnome and KDE developers react badly to any criticism from 'newbies'.

Re:That's one way KDE/GNOME should emulate Windows

[martas]

Still, when designing something like a desktop OS, it's not harmful to try to make it as universal as possible. Think of it this way: I have an abstract class, OS. I have implementations of it that might be called OSForWirelessNetworkResearcher, OSForAccountant, or OSForIdiotWhoOnlyChecksEmailAndUploadsPhotosToFacebook. The goal of Windows is to cover as many of these goals as possible. The goal of most Linux distros is to make sure they get it right for advanced users, and then dumbify it as much as possible (within their resources) without compromising that original goal. If you ask me, it seems like making OSes more modular is the only logical way to go about this.

If an OS maker doesn't want to limit itself to one particular market, and wants to be competitive among all different groups of potential users, then instead of releasing a 5GB piece of software, it should probably be modular enough to give to a user just what she needs. The alternative is to dump all the code you have on all your customers, and know that most of them are only going to use a small fraction of the features you gave them, and be frustrated by the uselessness (for them) of the rest.

Re:That's one way KDE/GNOME should emulate Windows

[bogaboga]

Define "success", then prove meeting "Joe Public"'s expectations is a requirement for such,..."

Answer: Apple's OSX. Even after a major major incompatibility step introduced (from PowerPC to Intel architecture), Apple's OSX still beats [desktop] Linux installations combined in every metric. Beat that.

In case you do not know, Apple's stuff just works most of the time. I have never met a Joe Public who gets confused by the way things are implemented on Apple's platform.

"...and *then* prove that meeting them can be done doing only changes that don't alienate any of the current users..."

emphasis mine...

Answer: I will tell you what I know.

I know that the Linux way of doing things has not helped much on the desktop. See point above.

Yes, folks will be alienated but they will come back after seeing the advantages. Again see point above.

Question for you: Where do you think Linux installation numbers would be if common computer tasks were standardized in some way? I am sure you will say that installations would be way up. And that cannot be bad at all.

Re:That's one way KDE/GNOME should emulate Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not, it is actually possible to have different flavours of Linux that suit different people.

Re:That's one way KDE/GNOME should emulate Windows

[Draek]

Answer: Apple's OSX. Even after a major major incompatibility step introduced (from PowerPC to Intel architecture), Apple's OSX still beats [desktop] Linux installations combined in every metric. Beat that.

Umm, why? if market share is your degree of success then the aim should be on Windows, which still holds more than 90% of the world's desktop computers (and, if I may also add, is the topic of this article, therefore returning your comment to the land of on-topicness).

In case you do not know, Apple's stuff just works most of the time. I have never met a Joe Public who gets confused by the way things are implemented on Apple's platform.

Then you must haven't met many Joe Publics ;) the failings of OSX's one-and-only GUI are fairly well-documented all around the 'net, many of which bite normal users without prior Mac experience.

I know that the Linux way of doing things has not helped much on the desktop. See point above.

OSX's hasn't, either, so your proof fails at that point. And we all know Windows attained its market share by means other than pure quality, so you can't use *that* either.

Yes, folks will be alienated but they will come back after seeing the advantages. Again see point above.

Prove it. I'd be really interested in this one in particular, seeing as not only did I left Gnome and KDE for some of the changes they made in the name "of the common user", but I absolutely despise OSX's interface, too much Mac and too little UNIX for my tastes. So convince me I'll return to Gnome and KDE once they implement the changes you propose, ought to be interesting ;)

Question for you: Where do you think Linux installation numbers would be if common computer tasks were standardized in some way? I am sure you will say that installations would be way up. And that cannot be bad at all.

Define "common computer tasks" and "standardized". My own definitions would be "web browsing, music listening and video watching" and "utilizes only standard protocol formats to ensure proper interoperability between competing applications", in which case both Gnome and KDE already did a long time ago, making your question pointless.

This is not real.

[rshangle]

This is not a real e-mail. Many of the points in it are valid, but this is not from Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. So this topic/thread is false.

Re:This is not real.

[jjohnson]

According to the linked article, Gates was shown this email and went on to mock the media's supposed shock that he sent it, and others like it.

Re:This is not real.

[Anonymous Coward]

And your proof is...? Or should we just take your word for it because you're a swell guy?

Re:This is not real.

