BBC Solicts Questions to Ask Bill Gates

James Hunt writes "The BBC are doing an interview with Bill Gates on Sunday 17th October at 8pm BST on BBC2, and are looking for questions people might be interested in putting to him. Heavy hitting BBC interview veteran Jeremy Paxman - known for not holding back on interviewees is conducting the interview. Email: paxmanvsgates@bbc.co.uk to submit your questions. " <preach> Remember polite and incisive question will do a better job than flame. Let's be grown-ups. </preach>

Comments

This is not good.

[BootHead]

Bill, how many times a day do you read slashdot? And does the borg thing bother you?

But I want to flame!

[handorf]

Please! OK, how about...

Are you ever going to produce a product that saves more time than it wastes?

When will you realize that stability is important?

Did you EVER have any sort of class in Project Management? Specifically did you skip the chapter on testing?

Will you give me your money?

Please note that these are all in humor. I'm just venting, my NT box crashed twice today. Already. And I have only been here an hour.

Re:But I want to flame!

[sparks]

You say you are just flaming. But those questions are very much in the Paxman style. He likes to make people squirm. But he isn't abusive, trivial or sensationalist; his subjects squirm because the questions are usually very perceptive.

I can easily see him asking "Are you ever going to produce a product that saves more time than it wastes?" or "When will you realize that stability is important?"

There was one famous interview where he asked a senior politician the same question thirteen times in a row until he got a straight answer. I look forward to seeing that same no-bullshit style used against Uncle Gates' carefully prepared marketing drivel.

Re:But I want to flame!

[cakes]

In fact it was sixteen, and he still didn't get a straight answer. Made the politician in question (Michael Howard, the then Home Secretary) look like a total Rodney. He also hosts a discussion programme (Start the Week) on BBC Radio 4 (like the US's NPR) on which he asked Henry Kissinger (on the program to plug his book) some fairly hard questions including: "Did not you feel something of a fraud taking the Nobel Peace Prize?" So there is no reason to hold back on a question just because you think the interviewer will not have the cojones to ask it - he will! Paxo (as he is fondly known in Rightpondia) known no shame. Cakes

Re:But I want to flame!

[handorf]

Jeez. Can't Anybody around here take a little humor?

Or... wait. I know. There's a MS croney in the moderator pool! I hit the magic question somewhere in there! :-)

Just kidding, jeesh.

Mr Gates?

[Maxwell_E]

Has the prospect of being locked in the bathroom after Y2K, in any way prompted you to stock your bathroom with a secret stash of comestibles?

Re:Mr Gates?

[Anonymous Coward]

How 'bout this one: (in yer best "Baba Wawa" voice")

"If you wewre a twee, what kind of twee would you be?"

What if the government does split up Microsoft?

[Gekko]

Mr. Gates, what if the government does choose to split up Microsoft into an operating system division and a Software division. Which division would you choose to stay with?

Re:What if the government does split up Microsoft?

[Gekko]

Yea yea I know im supposed to email it to him. But the question is something that is valid to consider. Bill Gates being president of both companies wouldnt make a split up Microsoft much different than a unified Microsoft. Actually I am much more afraid of 2 header dragons than 1. At least when they are only 1 division the government can keep hitting them with the Monopoly law suits. When they are split you have a much more difficult set of laws that need to be applied to prove unfair buisness practices.

Re:What if the government does split up Microsoft?

[fwr]

If there was a breakup the, much like Ma Bell, there would be a judge that would oversee the breakup for many years. It's not as simple as "O.K., which company do you want to head? O.K., that's fine, see ya!"

Paxman should be good

[Epeeist]

Paxman is not known for treating his interviewees lightly. He is a very bright, ruthless interrogater with impeccable manners.

If you are going to submit questions then make sure they are "opening" so they allow Paxman to follow up.

I really hope the BBC makes a webcast of this for you people on the other side of the pond.

Re:Paxman should be good

[albalbo]

This is how it should go...

[Dong] Do, do do do do do do do...
It's Universally Challenged, with your host Jeeeeeeeeeeeremy Pax-mannnnnnnn.

(Jeremy) And here's your starter for ten. In the 'development lifecycle' of software, what comes after marketing?

(silence)

(Jeremy) Oh really now, come on.

[Bzzt! Gates, Harvard drop-out]

(Bill) Testing?

(Jeremy, pulling face) No, no, no, no, really now.

.... etc

(For those over the pond, Jeremy Paxman is also a gameshow host for 'University Challenge'. He asks ridiculously hard questions, and then harries the contestants and ridicules them when they (inevitably) get one wrong. 'Don't be silly' is a typical response, as is 'Of course it isn't', and 'No, no, no, no, no, no [shaking head]'.)

And the stuff about him asking a polititian (Michael Howard, then Home Secretary I think) the same question 13 times - he later admitted it was the director's fault. "Fill, Jeremy, fill!" he was shouting down the earpiece. Jeremy couldn't think of anything else to ask him, but was relieved when he realised he wasn't getting a straight answer and could keep asking the same question.

Re:Paxman should be good

[Anonymous Coward]

Trouble is, Jeremy's forte is not science and technology but rather the arts. You can see it in almost any episode of University Challenge: If for example he asks an obscure question about Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and you get the answer wrong, he will ruthelessly take the piss (as albalbo above says), but if it is a simple Sci/Tech question (eg. how many bits in a byte) it's "Oh well, I wouldn't expect anyone to know that".

He's bloody good at his interviews though - even if a bit doggedly persistant.

Re:Paxman should be good

[albalbo]

> He's bloody good at his interviews though -
> even if a bit doggedly persistant.

All hail the quality of Radio 4's today programme. Although, I have to say, if I were to pick anyone to interview The Bill it wouldn't be Jeremy, it would be "BBC Rottweiler John Humphries" (as the tabloid press in this country is want to call him).

On another, slightly more off-topic note, does anyone remember the time when one of the Universities kept getting questions wrong, 5 points deducted and were playing for ages with a negative score? Damn that Jeremy whooped on they asses. ;)

Re:Paxman should be good

[simonb]

And don't forget: While Interviewing Tor^Hny Blair, after a spiel of five minutes of crap about how such a thing was happening and improving he calmly replied...

"Excuse my Denseness PM, but was that a yes or a no?"

Re:Paxman should be good

[bozzwell]

Agreed in principle! But don't forget that he DOES relay on BBC researchers and they did absolutely abysmal job during the Hotmail fiasco. I still can't believe how they (Microsoft) got off so lightly during the interview (on Newsnight) with Microsoft UK Director. That woman was flamebait embodied. I don't think she understood why/how the whole thing happend in the first place.

Then, on the same program, there was 'this other guy' who was meant to provide other side of story. I still don't know if he was meant to represent openSource or some other community, but he actually managed to make Microsoft look good/not so bad in comparasion.

When you do submit the questions you may want to supply your own research/sources with it.

GPL your question and append source ;).

Re:Paxman should be good

[Mr. Piccolo]

"And here's your starter for ten. In the 'development lifecycle' of software, what comes after marketing?"

Wait a minute... I was not aware that "marketing" was a part of the software life cycle. As far as I can remember it goes

Requirements
Specification
Analysis
Planning
Architectural Design
Detailed Design
Coding
Release
Maintenance


Unless marketing == release, marketing is NOT a part of the Software Life Cycle. And I'm not too sure release is actually a phase...
Also, testing is supposed to be performed as an integral part of each step.

Re:Paxman should be good

[VP]

It will be interesting to see if Bill Gates will last longer than Henry Kissinger - here is a link. There is also a web site for submitting questions.

Re:Paxman should be good

[hany]

Jeremy couldn't think of anything else to ask him, but was relieved when he realised he wasn't getting a straight answer and could keep asking the same question.

well, are politicians same all around the world?

our "famous" slovak politician (vladimir meciar) have been asked very straight yes|no question about one year ago (he has been prime minister by that time) about something he have to know to answer (as prime minister). bu he [politiacian] started answering with looooooong sentences quickly getting away from subject. interviewer asked same question 5 (if i remember correctly) times and then interview ended (it was live interview in TV and time for it ended).

Re:Paxman should be good

[drudd]

Remember, this is the Microsoft Software Life Cycle... it goes like this:

Marketing
Requirements
Marketing
Coding
Marketing
Release
Marketing
Analysis
Marketing
Design
Maintenance
Marketing
Re-release
Marketing

Doug

Modularity?

[QuMa]

An interesting question might be, whether he bill gates sees modularity as the future, or that he thinks tight, specific code is better in the end.

Re:Modularity?

[Watchman123]

As this programme is being broadcast to Joe Public I reckon the questions are likely to be broad rather than deep. Though this would be an interesting question Paxman is likely to focus more on BGs wealth and influence rather than the specific nature of the products. The BBC are running trailers for this programme showing how much BG earns every hour (squllion dollars)

Re:Modularity?

[QuMa]

Certainly, but I can still try can't I? :-)

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

As if Microsoft PR is going to allow any remotely amusing questions...

Re:Why?

[H-dog]

I don't know, he may be willing to admit that he has those Star Trek doors.

Will he raise his right hand?

[afniv]

Really, anyone think Bill will give straight answers?

At least it might provide some comedy.

