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

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

[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

[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

[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 ;).

Abstract

[msuarezalvarez]

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

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.

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.

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.

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

[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: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.