[Sockatume]

It was accepted as part of a vast body of email evidence in an (admittedly only tangentally-related) lawsuit a while back. So I'd say it's of some veracity.

old old old old old news

[commodore64_love]

old news x 5 years ago

Therefore *not* news and shouldn't be on the front page of slashdot.

Re:old old old old old news

[zbharucha]

Neither should the Oscar story.

Re:old old old old old news

[commodore64_love]

True.

BOTH of these stories should be removed from slashdot - the Oscar story because it's not tech related, and the Gates story because it's several years old and not news (it's now history).

Re:old old old old old news

[Bryansix]

History is sometimes MORE important then the front page NEWS stories. Unfortunately the majority of the world's population don't care about history and therefore make the same mistakes over and over again.

Re:old old old old old news

[commodore64_love]

Yes I agree but the tagline doesn't say "History for nerds." It says "news for nerds" and should only cover CURRENT topics, not old letters from 5 years ago that were previously covered by this organization.

Just use apt-get install moviemaker for gods sake

[dvh.tosomja]

... oh never mind

Oops

[Kazymyr]

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

Classic.

I'm pretty sure I read this on Slashdot already.

[Ash-Fox]

I'm pretty sure I read this e-mail on Slashdot already.

the part I remember seems to be missing

[Anonymous Coward]

PLAYOFFS!??? I don't know why we're talking about the PLAYOFFS. The PLAYOFFS!! I'm not even going to talk about the PLAYOFFS.

Re:Also that letter make Bill sound how should I p

[Just Some Guy]

Like a complete moron who has not even the slightest clue what a computer is never mind how to use it for even the most basic functions.

So, you've never even heard of usability testing? Note that almost every question he asked was rhetorical. He was putting himself in the position of a non-technical user who wanted to do something that should be simple but who was getting thwarted at every turn.

But hes a business man not a nerd he gust acts like one so as not to make the employees uncomfortable.

OK, I like Gates about as much as the next person who doesn't like him, but he's definitely geekier than 90% of Slashdotters. The fact that he can step back and look at things from an outsider's perspective is actually a good thing and something you should give him credit for.

Ironic

[Sockatume]

So, we have a story which implies Windows would be better if its architects used it more often and were therefore aware of its crappiness. And it's being duped, because Slashdot's editors don't read Slashdot often enough to notice they're reposting a really popular story. There's a lesson there somewhere.

Re:I'm pretty sure I read this on Slashdot already

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes... Welcome to post #1 of this dupe.

Interesting look back

[erroneus]

I find it interesting to look back at the trouble that even the great architect Bill Gates as with his own child. Submitting this as evidence for the prosecution in an antitrust case might prove to be a problem. Submitting this as evidence for the defense, however, might be a great step toward acquittal. Why? Ever hear the saying "never attribute malice to that which can be explained by stupidity" or something like that? That's all a jury needs to hear to realize that Microsoft is not a singular conspiratorial entity and they couldn't be even if they wanted to be.

Yes, it is true that this is "old information" and all that. But it is still relevant, pertinent and this is still the current state of Windows XP... Vista and likely 7 as well. (Is Windows 7 a Borg designation?)

Re:Interesting look back

[Kazymyr]

(Is Windows 7 a Borg designation?)

As in Windows 7 of 9?

Re:Interesting look back

[thecarpy]

The c:\Document and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures issue has been fixed in Vista, they were "inspired" by Apple. SP2 took care of hiding the Windows updates in the "Add/remove crapware" control. So that is fixed as well ... The registry is not fixed, though. ;-) The ms.com issues are far from fixed ... still bloated crap... I'll stick with Solaris ...

Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

This is awesome. I wish the CEO of my company actually cared enough to go through the product at that level of detail.

even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[Ancient_Hacker]

It's funny that he praises the add/remove programs control panel. Try opening it up when you have a file system mounted that contains a whole lot of files. Apparently this control panel, even though it has a cache of installed programs in some subdirectory, plus roughly the same info in a registry subtree, this sterling piece of software goes off and looks at every file on every device. That's the only explanation I can think of why the disks whir for like two hours before this control panel lists anything.

And even then all that work was for naught, because the items listed have not been even slightly vetted for correctness. You click on some of them and get an immediate "no uninstaller found" or even more cryptic messages, and no way to remove these useless entries. This control panel is a classic fail, with it doing slow and useless work several times over and still missing the whole point of what it should be doing.

Bill, you got real problems when you think this really crapalicious control panel is a shining star.