My question:
What was your reasoning for using the backslash ("\") as the directory delimiter in MS-DOS instead of the industry standard slash ("/")? I find the slash easier to type (at least on an American keyboard).

~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"

Re:Will he raise his right hand?

[Otter]

What was your reasoning for using the backslash ("\") as the directory delimiter in MS-DOS instead of the industry standard slash ("/")? I find the slash easier to type (at least on an American keyboard).

Paul Allen accepted resposnsibility for that in a Wired article some years ago.

How about...

[rnturn]

Q: Mr. Gates... How much is enough?
A: Ummmm...

(What's the emoticon for leaning over and rocking in your chair?)

open source windows!

[discore]

why not make windows open source? i mean, you could keep the MS name and make tons of money off of that. think of the improvements to the operating system open source could provide. remember it isn't all about your stock value and other material things, its about a good OS from what could be a very good company.

Re:open source windows!

[Anonymous Coward]

NOT! If I was Microsoft, I would feel veryembarrassed to open the source of such a shitty productsuch as Windows NT/98/95. I have about 10 years of experience in personal computing, and I am unfortunately very painfully aware of how poor programming has been done at Redmond.

Re:open source windows!

[chandler]

Ok... It would hurt my eyes just to read the source of that. It already hurts when I have to do windows programming in the API (it's a mess, that's why they invented MFC). Microsoft's Motto: Hiding messes behind abstraction layers. I often wonder why they actually kept the Win API in NT. If it's from the ground up, why not make a (neater) gui?
Linux Long and Prosper

Re:open source windows!

[SeanNi]

>Microsoft's Motto: Hiding messes behind abstraction layers.

Heh... take it a step or 3 farther...

Microsoft:
1. Hiding messes behind abstraction layers.
2. Hiding undocumented API's behind messes.
3. Hiding broken standards behind undocumented API's.

:-)
--
- Sean

Answer:

[Darksky]

he was being clever.. the dicrepancies in the slashes insure that dos is incompatible with the IS.

Re:Answer:

[sparks]

He was being short-sighted; MS-DOS v1 didn't have any directories at all, and hence didn't need a directory seperator character. So they used the slash as the command-line switch character, as in fdisk /mbr. Remember, under DOS the space between the command and the switches are optional. So fdisk/mbr would be legal.

Then when MS-DOS v2 came along and needed to support directories, they couldn't use the slash as it would be ambiguous. So the "other" slash was used instead... the one which was already used as an escape character in UNIX. Which, to cut a long story short, is why Samba users everywhere regularly type four backslashes before their server name :)

Re:Answer:

[Anonymous Coward]

how should anyone at Microsoft know about the slashes? Microsoft didn't write DOS! They bought it from Seattle Computer Products...

Question:

[ToOn]

Mr. Gates, will Microsoft change it's policy on aquiring new companies, or will it continue to assimilate anything it comes across?

So bill, Did you have to give your soul in it's...

[mattz]

...entirety, or did satan allow you to sell just chunks....i figure if a kidney can get 1.5M, then your left chakra should be about worth 25million years in hell?

What about slashdot questions?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about doing a slashdot QA session with Bill Gates like we do with the other famous personalities. I'm sure a number of good questions will come up.

You think Bill will oblige us? Maybe Rob could send him the questions and emphasize that they're from a site which is frequented by a lot of Linux users.

So what do you'all think?

Re:What about slashdot questions?

[PhilHibbs]

It would have been (and still could be) a good idea to submit the best questions from this discussion to Auntie Beeb as "official slashdot questions".

Re:What about slashdot questions?

[mattbee]

Or we could mail Microsoft's press office and ask whether Bill would mind stripping naked and fighting a pack of rabid dogs with only a half-brick in a sock to defend himself. We might be more likely to get a response :-)

Two questions.

[Noryungi]

1. Mr Gates, given that the vast majority of micro-computer owners use Windows, how come Microsoft keeps on releasing buggy and insecure software? Don't you think quality should be your main corporate concern?

2. Mr Gates, given your immense fortune and undeniable intelligence, how come you have given so little of your own money to worthy cause? I know you have set up a "Bill & Melinda Gates" foundation -- but it has been pretty much absent from the news. Don't you think you are setting a bad example for the younger generations by flaunting so openly your wealth and your greed?

Yes, I know, that's *four* questions -- but they are really lumped together in two categories... =)

Re:Two questions.

[bakert]

I think that you can see here that Mr. Gates cannot be accused of not giving any money to charity.

Re:Two questions.

[GregWebb]

The Register published a story here revealing that MS and Bill's charitable donations are nothing more than a PR exercise.

Hmm, this one's getting sent to the Beeb...

Greg

Re:Two questions.

[Anonymous Coward]

The register is a worthless rag with about as much journalistic integrity as the Drudge Report.

Re:Two questions.

[GregWebb]

My, someone's in a bad mood today!

Yes, The Register can get a trifle tabloid in its presentation. But is it lying? A little unlikely. They're a real company, based in the UK where we _don't_ have freedom of speech legislation so you can easily sue people for even slight possible defamation. If they were that bad, they'd have been off-line for ages by now. And they were still there last time I checked.

Greg

Re:Two questions.

[Noryungi]

Please note that I did not say he was not giving any money -- but that, compared to his incredible bank account (don't forget we are dealing with the richest man in the world!) he does not seem to give much.

Remember also that Mr Gates also has a finger in many, many, many pies -- even if Microsoft was to disappear tomorrow, he would probably still make in the top 10% of wealthy white male.

Re:Two questions.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a moron. Drudge kicks ass, and is at least as accurate as your average newspaper. What do you read, dumbass?

Dear Bill

[Black Parrot]

1) Do you run Windows on your own computer?

1b) If so, what do you say when you get a crash, a hang, or an other event that causes data loss?


2) Have you ever done anything illegal?

2b) What would you be willing to do if (say) some upstart operating system came along and threatened to cost Micorsoft hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue over the next decade or two?


3) Do you believe your own bullshit, or is it just for public consumption?

3b) Do you really think we're that stupid?


4) Wouldn't you rather have a Mac?

--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?

Re:Dear Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

2) Have you ever done anything illegal?

Don't be silly. He's a perfectly law abiding citizen.

Re:Dear Bill

[Darksky]

what was the arrest for?

Re:Dear Bill

[Wolfier]

Paxman: Do you run Windows on your own computer?

Gates: Yes.

Paxman: If so, what do you say when you get a crash, a hang, or an other event that causes data loss?

Gates: Damn, I shoulda requested a taped appearance...

Gates: Eh....Uh...Hm...cough...Eh...

Paxman: Excuse me?

Gates: Sorry, I guess I have caught a cold recently...what have you just said?

Paxman: What do you say when you get a crash, a hang, or an other event that causes data loss?

Gates: Eh....Uh...Hm...cough...Eh...WHAT?

Paxman: Let's put it at the end. Mr. Gates, have you ever done anything illegal?

Gates: Being the Chairman and CEO of the world's powerful, and hence the most ethical software company, of course I haven't done anything illegal - speeding doesn't count, though - you know, being in this fast-changing industry, you'll be promptly taken over if you aren't fast.

Paxman: What would you be willing to do if (say) some upstart operating system came along and threatened to cost Micorsoft hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue over the next decade or two?

Gates: Eh...Uh...this question is irrelevant, since I can't see any competent operating system that threaten to cost us any amount of money, anytime in the future.

Paxman: Have you just said that you'll promptly be taken over if you don't act fast in this fast-changing industry? How can you be so sure that there won't be an operating system that will threaten you?

Gates: Uh...Eh...Uh...yes....Hm...cough...no... cough cough cough excuse me, the cold's strike again.

Paxman: Heh, anyway, do you believe your own bullshit, or is it just for public consumption?

Gates: Of course it is primarily targeted towards our brainwas...TCO-conscious customers and enterprise. Of course, the more people believe in us, it would be easier for us to rip'em off...Mwahaha...

Paxman: Pardon?

Gates (realizing it's live): Oh. Did I say anything? Oh yeah. We value our customers over everything else. The buck stops here.

Paxman: Do you really think we're that stupid?

Gates: Uh...eh...hm...uh...cough...excuse me?

Paxman: Wouldn't you rather have a Mac?

Gates: Definitely not. I think this is going grossly offtopic...let's talk about the exciting *new* features that will appear on Windows 2000 that we've implemented last week with 433,569 lines of new code!!! What's more...

Paxman (calling for commercial): We'll take a break for now. We'll be back 5 minutes later and ask about how Mr. Gate has caught this mysterious virus that sometimes filters what he hears.

Re:Dear Bill

[Black Parrot]

> Gates (realizing it's live): ... The buck stops here.

About 100,000,000,000 bucks have stopped with him, last I heard.


--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?

Re:Dear Bill

[wangi]

Paxman (calling for commercial)

Erm, BBC? Its only redeeming feature...

Re:Dear Bill

[drwiii]

Speeding, IIRC.

--

Re:Dear Bill

[ender-]

what was the arrest for?

I believe it was for speeding in his Porche :)

Ender

Why does Hotmail run FreeBSD?

[Trith]

You say NT is better than Freenix, The *BSDs and Linux. If so, why does Hotmail and many other microsoft sites run FreeBSD?


Mmmmm WindowMaker. Small, fast, and feature rich.