Re:even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[drinkypoo]

It's funny that he praises the add/remove programs control panel. Try opening it up when you have a file system mounted that contains a whole lot of files. Apparently this control panel, even though it has a cache of installed programs in some subdirectory, plus roughly the same info in a registry subtree, this sterling piece of software goes off and looks at every file on every device. That's the only explanation I can think of why the disks whir for like two hours before this control panel lists anything.

Defragment your Registry. It's always going to be slow but I almost guarantee you that this is part of your problem. If you use that particular control panel much then I bet your registry is fragmented like crazy. The registry is the biggest problem with Windows, it is horribly inefficient. Why Microsoft hasn't replaced* it with some more capable database engine by now I have no idea.

* By replaced I really mean augmented. Boot on the file-based registry, then once you get MSDE or whatever started replicate any changes since boot, then switch over. The registry gets hit hard constantly (see for yourself) and any inefficiency there really shafts your system.

Re:even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[Dunbal]

This control panel is a classic fail,

This operating system is a classic fail

fix'd

Re:even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[Jamie's Nightmare]

That's the only explanation I can think of why the disks whir for like two hours before this control panel lists anything.

Looking at your whole post, I'm not really sure if you're referring to the the slowness of opening the control panel itself, or waiting for the list of installed programs to load. Problems opening the control panel can often be due to poorly written 3rd party control panel applets (.cpl files). My control panel would frequently lock up or open very slowly. The problem ended up being a craptastic Broadcom Wireless utility. Never trust a program who's icon looks like it was made in MSPaint. When removed, it restored the control panel back to full speed.

If you are talking about the time taken to list installed programs, this was sped up considerably with Vista, which begins to show installed programs instantly and populates the list in a fraction of the time XP uses for the same task.

You click on some of them and get an immediate "no uninstaller found" or even more cryptic messages, and no way to remove these useless entries. This control panel is a classic fail

This seems more like "Classic Troll" to me. Are you sure you aren't ripping the programs out manually in a fit of rage and then surprised to find that Windows can't find the uninstaller? You are clearly exadurating here.

Entires can be removed by deleting the appropriate registry keys located in:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Re:even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the only explanation I can think of why the disks whir for like two hours before this control panel lists anything.

Actually, that's all of my rootkits and viruses removing themselves from the list. Sorry. I'll see if I can optimize them for you.

Re:even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[Ancient_Hacker]

It has nothing to do with a fragmented Registry. My Registry is not fragmented and the time goes from two hours to 20 seconds when I unmount the disk with all the files.

And the installed programs list in the registry is only 15 entries, that should not take two hours to load.

It's just poor design. You should never have to scan the universe when you already have the info in at least two places, the Registry and the installer directory. And of course it's a bad idea to have the info in two places.

Re:even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[Ancient_Hacker]

Problems opening the control panel can often be due to poorly written 3rd party control panel applets (.cpl files). My control panel would frequently lock up or open very slowly....

Well that sounds like a very poor design decision, synchronously calling into 3rd party code to see if it's okay to remove such code. IMHO an uninstaller should have more confidence and authority. What's the point of an uninstaller that is subordinate to its minions?

If you are talking about the time taken to list installed programs, this was sped up considerably with Vista, which begins to show installed programs instantly...

No thanks, I tried Vista for an hour and then returned the laptop. Plus this is a pointless hack. I do not care if the items start showing up as they're found. I need to see all of them.

...and populates the list in a fraction of the time XP uses for the same task.

A fraction of two hours is still too long to wait for something that should be instantaneous.

This seems more like "Classic Troll" to me. Are you sure you aren't ripping the programs out manually in a fit of rage and then surprised to find that Windows can't find the uninstaller?

I sometimes rip the program out by hand as the stupid add/remove gadget is not featureful enough to inform me as to what it's talking about or when or where it installed FooMangler Deluxe, plus it gives me no useful undo/redo ability with these critical system components.

Entires can be removed by deleting the appropriate registry keys located in:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Oh yeah, good strategy, point me to yet another clueless system utility, where any change is likely to break the whole system, and with no undo ability.

Re:even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[Spatial]

Yup, it's a piece of shit. I use this Nirsoft tool instead, which shows more information and allows you to remove and change the entries.

Re:even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[maxume]

It seems there is some other issue. Running pagedefrag, it shows a single registry hive that is fragmented (into 2 pieces). My add/remove box is pretty slow.

So the fragmentation may exacerbate it, but it isn't the core problem.

Re:even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[AaronLawrence]

It's because Add-Remove is trying to guess a whole lot of missing information.
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/07/09/178342.aspx

One without the guessing:
http://aaronlawrence.fastmail.fm/AddRemove.html

Re:even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[Jamie's Nightmare]

Well that sounds like a very poor design decision, synchronously calling into 3rd party code to see if it's okay to remove such code.

You didn't understand my explanation. The 3rd party control panel applets are a separate animal from the "add/remove" program entries. Because the description of your problem was a little vague, I covered both ends of what could be the problem.

A fraction of two hours is still too long to wait for something that should be instantaneous.

My bad, I should have given you a realistic example. My system takes 6 seconds to parse 161 programs. That beats the time it takes to open up the package manager on my Ubuntu install.

Oh yeah, good strategy, point me to yet another clueless system utility, where any change is likely to break the whole system, and with no undo ability.

I'm not going to spend the time to educate clueless users on how to use the registry, which has been a part of windows for a very long time. A change isn't likely to break the whole system unless you are an idiot and start mashing keys like a 4 year old. Not only will system restore make a full backup of registry changes, but you can even save individual keys manually.

Re:even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[toddestan]

I'm pretty sure it generates the program size and usage information on the fly, by going to the C:\Program Files\ directory and adding up the space that each program's installation directory is using on the disk. That's why it thrashes the disk so badly. I'm not sure how it gets the frequency of use statistics, but I bet it's probably also a pretty crude algorithm because the output is pretty useless (at least on 2000/XP). Back in the Windows 9x days when it was just a list of programs installed on your computer the add/remove programs dialog opened a lot faster.

Re:even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[magus_melchior]

You click on some of them and get an immediate "no uninstaller found" or even more cryptic messages, and no way to remove these useless entries.

You mean, there's no way to easily and safely remove these entries. It is possible, but one would need to use a utility like TweakUI (unsupported, download required), or manually mess with the registry (can kill your system).

Re:even more ironic, he praises add/remove

[QuietObserver]

The registry is the biggest problem with Windows, it is horribly inefficient. Why Microsoft hasn't replaced* it with some more capable database engine by now I have no idea.

Because that would, plain and simply, make sense, and when was the last time Microsoft did anything that truly made sense in the long run?

I have trouble understanding parts of it though

[boombaard]

While ranting is all well and good, he refers to things i've never seen in XP. While i've never had the intention to install WMM, I should think i would recognize at least most of the stuff he refers to in this email.
I mean, what does This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg. mean, exactly? it's almost like he wrote this at 3am without being allowed his caffeine fix first.
Maybe they fixed all of this after he'd complained about it, but it sounds like something entirely different from my own winXP experience.

Re:I have trouble understanding parts of it though

[Mr Z]

I imagine he's putting himself in his customer's shoes, trying to think of how Aunt Tillie might interpret the dialog boxes he's seeing, mixed with what he knows about Windows from being inside Microsoft. I've seen a few doozies go by in the Windows Update. (That is, while I still had that enabled. These days corporate IT insists on rolling out patches manually on their own schedule, so I don't see these any more.)

His download experience was pretty horrific, and I think he was right to call folks on it. Bill's vision long ago was a computer in every home, running Microsoft software to make it a friendly, approachable experience. Good on him for actually trying it on and seeing how far off the mark they are from that target. It's best if your harshest critics are internal.

I'm actually a Linux user (since 1993!) and I don't particularly like Windows. I'm a command line sort of guy anyway. So, I'm not exactly a Microsoft apologist. I respect Bill though for actually caring about the quality of their company's product.

Re:I have trouble understanding parts of it though

[cyphergirl]

My understanding, when I read this the first time it was posted, is that he was trying to download something, but was put through hoops and loops, and required to download 17MB of scary security patches before he could get what he wanted. He seemed to be questioning why you have to download 17MB worth of crap, thinking that the patches were posted individually as deltas, not in huge allotments of "OMG YOU WILL DIE WITHOUT THIS" garbage.

Until I got a cellular modem, I had three computers sharing a 56k modem line because we have no access to high speed. Download 17MB of patches to Windows just to get the one piece I wanted? Yeah, right. My interpretation was that this was his issue with the patching.

Actually, some of the comments...