What is the Upgrade Path?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Windows 95,98,2000 Office 95,97,2000 Will we be expected to spend another $600 on Windows 2002 and Office 2002? and What will be the big advantages of (Win/Office 2004,2006,2008,2010) and will the price for each one follow your current trend and go up in price?

Paxman

[ebcdic]

For those who don't know, Jeremy Paxman is the interviewer who recently asked Henry Kissinger if he felt like a fraud for accepting a Nobel peace price considering his support for Pinochet, the Chinese government and the bombing of Cambodia.

Re:Paxman

[David Off]

I wonder if Gates will stomp out too?

Re:Paxman

[bullgod]

And who can forget (if they saw it) him asking Michael Howard (Home Sec.) the same questions 14 times in a row because refused to give a straigt answer. It went something like

JP: "Did you ask the Director of Prisons to resign?"

NH: blah, blah, avoid issue

JP: "Did you ask him to resign?"

NH: more of the same

JP: "Did you ask him to resign?"

repeat

Great stuff

BTW It was obvious that Kissinger hadn't been told was to expect from our Jez (even if it was 9:00am on a Monday morning).

Re:Paxman

[MillMan]

hahaha thats awesome....I didn't realize it was him who asked Kissinger that question. I wish we had people like that in the United States. I'll definatly try to find a transcript of this if I can...I hope slashdot posts a link to it.

Re:Paxman

[Athos]

I'm curious now. What was the eventual response (aside from the dodging)?

--

Re:Paxman

[greenrd]

More BS. He never did get a straight answer out of him.

Re:Paxman

[hadron]

Continual dodging, but the questions / answers were more of the form :

JP : Did you threaten to overrule him? MH : I did not overrule him. JP : But did you threaten to overrule him? MH : I did not overrule him. JP : But did you threaten to overrule him? MH : I did not overrule him. etc...

Pretty funny. I imagine Michael Howard has never forgiven Paxman.

Re:Paxman

[madprof]

Actually it was 13 times, and it was available as a RealAudio stream on the BBC News website for a while. It might stil be there actually. The interview won an award, and was ocnducted shortly after the 1997 election when Michael Howard was running for leader of the Conservative Party who had been unceremoniously tossed out of office.
Paxman probed Mr Howard on the resignation of the Director of Prisons and asked:
"Did you threaten to overrule Mr Lewis"

Howard replied "I have given a full account to the enquiry into this matter"
Paxman asked again, and again. No matter how polite he was he was equally insistent.
Finally, after the 13th time (when Mr Howard was getting *seriously* steamed up under the surface) Paxman cuts that line of questioning off and then asks him about his leadership campaign.
"Do you feel the people of the party can trust you, Mr Howard?"
Of course don't take my word for it - I coudl have transcribed wrongly.

http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/video/newsni ght/howard.ram

Top stuff.

Cryptography

[Swamp]

Mr Gates, do you believe that all cryptographic export restrictions should be scrapped?

Re:Cryptography

[James Durie]

Of course he wants them lifted.

Microsoft wants...NO demands that the restrictions be lifted so that microsoft is free to sell buggy insecure encryption software to *all* of the free world.

James (apparently *under the influence*)
let forever be

My actually e-mailed question to him

[Trith]

You say NT is better than Freenix, the *BSDs and Linux. If so, why does Hotmail run FreeBSD? I know that you bought Hotmail with it running Solaris. You then put NT on it. Finally, FreeBSD took the cake and has remained ever since. The reason seems clear to me. I'm curious as to what you have to say?

Joseph

Mmmmm WindowMaker. Small, fast, and feature rich.

Re:My actually e-mailed question to him

[Jon Peterson]

Um, I realise that these questions are probably vetted by technical chappies before getting to J. Paxman, but even so, how many BBC viewers would really understand the question, and how many of those would care?

Re:My actually e-mailed question to him

[hobbit]

Well - the hotmail crack was quite high-profile, so what would be ideal is something like:

Jeremy: You make a big deal about how secure Windows NT is, and yet Hotmail was hacked (sic) recently...

Bill:...actually, Hotmail is running on Unix! Unix is old technology! Goes to show!

Jeremy: erm... Why is Hotmail running Unix?

(for those who have never seen Paxman in action, the "erm..." always signifies the start of something interesting!)

Hamish

Simple Q: "Why should people trust you?"

[redelm]

People put alot of faith in their OS & apps, and alot of work needs to be redone when they go wrong like Word 5.

BG may be richer than Croessus, but it doesn't seem that money suffices. With MS so dominant, why should we believe BG has his customer's interest at heart? Don't his shareholders come first?

-- Robert

Do you worry about being sued?

[Sun Tzu]

Do you worry about, or plan for, being sued over losses resulting from an instability in NT?

Re:Do you worry about being sued?

[jeff71]

He probably doesn't - I believe the the End User License Agreement limits Microsoft's liability to the cost of the OS

Slash vs. Backslash

[pdc]

Slash was not available as a directory separator because they'd already used it for command options, in the way Unix uses a minus sign (/d instead of -d).

Not sure why they used slashes for options. Presumably CP/M and QDOS did. Perhaps to be different from Unix, perhaps to be similar to VMS (which uses [, ., and ] in file names instead of /).

Re:Slash vs. Backslash

[Anonymous Coward]

The first versions of CP/M (or, was that "all versions of CP/M") didn't have the concept of subdirectories (only one flat big directory per device). Hence the / was free for the options. They did, and got burned later on when they added subdirectories in Dos.

Don't forget, at that time, Microsoft wasn't the monopolist that is today, so they didn't have any incentive of doing things "just to be different".

Information at your fingertips(tm) ??

[nbor]

Bill, there was a time when you talked about "information at your fingertips"(tm).
The Internet has delivered this promise and yet for years Microsoft ignored the potential
of the Internet. Was the desire to own the worldwide computing infrasructure blinding Microsoft to the possibility of realizing this vision through open interoperable protocols ?

Isn't Microsoft doing the same by keeping it's Office and Win2000 products tightly controlled ?
Will "information at your fingertips" be realized (in the new millenium) by Linux, Java and the open Internet rather than Microsoft's Win2000, DCOM and tightly controlled application architecture ?

Overall, have open architectures delivered on Microsoft's "information at
your fingertips" vision far better than
Microsoft ever could ?

Note :- the phrase "information at your fingertips" is trademarked by Microsoft.
-----------------------------------------

Decreasing boot time of windows

[cmcclimans]

I had lunch with a developer at Microsoft recently. After quite a heated discussion, we started talking about improvements to Linux vs Microsoft. Microsoft appears to be doing a push to reduce the time it takes to boot windows. Shouldn't MS be concentrationg on not forcing a reboot by crashing or needing to reboot everytime you change a setting?

Re:Decreasing boot time of windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares about decresing the boot time? On my Quad Xeon PC (I am a graphics designer) loaded with peripherals, (SCSI, FireWire yadda yadda) Windows 2000 (which I recently swapped to from NT4) STILL loads 2x faster than linux on the same box.

Question :

[AndyL]

With the relese of the HandSpring visor, and the success of the Palm devices how do you see this effecting the WinCE devices, and will microsoft continue to compete in this arena?

Over the next one or two decades what do you beleve will be the role of the desktop PC compared to portable web-surfing gadgets, and other netPCs?(either tv-top or desktop)

I just don't care

[coyote-san]

You know, I really don't care what Bill Gates says about anything... and that should terrify him.

This isn't a casual statement, I did give thought to a question. And I might still submit it, or a variant:

A&E Biography recently named you the 41st most influential person of the past 1000 years. That is quite an honor... but Robin Williams in the same show attacked your truthfulness in a series of one-liners about several honorees. A well-regarded computer trade journalist (whose name I forget!) has commented that no one would throw Microsoft and the truth into the same room for fear of a matter-antimatter explosion.

Doesn't it concern you that Bill Gates and dishonesty are becoming as synonymous as John DeLorean and cocaine trafficking?


But the sad truth is that I simply don't give a damn what Bill Gates has to say about anything. There is simply nothing he can say that will interest me because I know, from a decade of Bill-watching, that it will be self-serving, vaporware, or both.

I wish Jeremy Paxman the best of luck, but I honestly think it would have been easier to interview Richard Nixon shortly after Watergate than Bill Gates today.

Re:I just don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

I really wish I could disagree with these statements, but I can't. I think coyote-san has it exactly right--Gates will say whatever he thinks will help MS, regardless of its truth value, and those of us who have been watching MS and using their products over the years won't learn anything new. Side prediction: Expect to hear Gates interject his family into answers a few times, in an attempt to increase his warm and fuzzy rating.

Re:I just don't care

[James Durie]

If you've ever seen paxman up against some smart arse politician then you would want to see this.

The DOJ questioning should seem like a walk in the park.

I wonder if paxman knows a *good* definition of innovation.

Re:I just don't care

[FallLine]

Bill Gates is no genius, but he isn't a fool either. He's certainly alot smarter than most politicians. You can be sure that he knows what he is getting into here.

Also, just because this Paxman is smart doesn't mean that he'll be particularly in tune with the software industry. He may smell bullshit when he hears it, but will he really know what to lock onto? That remains to be seen.