[OneSmartFellow]

... on the linked site are pretty funny. I particularly liked

...A positive note for the US: China and Russia are even more hobbled by Microsoft-created productivity losses. I'd suspect a CIA plot if they weren't as screwed up as Microsoft.

its easy

[diegocgteleline.es]

In some of those published emails, you can see Bill Gates:

-Asking to add Windows-specific quirks to the ACPI "standard", just to make Linux more dificult. "It seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that Linux works great without having to do the work [...] Maybe there is no way to avoid this problem but it does bother me. Maybe we could define the APIs so that they work well with NT and not the others even if they are open. Or maybe we could patent something related to this

-Asking their teams to add IE-specific crap in the HTML code generated by Office, just to make harder for other browsers to display things: One thing we have got to change in our strategy - allowing Office documents to be rendered well by others people browser is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPIETARY IE capabilities" (emphasis by gates, not mine)

-Lobbying Intel to get them to do all their design work in Windows desktops, not in Linux.

-A lot of other "fun" stuff.

And you wonder why people hates Gates? ;)

Re:its easy

[advocate_one]

I can't read either of your linked documents or even access further up the tree... I keep getting "403 Forbidden" even right up to the antitrust.slated.org host itself...

Re:its easy

[nine-times]

Yeah, seriously. This is the sort of stuff that, when someone complains about it, people act like it's some far-out conspiracy theory.

Trying to break interoperability and disallow people from using "open standards" is pretty screwed up. Either he fully understands the ramifications of his attitudes and is extremely unethical, or he doesn't understand, in which case he's just selfish and childish.

I really wish the management at Microsoft would grow up.

Re:its easy

[mellestad]

I think so many at Slashdot hate Gates because they have some bohemian ideal about the way a company should be run. Bill Gates ran Microsoft like 95% of CEO's run their companies. Slashdot is just more familiar with the details of Microsoft and Bill Gates, so he gets a lot of attention. The above parents points are all about how a for-profit company is trying to generate revenue by locking out the competition...shocking!!! If MS did not do this kind of thing their stockholders would revolt, and be justified in doing so. Welcome to the real world guys.

Re:its easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because 95% of CEOs may have acted the say way (I happen to disagree) doesn't mean that his behavior is acceptable.

Someone: I don't like how he shot that guy.
You: Shut up. That how 95% of murderers kill their victim. Welcome to the real world.

There's also legal issues. Remember that little anti-trust thing?

I use Ubuntu, and Bill Gates is taking the time to brainstorm ideas to dick me over. He's also trying to keep the third-world away from perfectly functional OSS-based computers. He's trying to infect open standards. Why the hell shouldn't I hate him?

To your more specific point, Slashdotters does not hate Bill Gates because of ethical quibbles with how a company ought to be run. Slashdotters hate Bill Gates because he has had a disastrous effect on the computing world. Considering the obvious impact computers have had on society, this is a very very big deal.

Re:its easy

[jedidiah]

So many at Slashdot hate Bill Gates because he strives to make
total CRAP and at the same time strives to make it impossible
to use anything else.

This is why Apple and IBM and even AT&T get fleeting nods of respect.

Their stuff at least isn't total crap.

Discriminating people tend to get cranky when they're forced to eat dirt.

This has squat to do with "Bohemian management principles". This is just
a red herring meant to undermine the perceived rationality of those who
find great dissatisfaction with Gates' work.

You simply don't have to be Tony Soprano to do well in business and or
be Abby Hoffman to do right by the customer. Far too much is excused by
Americans in the business world over the sake of the idea that anything
goes in business and that it's all about the almighty dollar and profit
for the stockholders.

One wonders what sort of reaction these people would have to real Soylent Green...

Why couldn't he just do this?????

[Joey Vegetables]

joe@joe ~ $ sudo emerge kino

Somewhat reassuring

[wembley fraggle]

I'm often in the same position - looking at software from a usability standpoint and shaking my head in wonder and frustration. It's reassuring that Gates is actually worried about that kind of stuff. It's clear that most of MS isn't, or wasn't at the time. I haven't tried Win7 yet, but Vista isn't much of an improvement in real usability. They added glitter and chrome, but the knobs are still counter-intuitive. That's one thing to say about Mac designers, is that they know how to use affordances in their UI design.

Anyway, if you're out there, Mr. Gates, I'd make an excellent addition to your usability team. You know how to contact me.

Bill feels the same way I do

[olddotter]

I have more respect for the man now. And that was perfect for Monday. I have not laughed that hard in a while.

I don't think its a rant

[DrXym]

I've seen this email before and both times I considered Bill Gates to be doing the right thing. If he thinks something sucks why shouldn't he say so?

Wait, what?

[mr_da3m0n]

I don't understand why a dupe would be posted while being fully aware that it is, in fact, a dupe. Even after stating so in the summary.

I don't imagine ballmer doing this.

[JustNiz]

I can't imagine Ballmer sending an email like that, or even caring enough to directly test usability. Ballmer has a salesman mentality, he doens't care about the product itself, just the amount of sales. He probably can't even see any connection between usability and sales.

I dont think its any coincidence that the usability of Microsoft products, whic hwas never good, is noticably worse since Gate's departure. Vista is waay worse than XP for usability, and that from early accounts Windows 7 is even worse again.

The writing is clearly on the wall for Microsoft under Ballmer.

Heard of this thing called google?

[northkid]

OMG.. Couldnt he just..like...google it???

Re:Heard of this thing called google?

[ChrisMP1]

Two problems:

1. The existence of a third-party service to make one's product usable does not excuse its own intrinsic unusability.
2. He doesn't want to risk getting a chair thrown at him.

Sorry. It was wide open.

Glass houses and stones...

[VirginMary]

A spell-checker would not have caught the "just/gust" mistake, but it would have certainly caught your spelling mistake. "Grammer" is not an English word I have ever encountered. I suspect that you went through the U.S. public educational system. I have lived in the U.S. for over 20 years and they don't seem to believe in education here. In fact I only hear excuses about how inconsistent English is etc. And, apparently far more people here are dyslexic than where I am from. I came here as an adult, and my native language is not English, and yet I don't seem to have any problems with English spelling. I credit the educational system in my country of origin because we were taught to pay attention to spelling, grammar, math etc. Geeks from my country tend to be excellent spellers. Isn't that part of what makes a geek: paying attention to intricate details?

Re:Glass houses and stones...

[spacefiddle]

"Grammer" is not an English word I have ever encountered.

She's married to Gramper.

MOD PARENT UP

[mdm42]

Seriously!

Isn't this old?

[moxley]

I seem to remember reading this email (or one exactly like it) quite some time ago; is there that little to discuss in this bastion of tech intelligence and free thinking that we're recycling old Bill Gates emails?

Don't get me wrong, I think it's interesting...just not interesting enough to read again.

Surely we can do better - with how Vista turned out for them he MUST have some newer ranting emails for us to discuss....

Re:Isn't this old?

[PPH]

with how Vista turned out for them he MUST have some newer ranting emails for us to discuss....

Probably something along the lines of, "I'm outa here. Ballmer, this is your baby now!"

why windows wins

[uncreativeslashnick]

Although the email is humorous, I really think it's important to note that Micro$oft has a certain philosophy toward usability that I think is what's behind its market dominance. In a nutshell, microsoft tries to make things as easy as possible for the user, above of all else. Yeah, some of MS's stuff is bloated and annoying. But one thing they get right, or at least get right more often than most, is usability - their products are easily the most user-friendly software on the market. (that's not to say they're perfect, or as user-friendly as they should be, they're just better than the competition, mostly) I wish the OSS would pay a bit more attention to that end of things. While I've used lots of great and user-friendly OSS products, anything remotely complicated in the OSS world is either annoyingly hard to learn/use (e.g. thegimp), or is basically a knock-off of MS (or some other) software interface (e.g. openoffice). I know that people mostly aren't interested in doing usability testing for open-source because it's boring, and mundane work, but it's really work microsoft kicks everyone's ass.

Re:why windows wins

[Eli Gottlieb]

Have you ever actually tried a Mac?

Maybe his installs wouldn't have taken so long...

[Jbain]

if he had more than 640k of memory

gates is hated

[ctk76]

because he's a nerd recognized by jocks. instead of getting wedges, he got money and fame and now the wannabes feel like he's whored and betrayed the other nerds. the nerd wannabes mistakenly believe it's the nerdiness of bill gates the world embraces. so they constantly groan and moan how they are nerdier than gates but can't get a date or get out of their parents' basements. true nerds otoh are happy just to know they've created something better than other nerds. it's not the money or recognition from the quarterbacks and cheerleaders that they crave. they're happy to be recognized by other nerds as true nerds.

Wow, how is the koolaid?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Bill Gates himself rants on and on about usability in his own product, windows, and you claim windows wins because of its usability. Ballmer, is that you?