I suspect Bill Gates has a game plan.... but if this reporter is all he is cracked up to be, I'd love to see it. I live in the US, can anyone tape and convert it to an mpeg or something?

Re:I just don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

My earlier comments weren't a remark about Jeremy Paxman, they were a remark about how the few remaining shreds of credibility I had been willing to give Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and the like had blow away in the wind. Evaporated like the morning dew. Insert favorite metaphor here.

The sad fact is that I've given him every possible benefit of the doubt, but after decades of twisting the truth (at best) and outright deception (at worst) I wouldn't trust him if he were selling $100 bills (no pun intended) for a penny.

That admission hurts deeply, because I've tried to live by the spirit if not the letter of Christian faith and always seen some possible redemption in everyone. I've understood why "despair" is the only truly mortal sin. Yet I still can't imagine myself hearing Bill Gates offer any possible explanation and suddenly seeing MS in a favorable light. I just don't care anymore - all I can think of is the famous quote from _Paradise Lost_.

(As a total aside, I would not be surprised if Bill Gates makes the top-100 list for the 21st Century, but only as a philathropist of the same rank as Carnigie. I'm utterly convinced that Microsoft will be remembered as a historical oddity, and within a few hundred years people will talk about MS stock prices in the same way we talk about the tulip craze today.)

Re:I just don't care

[hany]

well ... maybe i'm too tired (it's 00:30 in slovakia) but i do not think that "falamebait" (even with score 4) is apropriate for parent post.
"normal" and any positive score looks more appropriate to me.

while i feel need to ask mr. gates something, i'm unable to come up with some question which i realy want and care mr. gates to answer.

now, review of "business @ the speed of thought" comes to my mind: as almost all reviewers (all of whom reviews i have read) written, there is nearly no usefull information in this book.
considering other notes/interviews/articles from mr. gates i read i think that there is little probability of some usefull (for me) information being said by mr. gates.
and i'm not that interested in just hearing his voice or just see his image or just see characters which represents some sounds he produced.

sorry

Re:I just don't care

[BBB]

Why the hell should Bill Gates be terrified that you don't care what he says? You probably don't much care what I say either... should I be terrified too?

mistyped?

[z84976]

... " *preach* Remember polite and incisive questions will do a better job, THEN??? flame. Let's be grown-ups. */preach*

shouldn't you change the "then" to "than" before some overzealous individual acts politely and THEN FLAMES? Just a note. Don't flame me.

Then or Than ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I must admit that I am a little bit confused here.
Should we first be polite and Then flame ?
(I hope not ;-) )

Please Hemos: Read before you post.
A "typo" is not pretty on the front page...

-
A coward

Re:Then or Than ?

[Mithy]

Should we first be polite and Then flame ?

Actually, "First be polite, then flame" appears to be accepted practice among political interviewers. Since the interviewer in question is Mr. Paxman, I think that - typo or no typo - it is appropriate. :)

--
"I am Blair of EU^H^HBorg. Surrender your currency and prepare to be assimilated."

this reply is offtopic...pls moderate down...but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Bwahahahahahha. Man ,I wish I had some moderator points...that's the funniest fucking thing I've read in weeks!!!! *breath* Hahahah!!!! Dude, here's 10 bucks....go buy yourself a steak.

Just one question, Bill...

[Dehumanizer]

How can you go to sleep at night, after doing what you do?

there already is a webcast

[danielrogers]

Yay quciktime TV! Part of qucik time TV is the BBC so everyone should be able to catch this interview (although maybe if would be better if everyone had a high speed connection).

Re:there already is a webcast

[sumana]

Go to the Apple website. http://www.apple.com/quicktime/showca se/live/ There's a link to the BBC stream.

Re:there already is a webcast

[aziraphale]

Bad luck - It's BBC WorldService TV - not the real terrestrial stuff. You have to be a bona fide licence payer to get to watch this one.

About the OMG....

[Gab]

Dear Bill,

The OMG (www.omg.org) is a standards body with a membership list of over 800 companies - one which reads like a who's-who in the industry. It's mission is interoperability - helping different vendors software work together.

Microsoft is a member and yet appears to ignore the resulting standards. Microsoft continues to push it's own propriority solutions.

Does Microsoft really believe these 800 other companies are wrong? Or is it safe to conclude that Microsoft is not interested in interoperability, the innovation that releases and the customer choice that this engenders [1].

Gab

[1] For instance there is one vendor of the Microsoft 'Application Server' solution (DCOM) - Microsoft, and about 20 vendors of application servers based on the OMG standard (CORBA).

Re:Cryptography and Micro$oft

[Cplus]

Of course Gates wouldn't want the crypto restrictions lifted. We've heard of the 'supposed' (and I do suppose) NSAkey in Windows. Microsoft always has great crypto to all of their products. Don't you think that there's an under the table deal? I do. If other companies could use crypto as strong as the M$ crypto then that means better competition and what businessman wants that. Seriously though, who here thinks Bill reads /. regularly. I do.

Please don't spoil this!

[rve]

This looks like a great opportunity to ask intelligent, critical questions. I sure hope these won't be slashdotted to smithereens with megabytes of hatemail.

Too technical

[Sanity]

Paxman is a political interviewer, he won't be comfortable getting into anything which even smells technical. Clever questions about the M$ monopoly, and (if we are really lucky) free software, might make it in if they are phrased in a political way. I suspect though that the interview will probably focus more on Bill's wealth than how he obtained it.

--

Re:Too technical

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true. These were the two questions I sent yesterday, and for which I received an acknowledgement today. BTW, the original request at the BBC web site asked that questioners send their full name and town where they live. 1. According to this Economist article and the web page of Bill Parish: Economist article Bill Parish

"For instance, Microsoft, the world's most valuable company, declared a profit of $4.5 billion in 1998; when the cost of options awarded that year, plus the change in the value of outstanding options, is deducted, the firm made a loss of $18 billion, according to Smithers." What does Mr. Gates have to say regarding this? 2. Since Microsoft is the most universally hated company amongst the technical community, is it becoming more and more difficult to find employees willing to work for you? Paul

Re:Too technical

[GregWebb]

Since Microsoft is the most universally hated company amongst the technical community, is it becoming more and more difficult to find employees willing to work for you?

I'm a CS Student in my final year. Based in Reading, UK, same as Microsoft. Memory says I could get to their place in about 20 mins from here by bike. Now, this time next year I'll be hopefully working in IT, and I'd like to stay in this area. Am I even considering applying to MS? No way - I'd be embarrassed to have any of their software on my CV, and embarrased to know that my life was partially payed for by the effective tax on PC use that is Windows.

Do they really think no-one agrees with me?

Greg

Re:Too technical

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I even considering applying to MS? No way - I'd be embarrassed to have any of their software on my CV

CV

Known applications: Microsoft Office

hmmm...

Re:Too technical

[Anonymous Coward]

I also live in Reading and currently looking for a job (C++/UNIX). Yesterday, an agent phoned with a position at MS using C++ & DEC/IBM UNIX. Got to be worth a visit to find out what they're up to ....

I want to see!

[Grand Pooh-Bah]

Is there going to be a webcast of this? Where can you get the BBC in the States?

Bend Over

[Watchman123]

If you saw $50,000 sitting on the floor, assuming it takes you 3 seconds to pick it up, would you make a loss by doing so?

Re:Bend Over

[AndyL]

He'd probably save time that way. After all if it's cash, it'll save him at least one trip to the ATM machine. (Or however he gets cash.)

Re:Bend Over

[zantispam]

Actually, IIRC, he grosses roughly $74k per second.

To pick up $50k would cost him $172k:
$ 50,000 on the floor
$ 74,000 per second times 3 seconds is
$222,000 minus his gain
$ 50,000 means he just lost
$172,000.

Right?

Besides, do you really think he bothers with cash anymore? He probably uses MS Money at home and MS Passport for bill paying.

Re:Bend Over

[AndyL]

Yes. But he hasn't actualy lost any money. He makes that money per second no matter what he's doing. Picking up stuff off the floor, doing paper work. Being interviewed. whatever.
So he gets that money plus the $50k.

Who pays bills with cash anyway? But what if you're on the road somewhere and need to buy a sandwitch? Or pay a toll?

Re:Bend Over

[Danse]

You can pay a toll with a credit card. Do you think Bill eats at McDonald's? I doubt it. I'm sure wherever he eats, they take plastic. Most likely he either has a lunch meeting or someone brings him his lunch.

Re:Bend Over

[AndyL]

So what's he do for fast food? He must at least sometimes be both hungy and in a hurry.

Re:Bend Over

[Danse]

The guy has more money than he could spend in his lifetime. His time is carefully planned and he has plenty of help. Do you think he has time to be bothered with buying food? He's got people to do things like that for him. If he wants a burger, someone will bring him one.

Think about it...

[Sanity]

...what is Paxman (a wizard with political issues, but probably not too confident when it comes to techie stuff) going to ask Bill? Is he going to start challenging him on technical issues? Of course not. Paxman doesn't like to be made look a fool - Bill used to be a hacker. He will stick to more general political issues, probably talking quite a bit about Bill's wealth (for example, challenging him on why he doesn't give more to charity). If we are going to persuade the BBC to ask anything about Open Source or Monopolies, it must be phrased in a sufficiently non-technical way that Paxman will go for it.