Re:Wow, how is the koolaid?

[Anonymous Coward]

He was complaining about movie maker, microsoft's download page and windows update. Hardly a large percentage of Windows.

Troll harder next time.

Chairs ?!

[unity100]

No microsoft thriller is complete without chairs. we need chairs.

Can't help it

[SpacePunk]

Every time I read that I think of Marvin the Martian saying that. Or Bill Gates saying "where is the kaboom? There's supposed to be a big kaboom!"

Massive Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/06/26/026237.shtml

This is like 8 month old news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Leave it to Slashdot to be about 8 months behind on the news.

Flexibility

[Savage-Rabbit]

Have you ever actually compared Windows to MacOS? Microsoft most definitely did NOT choose simplicity, rather they have always chosen flexibility - the ability to configure and reconfigure the system to run on different hardware and to do different things.

Define flexibility... I suppose if you are talking about the spectrum of hardware Windows runs on you have a point. On the other hand there are tasks on Windows Servers that can't be done from the command-line, they can only be done through GUIs. This is OK up to a point I suppose, it allows you to give certain jobs to relatively untrained admins and save wage costs. The problem starts when you have to do something like merge 30 MS IIS web servers onto a few new machines and no two or three of those web servers have the same setup, security policies, etc... if you want to do that with the GUI expect to wear out your mouse and die of boredom in the process. This sort of a task has to be done with a script, or VB/C# program or it did when I last worked with IIS 6.0 a few years back and the documentation you needed to write such a migration tool wasn't easy to come by back then. It may be that Microsoft has coughed up a decent IIS migration tool and generally documented the inner workings ofit's products in great detail since then but I rather doubt it.

Re:Flexibility

[abhi_beckert]

in windows, you can choose between wildly different themes and even use your own colours and font sizes.

On a mac, it's "white, silver and blue" or "white, silver and graphite". That's all the choice you get.

As a result, even when using someone else's mac it's all exactly the same as your own mac and thus is "simple". And it's also simple for programmers, because they know everyone is looking at the same thing and doesn't have weird font sizes or different size window borders or so on.

Windows on the other hand is very flexible, but changes from computer to computer, which confuses inexperienced users and frustrates the fuck out of programmers.

Just one example of mac being simple and windows being flexible.

Low bar to cross

[mkcmkc]

Git is a better source code control system than Visual Source Safe. cp is a better source code control system than Visual Source Safe. Heck, rm is a better source code control system than Visual Source Safe.

It's probably your ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

They load fine for me and they say what GP says they say. Although it sure is a petty that these are only loose emails and not full threads. Even it seems that what he says is clearly undeniably bad in intent for open standards and interoperability, there also appears to be a certain non-finality about the mails, like he's just musing without having thought the consequences over, legally and also technically because he's almost asking the impossible. I'm concerned about that angle because email is sometimes more like conversation than like letters, and we all say things off the cuff and we all mail things impromptu, intended as food for the conversation or thread. Although I doubt that this must have been the case here, I also know that I've sent and received lots of emails that I wouldn't want anyone to see out of the context in which they originally appeared.

Movie Maker == Fiddler?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like Bill just had a normal experience with installing software on Windows. Today I wanted to install Fiddler because debugging in IE is a pain so I'm trying any tools available. My experience was similar to Bill's:

1. Google search for "fiddler"
2. Find download link on fiddler website
3. Installer says "you need the .NET framework"
4. Follow installer link, download a huge .NET installer
5. "64-bit windows is not supported" message box
6. Search Microsoft site for x64 download
7. 1.1 or 2.0? I don't know, but 2.0 sounds better
8. download new huge .NET installer, wait 15 minutes for it to finish
9. Finish Fiddler installer
10. Restart IE and look for Fiddler. Unfortunately it's nowhere to be found. wtf? 30 minutes wasted!
11. Give up on IE debugging and start fixing bugs by accident by changing random lines until it works. Another 30 minutes wasted on IE6 unpredictable JS behaviour

This should really wake people up to Microsoft

[Orion Blastar]

If Bill Gates cannot even figure out how to install Movie Maker and XP Plus Pack to his Windows XP system, then how is the average user going to figure out how to do it?

The Windows usability model started to break with Windows 95, the 16 bit Windows used to run most Windows programs without requiring OS updates and external libraries be added to the system and programs ran independent of most external libraries. In fact most Windows 3.X programs could copy the Program folder they were in and run on another copy of Windows 3.X without installing many external libraries or updating the registry. With Windows 95 came the need for a registry, that could be corrupted and not work properly and OS updates that need to be installed (OSR2, Internet Explorer 5.0, Media Player, etc) in order to run most modern software.

Ironically Bill Gates would have had an easier time downloading from a pirate BitTorrent web site the Movie Maker and XP Plus Pack and have it install with one EXE program than go through the Microsoft.com site and download it and download all of the updates, etc. That is because the Pirates create their own install programs that check for the OS updates and additional programs and if they are not there, install them, even without a reboot. It is so ironic that maybe Bill Gates needs to fire his employees who screwed things up so badly and hire the Internet Pirates to make buying, downloading, and installing additional Microsoft software easier and cleaner.

When Microsoft created DotNET it got even worse, as now many programs require DotNET 2.0 or 3.5 before they will install. Which means older versions of Windows that don't support the newer DotNET libraries won't be able to use the new modern software and be shut out. Also if DotNET is not updated to the latest service pack, usability of the operating system gets worse as well.

Case in point with Vista, the major operating system files that XP used, got radically changed in Vista so much that it broke about 85% of the programming development software for Windows, which makes it hard to port from XP to Vista for most software developers. They'll have to rewrite the code in a programming language that Vista supports. That takes time, years for example, by the time the Vista version is released, Microsoft will have moved on to Windows 7.0 that is if the Vista version is rewritten in time for a Windows 7.0 launch.

Hey Microsoft how about licensing Apt-Get, SYNAPTICS, or even Linspire/Freespire CNR because the Linux installers and updater programs run a lot better than the Microsoft Windows versions.

I like this part

[Master of Transhuman]

The part where he says "I was told" - which means this asshole doesn't even know what they're selling or doing at Microsoft any more - and doesn't care as long as the money rolls in.

Fuck him. The crap he went through is precisely what hundreds of millions of stupid users - stupid because they put up with this shit - go through every goddamn day trying to use this POS. Serves him right he gets to get screwed by it, too.

Obvious Bill has not tried Debian apt

[BroncoInCalifornia]

If Bill Gates had used Synaptic or something equivalent he would have an even worse view of the Windows experience. He would consider the add-remove applet in control panel to be poor and the experience of downloading various installers from web sites to be downright horrible.

Windows Usability and Linux Desktop uptake

[MrKaos]

What an absolute mess.

For a while now I've considered whether how bad Windows is, is the reason people don't switch to a Linux distribution. What I mean is they see how bad Windows is and they think that is the expected experience if they use *any* computer operating system. So their perception becomes 'oh I have to not only learn a new OS but also put up with a whole new set of bugs'.

Not that I'm saying that Linux Distributions are free of bugs, but on the whole my bad experiences with windows was one of the reasons I switched to Linux. I now spend less time fixing Linux than I did Windows and I waste that time on slashdot.

Run on fixed

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, it's certainly possible the man was lying to me or mistaken -- or if you want to get cute -- there was no actual legal obligation to eschew Open Source. But M$ reps *implied* that there was, and the folks in charge assumed, were cowed, or simply were too slow of mind to look at the situation more closely.

fark me, i reboot every 60-90days

[cheekyboy]

Is he installing that much MS software, maybe he should use a cloud or a linux laptop with access to a VMware server running 20 Vistas.

I rarely run word, maybe thats the trick, but I rarely need to reboot unless its those pesky updates.

Come on bill, pay some more bucks for brains.

what an arsehole

[cheekyboy]

Seriously he is rich, super rich, what more does he want, immortality like a Gauld.

Hey Bill, make your stuff work well for EVERYONE, and you just might be POPULAR. Not an evil POS demon.

All empires fall, its part of nature, no ONE entity is allowed to rule. Face it or loose it.

No single person anywhere loves microsoft, just like no one liked ibm in the 80s.

MS should be ashamed at that POS

[cheekyboy]

If linux had that, it would be bagged left and right, just for that alone reviewers not being paid should give all windows OS's a fat 1.5 out of 5 score and recommend a NO BUY.

But we know the whole industry just like USa and govt corporates etc... are all so corrupt its sickening. Yeah get rich now, but in histories eyes, in GOOGLE will show you scum to be under the same search tree as polpot/stalin.

If windows was $29, yeah maybe its ok, but its more than that, so it doesnt deserve praise.