--

the cost of msFUD

[harenet]

hay FUDbillygates, can you tell us how many professional rhetoricyst talknicians you have working the web, filling up public forums & such with volumes of MSBS, not counting the # of "journalists" in your employ, & how much all that costs your customers/victims/stock holders?

Is all that lying really helpful to anyone?

Is there any study underway to assess the cost of lost time/productivity due to the shoddily engineered MSbugware, and/or the pathetic vulnerability of same to all form of virulent code.

Do you really think it's too late for you to get honest with the world? i do.

I'm still a little miffed with you for deleting my non-profit website from all those search engines, as you may have noticed. see you in the funny papers.

Commitment to following open standards

[NettRom]

Dear Mr Gates,

Will Microsoft ever commit to following open standards for the web like HTML, XML and Cascading Style Sheets? Even Internet Explorer version 5 has severe bugs in its CSS level 1 support, and lacks several features in HTML 4.0. Not to mention the HTML output from products like FrontPage and Word. Has Microsoft any plans on making sure their products outputs documents that are easy to access regardless of platform or system?

Re:Commitment to following open standards

[TGR]

I think I'll just say something here...

*cough*netscape is worse*cough*

So much for Open Software automatically being better. It's also the only browser I know of that crashes 3 OS's within 5 minutes of eachother :)

-m

99 little bugs in the code,
99 bugs in the code,
fix one bug, compile it again...

Re:Commitment to following open standards

[hadron]

Since when is a released Netscape open-source? (i.e. not Mozilla)

What I'd Like To Know

[Effugas]

Mr. Gates:

Two questions:

First, I do not villify you. I do not consider you a "Great Satan" of the world, nor do I plot your downfall or anything of the sort. However, there are people out there who have some extremely negative reactions to your success, and the perception that you've gotten where you are through legal chicanery, false advertising, and outright bullying not only appears to be a common sentiment but also one justified in a disturbingly large amount of evidence. My questions to you are as follows:

First, if you had the power to do so, what would be three things that you would go back and change about the ways in which your company has done business over the years? Or, so as to not put too many words in your mouth, are there three things over the past twenty or so years of Microsoft's "ascent to stardom" that you regret on a personal level, an ethical level, or a simple bottom line profitability calculation?

My second question to you is more subtle, and probably won't engender me too popular with my Slashdot brethren. Your programming team which composed Internet Explorer 5 did an outstanding job creating a browser that, while not perfect, easily can stand on its own as a significant advance in any number of web technologies. Unfortunately, their work was marred by relatively horrific enforcement of your company's mandate to eliminate Netscape at all costs--one incident led to Compaq recieving official termination of its licensing agreement for all Windows operating systems; another led to Gateway 2000 practically thanking Microsoft for the right to allow Netscape to be a customer choice in an extremely limited circumstance. As a leader and perhaps a role model to the engineers of Microsoft, how do you justify the apparent denegration and distrust in the quality of their work, even when they create products of excellent quality?

That's what I'd like to know. Knowing a few of you here on Slashdot, you probably think I was paid off by Microsoft, or am really some 35 mid forties PR schmuck hired to defend The Man.

Nope. Email me or check my web page, and don't even try to get all geekier-than-thou with me :-)

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com

Bill? Gates? duh...

[TicTacTux]

Who was this Bill Gates person? Never heard of him.
Zat the one who called Winders an operating system? If so, running KDE, do I have an operating system on top of another operating system?
Zat the one who declared darkness the new industry standard?
Zat the one re-doing the cream cake number?
Or is He dah driving force behind free software? (if his winders were that clean, who might have wanted to invent a mop for them?)
Be it as it may, some later generation will have to praise him for his marketing powers, or his near-to-godlike talent of combining stealing and selling. Where's the line between people like him and a common crook?
(In no way I want to convey the impression I am not a true admirer of him...so lawyers, behave!)

Re:Bill? Gates? duh...

[Che Guevarra]

Como?

Billy Borg...

[Greyfox]

If you were a flower, what kind of flower would you be?

I can see this now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Paxman: Did you threaten Netscape.
Gates: We at Microsoft intend only to innovate.
Paxman: Did you threaten Netscape.
Gates: We were innovating with our own products. Paxman: Did you threaten Netscape.
... Paxman: Did you threaten Netscape.
... Paxman: Did you threaten Netscape.
... Paxman: Did you threaten Netscape.
...

Anybody else see it when he asked a politician the same question ~12 times

Re:I can see this now.

[Danse]

I doubt it would happen that way. The politician was trying to avoid telling an outright lie. I have serious doubts that Bill would even hesitate to tell an outright lie. He'll simply say "No." I would say that I wouldn't want to be standing too close to him when he says that, but then we all know that lightning doesn't really strike people who tell a real whopper of a lie. If it did, we wouldn't have any politicians or lawyers (and His Billness would have been toasted a long time ago.)

Oh come on

[Greyfox]

Even if he had a conscience, I think $100 Billion will buy a lot of downers.

Some good one

[x3d]

Bill,

Why in heck did you create an OS that you have to REBOOT in order to change the IP?

Why do you need to REBOOT to change the hostname?

Why in god's name must you REBOOT five gazillion times to install NT?

Do you expect to get out of the bathroom soon?

Paxman unlikely to allow question vetting

[sidetrack]

I disagree, I doubt Jeremy Paxman will allow his questions to be pre-vetted. This is the BBC after all ;-).

Oh my.....Bob Dylan you're still alife.....

[Mister Dude]

Yeah Peace to the world man!
Come on people.....If you don't like the system DON'T install it. Besides if I had a couple of billions I'd sleep really tight, wouldn't care how much asses must be slashed.
I'd rather know how he (640Kb is enough for everybody) has been able to stuff-it-down-our-throats-whilst-making-a-mean-pro fit all these years?
So please do go on the 'we go and the change the world tour'. The hippies tried and failed, the punks tried and failed.....who do you think you are that you would succeed?
Oh..you can flame me ofcourse, but my threshold is on 2 anyway.
#include "whatever.h"
/* This code does everyting */

Because the answer would make a great .au file

[Jon Luckey]

Mr Gates, Is resistance futile, must we be assimilated?

Re:Because the answer would make a great .au file

[Anonymous Coward]

I need an au file that says. Bill: I am Bill Gates of Borg, Competition is futile. You will be monopolized!

Tree

[Bud^-]

Mr. Gates, if you where a Tree, what type of Tree would you be?

nickel

[Bud^-]

If you had a nickel for every time Windows crashed, how much money would, I mean do you currently have?

Preference?

[jonathansen]

So which is it? Boxers or briefs?

Mindcraft tests

[Field Marshall Stack]

Since the mindcraft tests were done, it's clear that NT is better than Linux at serving huge amounts of static pages. That said, is there anything NT's good for other than hosting porno sites?
--
"HORSE."

3 quickies

[Sheepy]

Question 1

If, despite your best efforts (see http://www.openso urce.ac.uk/mirrors/www.opensource.org/halloween/), open standards prevail as the mechanism for intra-software communication and data storage how will Microsoft compete?

Question 2

Do you have any plans to use a subscription system or time-limited licenses for retail Microsoft software (not web based, I want to know about Windows and Office retail, etc...)?

Question 3 (in 2 parts)

When will the OS lineage built upon 'Quick & Dirty Operating System (QDOS)' (the name of the OS BG bought, before he renamed it to MSDOS) finally end?

Why should we believe a word you say? (he had promised Win98 was the last, then Win98 2nd edition, and now Win Millennium; they are all GUI's which run on top of MSDOS).

The deep cover agent we have inside the NSA says they're planning to get agents to insert malicious code in year 2000 fixes Las Vegas just as everybodys sitting down for Christmas dinner.

Paxman wouldn't put up with that!

[Pentagram]

For you non-Britons who haven't heard of Paxman, he's a very formidable interviewer. He once asked Micheal Howard (then Home Secretary, I think) the same question fourteen times when he refused to answer it. There's a realvideo version of the interview at the bbc's website. Send in those questions!

The trial

[xmedar]

I've just mailed off a load of questions and pointed the BBC to the coverage of MS on The Register :-

http://www.theregister.co.uk/981020-000020.html

now I cant wait for Sunday, if they use the info Bill and MS is going to look guilty of massive monopoly power and trying to usurp the courts, and yes Paxman is the man for the job, he makes politicians squirm all the time, now all we need are some suggestions for Bills resignation speach / suicide note ?

Re:The trial

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah... I always go to the register when I want good unspun news.

NOT.

From an MS Employee and Linux User...

[-=[ SYRiNX ]=-]

Mr. Gates, Microsoft is a business, and the primary goal of any business is to make money. However, your personal interest and enthusiasm about technology means that Microsoft is also strongly geared toward progress and technical advancement as an end goal.

People who support the capitalist economic model would claim that it's a good thing for Microsot to be so profit-driven, because the profits that MS makes represent happy customers. But there is a growing anti-Microsoft sentiment outside of Redmond, composed not only of open-source enthusiasts but average users as well, who claim that profits and user satisfaction are not correlated closely enough, and that Microsoft is simply ignoring the desires of users by focusing so closely on profits.

What argument would you make to convince those disgruntled users that the profit-driven corporate business model is actually the best way to produce software and satisfy users? Have you or others in the company considered trying out a small open-source project (maybe a game or a small tool or something independent from Windows or Office, etc) to see what the pros and cons of that development method might be?

You can't...

[MagPulse]

You can't interview Bill Gates, only his PR team.

Re:You can't...

[alumshubby]

To actually get candid answers from BG would best be left as an exercise for students of improvised field interrogation. (I recommend handcuffs and a set of jumper cables.)

Paxman polite? I think not! (links)

[evilandi]

The BBC's Jeremy Paxman is not known for politeness. This is the interviewer about whom Henry Kissinger said "If this is your idea of a kind and gentle interview, I'd hate to be on one of your other shows" ("Start The Week" on BBC Radio 4).

Think of the rudest question you can without actually swearing or veering off topic, and Jeremy WILL ask it.

For the first time in my life I pity Bill Gates.

Paxman Bio
Pax man denounces politcal conferences
No more Mr. Nice Guy

--

Re:Paxman polite? I think not! (links)

[Anonymous Coward]

True. On newsnight recently he was interviewing a guy who represented the association of rail operators who was trying to defend himself following the big rail crash in London. A viewer sent the following question via email and Jeremy put it to him absolutely straight...

'How many passengers can a rail company kill in a year before they will have their operating licence taken away?'

"//" Works for me.

[Starselbrg]

I don't know about any body else, but if I just replace a "/" where a "\" would normally be, Samba works just fine. So intead of typing:

\\\\Workgroup\\Machine

I would type:

//Workgroup/Machine

Try it out!

Security?

[Journey]

Considering the recent well publicized security problems with Hotmail and the less well-publicized security problems with the Internet Information Server and Microsoft's ODBC; how much faith should people have in Microsoft's ability to protect their confidential financial information in the Passport(tm) system?


It took almost 5 years in grad school to learn to write a sentance that long :-)

-Chris

Reality please.

[MartyJG]

From the trailers that the Beeb has been running of this so far (and they're pushing it quite a bit) the main focus seems to be more about him being the Richest Man In The World and his role as a 'visionary' (okay, I know) in the computing industry.

There is almost definitely going to be approx. 20% DOJ case questions and some kinda 'monopoly' focus by Paxman.


Reality check here: I expect *VERY LITTLE* mention of Linux as a serious threat - instead it will most likely be lumped in with 'the competition' when mentioned by Paxman.

The Beeb are going to keep this interview very mainstream, unlike Channel 4 (also terrestrial) which prefers to honor the special interest groups better (e.g. 'Triumph of the Nerds', etc).

Nonetheless I still hope the Linux questions will be fired at him, and Jeremy Paxman won't make these questions easy - if they come. A transcript of the interview would be nice - the BBC website may post this afterwards - their website content is usually quite good.

Re:Reality please.

[LuxuryBoy]

I was at the recording of the interview today (will be shown Sunday 8pm BBC2). Gates was only passing through - he was on set within 2 minutes of entering the building (had just come from a meeting with the Prime Minister) and left immediately afterwards. About 1hr of recording in total. Bag searches and metal detectors before we got into the studio though there was surprisingly little security once we were in. I was sitting 10 feet from him and could have easily got to him if I had tried.

I was surprised how tall and pudgy he was. What was unsurprising was his lack of humo(u)r. Near the start Paxman told him a Bill Gates joke he had got from the web somewhere - Gates was not amused. In fact, he kept a straight face throughout most of the interview especially when he didn't like/understand a question although he did have a few mildly witty comebacks.

As you expected the interview was not focused on Linux or even DOJ although they were briefly touched upon. If he did ask any questions that had been sent in by people then they certainly weren't credited. No questions were allowed from the audience either which was a shame as we had loads. The Linux question was something like 'There is this guy called Linus Torvalds who gives away free software. Why don't you ?' Gates answered this in the free-to-buy sense rather than the freedom-of-information sense which I expect the original questioner intended. Paxman didn't pick up on this at all. I didn't think he was going to get into any technical battles and I was not disappointed. This was a shame as he allowed Gates to get away with some pretty dubious statements.

Watch the interview if you can - it's not fantastically interesting and there are no really challenging questions but it is worth it for the bit when Paxo asks him what his favourite Bill Gates joke is.

You might see me in the long shot of the audience at the end. I'm sitting immediately to the left of the gangway in the second row from the front. I'm the one who stops clapping about a minute before everyone else does.

Question I'd Ask...

[WanderingWastrel]

Dear Mr. Gates,

DIE! DIE! DIE! WHY WON'T YOU DIE?????


Well, it is a question... :-)

Re:Question I'd Ask...

[Wolfrider]

"Do it! Do it now, kill me I'm here!!"

--Schwarzenegger in "Predator"

I think he'll do okay

[Pentagram]

Won't be able to challenge Gates on technical issues? From what I can see of Gates's technical skills, my scrotum could challenge him. Remember Paxman's a clever interview and will be sure to research his stuff well.

Good reading

[alexjohns]

Your Linux Myths was an excellent read. Do you have any plans for publishing more good fiction?

Perhaps a Plan 9 Myths page? A PDP/11 Myths page? A /. Myths page?

My question, and the emoticon

[Superfreak]

First: the emoticon for rocking

~ o--|=)

(I know it's not the best)

My question for Bill Gates:

Mr Gates, what do you prefer - Lemon Meringue or coconut cream? And do you like a flaky pastry crust or graham cracker?

I can't think of anything . . .

[llywrch]

Honestly. Every interview with Gates I've read has proven that he's either clueless when it comes to what computers are capable of doing -- or several years behind in the technology. And he's obviously not going to give us the answers we want to know about Microsoft's future plans & how it is going to respond to Open Source software.

I would consider it a truly bad day to be stuck on an elevator with Bill Gates, & forced to have no one but that pathetic twerp to talk to for hours. If it were any other computer industry figure I can think of, the time trapped together could be spent talking about coomputers, or the weather -- or simply ignoring one another (which would prolly piss of Larry Ellison to no end ;-). I figure with Gates almost any topic I would bring up would end with one of his Famous Childish Tirades (tm) in my face, with my loosing my temper, then my beating the crap out of him.

Quite simply, I don't want someone as aggressive & lacking in common courtesy as he in my world. And those characteristics apparently are his entire personality.

And while I might not be bright enough to win an argument with Bill Gates, I am bright enough to know you just don't beat the crap out of the world's richest man & expect to enjoy much of a life afterwards.


Geoff

Re:I can't think of anything . . .

[PurpleBob]

Wait a second. If you got to beat the crap out of Bill Gates, wouldn't it be a good day?
--

Democracy in a computerized world

[bil]

Considering that the world today is becoming so heavily reliant on computers for
every aspect of life, a trend that will only continue as we move into the 21st century,
do you think that the domination of the computer industry by any one company or
organization (no matter how well intentioned they may be) places too much power in
the hands of a single, non-elected body? Could this power over the computerised
world pose a threat to other institutions in the real world, such as other companies,
whole industries, or even, potentially, entire governments? Should moves not be
made now to prevent this possibility and protect our democratic institutions, even at
the expense of inovation and the free market?

bil (but not that one!)

Control v. Charity

[Dr.Hair]

Dear Mr. Gates,

A lot of the memos during Microsoft's anti-trust trial have shown that a lot of Microsoft's day to day operations are micromanaged by your hand. During your deposition, you denied or claimed to have forgotten being involved in the decision making process.

Does the fact that all of your charitable contributions are channelled through your personal foundation rather than being given directly to non-profits demonstrate a fundamental need for control (even to point of subverting your charitable human instincts)?

Dear Bill,

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you suck so much?

:)

My question that I submitted was about standards.

[nevets]

Mr. Gates,

I know Microsoft is a business and businesses make money.
But I've heard that you are interested in increasing innovation and
technology. If this is true, then a heterogeneous environment is
the more productive than a homogeneous one. To do this we
need to form standards: standards in communication, standards
in document format, and standards in user interfaces. Standards
should be configurable to suit most environments. This doesn't mean
that standards should benefit one environment over another.

It's good to push for standards, but I see Microsoft pushing those
that will benefit Microsoft while damaging other environments.
This is not a Good Thing(TM). Standards should be used to
help different environments interact and not to improve ones
market share. The former is a perspective of a technical person,
the later is the perspective of a marketer.

My question: Are you a technical advocate, or are you just
here for marketing?

PS: when will Windows(tm) GUI be able to push back a window.
If I have a window full screen in front of other windows, I would like
to just push it to the back (under other windows). All other
environments
I've used allow this, but Windows is yet to do
Steven Rostedt

Role of Microsoft

[YoJ]

Microsoft made its millions by being chosen as the operating system for IBM's PC. It made its billions by developing Windows and branching into application programming (Microsoft Office). Now it seems like Microsoft is trying to grab its piece of many different pies.

What is Microsoft's core business? If it is operating systems, why are Win2000 and NT losing respect so rapidly? If it's application development, why isn't Microsoft opening up Windows to be a standard for everybody?

My first question ...`

[Col. Panic]

What is your favorite kind of pie? ;-)

Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Question 1

"Do companies like Dell, HP etc get incentives for using the word reliable in front of the words Windows NT on TV adverts."

Question 2

"What did that pie taste like in brussels"

PLEASE AMMEND NEWS ITEM :

[pev]

If you read the BBC website, it states :
Question Bill Gates
Paxman could ask your
question on TV - BBC 2,
8pm,
the 17th. Include name
and town

So PLEASE get it right and include *real* name and town. If you dont, you wont even get a look in.

~Pev

Credibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Noone accepts any revelations from Gates as genuine, so why bother asking a question if we won't believe the answer? But, if I had to make cordial conversation with the man, I might ask something like: What's the worst product you ever got the public to buy? Which product would you really like to have a chance to do over? Your company does quite well with one NT server for each 12 employees, but when are you going to bring out products that work affordably for companies with revenue less than $2 million per employee? And, the clincher: Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies from my daughter? One might at least be amused without believing the answers.

My email to Mr. Paxman

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Mr. Paxman, I would like for you to pose the following question. "For what innovation are you responsible?". Mr. Gates has waxed incessantly about his need to innovate. Please do not allow him to talk about the innovation of others - products he has licensed, (like Internet Explorer or DOS) or products he acquired by buying the company, or products developed by companies he put out of business through unfair competition. What do we have, that woudn't be here, if he didn't exist? jquinn@camerica.com ----------- I got really tweaked when he made A&Es list of the 100 most influencial people of the millenium (along with Diana and a few others). And Vint Cerf was one of the "experts"! BillG has really snowed a lot of people. It's time to stop, and I hope Paxman can help.

My email to Mr. Paxman (formatted)

[Anonymous Coward]

D'oh. And now for the formatted version.

Dear Mr. Paxman,
I would like for you to pose the following question.

"For what innovation are you responsible?".

Mr. Gates has waxed incessantly about his need to innovate. Please do not allow him to talk about the innovation of others - products he has licensed, (like Internet Explorer or DOS) or products he acquired by buying the company, or products developed by companies he put out of business through unfair competition. What do we have, that woudn't be here, if he didn't exist?

jquinn@camerica.com

-----------

I got really tweaked when he made A&Es list of the 100 most influencial people of the millenium (along with Diana and a few others). And Vint Cerf was one of the "experts"! BillG has really snowed a lot of people. It's time to stop, and I hope Paxman can help.

Microsoft on your CV

[Our Man In Redmond]

Amazingly enough, having Microsoft on your CV counts for extra points with recruiters and potential employers. I know enough ex-MS employees to be able to verify this handily. Personally, I assume it's like being in college for four years. Interviewers like to see a degree on your resume, but it indicates an ability to stick with something for four years more than it does that you might have actually learned something. Same with working for Microsoft, especially if you're a contractor (people around here know what Microsoft thinks of its contractors so you get sympathy points.)

I wouldn't recommend working for them unless your conscience would allow you to do so, of course. (And yes, I sleep quite well at night, but then I'm not working in Windows or marketing. )
--

Crush

[kevin lyda]

My question:

The press often refer to Linux as if it is a single entity. In reality Linux systems are comprised of various pieces of software that various people have contributed to make a complete OS. As such it represents some of the most noble aspects of humanity: intelligence, ingenuity and generosity. People from around the world, from completely different backgrounds, have managed to make a reasonably complete system and have done it in such a way that others can (and do) join in the effort.

You want to crush that.

Why?

(If the answer is that he doesn't, then ask him why Microsoft doesn't contribute to Linux, and why they won't at least port their software to it.)

A question for someone to submit

[Our Man In Redmond]

Here's one for someone to submit if they can't think of one themselves, and something even the technologically disadvantaged can relate to:

Mr. Gates, a significant proportion of your workforce worldwide consists of employees contracted out from other organizations. These contractors are by and large dedicated, motivated individuals, committed to helping Microsoft create the best product it can. In light of this, and taking into account the U.S. Government's ruling that in many cases these workers are de jure Microsoft employees, why does Microsoft continue to treat its contract force like second-class citizens by denying them benefits given to full-time employees, excluding them from company functions, making them interview for their own jobs when those jobs are converted to full-time status and the like?

(Note: This is a hot topic among high-tech workers in the Northwest. The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers might be a good place to start researching the subject.)
--

On top of a big pile of money,

[FatSean]

surrounded by beautiful women...

heh heh hehe

Why should we care, what he says?

[Alex Belits]

I mean, really -- what will ANY his answer change, if his actions speak for themselves, and he is unlikely to magically produce any justification for them? What will it accomplish -- just making a statement for "general public" by asking questions?

Why the FUD about Linux?

[Ray Dassen]

Mr. Gates,

Given that your company has stated it does not consider Linux a competitor in either the server or the desktop market, why is it actively spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt about Linux, and how do you explain the huge growth of this operating environment?

A good opportunity

[Darth Null]

I've seen Gates interviewed a few times, and the interviewers have been pretty soft on him. There's no point in asking him why his software sucks or why he's bent on world domination, at least not directly, but some of the questions I hope are asked include:

What are three of Microsoft's most important innovations? That is, groundbreaking ideas or technologies developed at Microsoft that have had a positive impact on the way people use computers.

What do you consider to be an acceptable level of reliability for personal computers? How frequently should users be prepared to tolerate BSODs, crashes and data loss as a part of normal system operation?

At what point are the benefits of frequent software upgrades outweighed by the costs of retraining, reinstallation and file format incompatibilities?
How would you like to be remembered 100 years from now? How do you think you will be remembered 100 years from now?

Microsoft uses UNIX servers for a number of important Web serving operations, such as Hotmail. At the same time, a recent test performed by Mindcraft shows the speed with which Windows NT serves Web pages to be nothing short of pheonomenal. With such impressive performance as a Web server, why does Microsoft not use its own NT technology exclusively for all of its Web activities instead of relying on UNIX products produced by other vendors?

Interview is tomorrow not Sunday

[LuxuryBoy]

I have a studio audience ticket for this interview. It will take place at 2.30pm Wednesday 13th Oct ie tomorrow. I assume it will be broadcast on Sunday. Better get those questions in fast . I don't expect Paxman will be able to ask anything too technical as he won't understand the answer. Hopefully he will open the questions to the audience at some stage and we'll get a chance to make Bill squirm.

Re:Interview is tomorrow not Sunday

[madprof]

Can you chuck a cream pie at him from that distance?

Re:naked with a half-brick

[unitron]

He'd probably feel that he'd stand a better chance of surviving that.

Re:his bank account

[unitron]

Not that he's worried about where his next meal is coming from, but most of his "wealth" isn't cash, it's shares of MS stock, which is only worth whatever you can sell it for at any given instant, but if he tried to sell a huge block of it, or even if he tried to sell a small amount and word hit "the street" that Bill Gates was selling off MS shares, the price would plummet, possibly opening him up to shareholder lawsuits.

Motivation

[Malcs]

Bill, Just how small IS your penis, anyway?

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

What?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Java, Windows, and Dean Schmalansee

[Zoloft]

Mr. Gates,

1. Why is it Ok for Microsoft to add and subtract from the Java *standard,
but it's not Ok for any Windows reseller to add or subtract from the
Windows *standard?

*I realize the use of the word 'standard' is on shaky ground,
but in this case, there's a clear double-standard here (no pun intended).

2. Why do you promote 'paperless' business, yet Dean Schmalansee
testified that Microsoft's accounting is done on paper?

I trust you don't actually think he'll ANSWER...

[grappler]

With the antitrust trial not over, I would be very surprised to see any honest answers at all. In fact, I'm surprised he's even doing this interview at all.

--
grappler

My Question(s)

[schon]

#1, Does Mr. Gates believe his company makes products with a high degree of quality?

#2, If so, why does his company refuse to offer any sort of warranty on said products if they fail? (witness the End User License Agreement, from any version of Windows: "Microsoft Corporation hereby disclaims all warranties and conditions with regard to the software, including all implied warranties and conditions of mechantability or fitness for a particular purpose.")

If a company truly believes that they make a quality product, should they not be willing to back-up that belief with a warranty stating that the product will (at least) do what it was advertised to?

(nb. before anyone points out that GPL does pretty much the same thing, keep in mind that GPL software can be obtained for free (beer) - MS sells it's wares for money.. and since (in theory) I'm handing over my cash, I should be able to expect some guarantee that the damn thing will at least do what the box says.)

Re:My Question(s)

[TGR]

I'd like to just quickly point out to you that every software producer have this disclaimer in their warranty. It's standard practice nowadays, not just MS doing it.

/. had an article about this exact problem in the software industry a few days ago.

-m

99 little bugs in the code,
99 bugs in the code,
fix one bug, compile it again...

MR. Gates

[skepticphilosopher]

Do you have a daughter, and if so what kind of man would you like to see her with?

paxman

[Anonymous Coward]

have you seen him on newsnight?!! he'll roast billy boy!!!

Capitalism is not about profits...

[degas]

True capitalism is about value(ie. quality or higher quality=higher value). In an ideal capitalistic system, money or profits is supposed to be a physical and countable system to represent value. Unfortunately, money which is tied to consumer demand can only represent value if the consumer is an informed and logical-decision maker. Microsoft, like many companies, exploits the system through hype & advertising, lobbying government officials, and indirect pressuring tactics to limit consumer's choices and influence their desires toward their product. Thus, it matters no longer if they have a high quality product that matches the price they offer when they can force a vendor to pay for it. A vendor that will eventually push that cost onto the consumer. I mean truthfully, would anyone really hate microsoft if their product was better than linux and was worth whatever money they're charging now? No, we don't yell at Sun for their OS because it is spectacular at what it does.

Most porn sites run linux:

[Anonymous Coward]

A while ago, someone did a quick informal survey where he quesoed randomly guessed 'porn' domainnames. Linux was the clear winner.

Gary Killdall (RIP)

[nyet]

"Ask Bill why function code 6 [in QDOS and still in MS-DOS, 15 years later] ends in a dollar sign. No one in the world knows that but me."
- Gary Killdall, author of CP/M

Mr. Gates, three questions:

When you told the Altair hobbiests to cease and desist with experimenting with "your" BASIC interpreter code because it was "stealing", did you realize you were inventing a whole new way of
a) making a ton of money
b) stifling innovation
c) giving a reason for things like the GPL to exist

Secondly, how much code have you actually written, and if its not a token amount, do you prefer coding under a *nix or Windows based environment?

Finally, does Paul Allen resent you because you have no programming talent whatsoever and you're richer than him?

Re:Paxman (Link)

[VP]

Here is a link about the Kissinger interview.

Lying and videotaped testimony

[magicpaul]

How do you feel about lying in your congressional as well as videotape testimony?

He seems to be completely under the control of other people.

Any response to the Register's report about your use of donations soley for PR?

God he tore him a new asshole

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope he has that kind of balls with the richest man in history. No pulling his punches. How does he get guests to come on anymore. I mean if letterman has such a bad rep...

Here's my question:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Can you give me a reason, any reason at all, why I should not immediately kill you slowly and painfully?"

Is there a way to see this in USA?

[ElvenKnight]

I did a search on http://tv.yahoo.com, looks like I can watch BBC World News on PBS.. but I would rather see this interview come October 17th. Can this be viewed or read about online? Is there a station that would display this interview in the US? I would definitely love to know about it. To see Bill Gates Squrim.. Hell.. Thats worth a whole VHS tape, on SP record-time too! :P

That which he'd rather forget!

[Halster]

Q: So Bill - Is 640k still enough for everyone?

Re:That which he'd rather forget!

[AndyL]

This would be a good one. If he had ever said that. That's a myth. It was mentioned in a PCMag. (Or mabey PCWorld) and now everyone thinks it's the truth but no one can point to where he said it.

"Flaimbaiter" gets Score 4! I'm impressed!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Flaimbaiter" gets Score 4! I'm impressed!

Re:"Flaimbaiter" gets Score 4! I'm impressed!

[Black Parrot]

> "Flaimbaiter" gets Score 4! I'm impressed!

I suppose it would have been flamebait if he had posted it to alt.fan.bill-gates, but in the present context it happens to make perfect sense.

For that matter, I agree with him. When was the last time BG did anything significant for IT, other than switching Micorsoft toward the internet when he discovered he had missed "the road ahead" ?

If he wasn't sitting on $100G and didn't have enormous influence at that 900 pound gorilla in Redmond, no one would care a fig about his opinions. Those of us who are able to keep Micorsoft at arm's length don't care already. The "flamebaiter" has it exactly right, at least for some of us.

He's out of my life, except to the extent he can damage open protocols and suppress innovation. And I think those days are waning rapidly.

--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?

Wasn't IE actually bought from someone else?

[jsm]

Your programming team which composed Internet Explorer 5 did an outstanding job creating a browser that, while not perfect, easily can stand on its own as a significant advance in any number of web technologies.

Wasn't IE originally bought from someone else? Chameleon, or someone?

Re:Wasn't IE actually bought from someone else?

[The Musician]

I think it was Spyglass, but that was around the (1.0 or 2.0?) release(s)... 5.0 is definately not closely related at all, I'm sure...

--

Re:Wasn't IE actually bought from someone else?

[Effugas]

Microsoft purchased the rights to republish Spyglass's web browser *way* back in the day. Anyone who played around with Internet Explorer 2(didn't even support *frames*) will remember that, while somewhat fast, the browser was broken beyond belief.

IE3 was the first build that actually impressed me, and stands to this day as one of the fastest and slickest products to leave Microsoft.

I can't imagine, after seeing the quality level of IE3, how Microsoft could have so little faith in the skills of their coders that they had to lie, cheat, and steal their browser into dominance.

Everybody says Microsoft can't code...I find it almost tragic that Microsoft agrees.

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com

Posting of Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hell is everyone posting their questions on here......???? If your question is good enough, then it'll make the show. I certainly don't want to see everyone's questions on here.

Monopoly

[simceo]

Interviewer: Which do you prefer while monopolizing? The thimble or the race car?
Bill: I made my own guy, he can do what ever he wants, and can knock other players off the board at will. Oh, my turn!
US Gov: Uh oh, Bill! Looks like you go to jail! Don't pass Go, don't collect $200!
Everyone: YEA!

One day... one day...

Re:Monopoly

[simceo]

I clicked submit once... i have no clue why it showed up three times. Sorry about that.

Monopoly

[simceo]

Interviewer: Which do you prefer while monopolizing? The thimble or the race car?
Bill: I made my own guy, he can do what ever he wants, and can knock other players off the board at will. Oh, my turn!
US Gov: Uh oh, Bill! Looks like you go to jail! Don't pass Go, don't collect $200!
Everyone: YEA!

One day... one day...

Monopoly

[simceo]

Interviewer: Which do you prefer while monopolizing? The thimble or the race car?
Bill: I made my own guy, he can do what ever he wants, and can knock other players off the board at will. Kapow! ::Knocks over Apple and 3M pieces::... Oh, my turn!
US Gov: Uh oh, Bill! Looks like you go to jail! Don't pass Go, don't collect $200!
Everyone: YEA!

One day... one day...

Because MS depends on faith

[B1FF]

> Why the hell should Bill Gates be terrified that you don't care what he says?
> You probably don't much care what I say either... should I be terrified too?

1t d3p3ndz. duz ur car33r d3p3nd 0n d3fraud1ng p33pl3? 1f s0, th3n u haf 2 car3 0r 3l$3 u luz3.

th3 m0st 1mp0rtant attr1but3 0f a c0nman 1z cr3d1b1l1ty. gat3s 1z phuck3d 1f p33pl3 st0p b3l13v1ng h1z l13z.

1 W00D N0T UPL04D 4NY W4R3Z TO G4T35"5 BB$ UNL3$$ H3 UPL04D3D 2 M1N3 F1R$T. PH33R M3, B1LL G4T3$!!!!!!!!111

:WQ
:wq
------ ------ ------
ALL HA1L B1FF, TH3 M05T 31337 D00D!!!!!1
------ ------ ------
ALL HA1L B1FF, TH3 M05T 31337 D00D!!!!!1

M$ G0T TH4T W4R3 FR0M SPYGL4$$

[B1FF]

M$ G0T TH4T W4R3 FR0M SPYGL4$$
:WQ
:wq
------ ------ ------
ALL HA1L B1FF, TH3 M05T 31337 D00D!!!!!1
------ ------ ------
ALL HA1L B1FF, TH3 M05T 31337 D00D!!!!!1

Only Twice?

[evil9000]

At my local collage with all Digital OEM pcs running WinNT4 with SR4 installed, if you change the floppy disks at a normal speed (ie it finished writing to the thing) it crashes the floppy.sys driver!

I swear, i can crash all 50+ computers just by doing that. Now, who said that the floppy disk drive passed the WHQL ??

Me = 1 pi$$ed off dude ;`(

Just one question....

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you lend me several hundred million dollars?

Re: because I decide how systems are built

[coyote-san]

Because I (and others) have to decide how to make our client's systems work in the real world. If we decide that MS isn't suitable for the project, we don't use MS. If the company insists on it, we smile and tell them to call us if they change their mind, but there's no guarantee that we'll be available and willing to clean up the mess. It sounds harsh, but we're all tired of working 60+ hour weeks because someone else picked the wrong tools for the job.

But we're professionals and recognize that sometimes MS is the correct solution... but the distortions over the past few weeks has been so transparent that we're left wondering if there's *anything* we can trust. In our situation, that question answers itself. If we don't have confidence in our tools we don't use them, and if we don't have confidence in the companies we don't bother paying attention to what they say.

Microsoft can make all of the claims it wants, but businesses have to find local staff to actually make their projects work. These people bring their own experiences to the job, and don't dismiss a major vendor out-of-hand lightly. But when they do, any sane company will ask *why*. It doesn't matter if the CTO thinks that Bill Gates is the hacker's god if he can't find the senior people who can actually bring a project to completion.

If you think I'm overstating the case, I invite you to compare the number of sites writing code in Pascal (or even Pascal, Modulo-2/-3, and Ada) vs. C. There are a lot of deep similarities.

Here's one

[Chris Johnson]

"If you had to choose money or power, which would you choose?" (followup) "How are you making that happen?"

Target Market

[Felinoid]

My question for Bill Gates is...

As each system or program is develuoped with a group or function in mind I'd like to know what group or function is Windows primary market target?

Is 640 KB still enough for anybody?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will there be a Linux box on every desk and in every home? Will you refund me for my Windows95 license? Do you feel proud of Microsoft? (...)