Top 10 Most Important Tech People of the Decade 268
KarmaWhore writes "For it's 10th anniversary Network Computing has put together what they consider to be the top ten people of the decade. Linus is number three. Gates is number two. " I dunno - lists like this are certainly useless - but it's always a fun debate.
Re:it's a lie!! (Score:1)
Atoms?
Re:What has Bill Gates done in the 90s? (Score:2)
Yes, but another attempt to copy the Mac OS is hardly that innovative. Besides, it's just one more Windows version.
How about Windows NT? Granted, not the most stable, secure products ever made, but come on, almost everyone (including half the Slashdot population) uses them! Granted, he did not write every single line of code, but he did lead the company that did. Without his leadership, who knows what would have happened.
The easy response would be: "Uh, innovation?" But the less-flippant response is that there were plenty of companies (mine included) who were doing Wide Area Networking long before NT was viable. My guess, if Gates has decided to cash in at the start of the 90s, is that Ballmer would have done many of the same things. Even if he had failed where Gates had success, what makes you think that all those companies M$ crushed along the way wouldn't have provided the needed technology?
Without Windows 95, where would we be? 90 % of us would be out of a job. Computers would not have hit it off 'really big,' because they would still be too hard to use for the idiots who sit at home (yes, those same people who call tech support)
I guess they would have had to buy Macs or something else easy. Or they could have learned to use Win 3.1. In my experience, those who couldn't figure out Win 3.1 never bothered to learn Win95 either.
If BillG left Microsoft 10 years ago, would any of this come around?
Probably. Maybe not at the same speed, or with the same number of casualties along the side of the road, but probably the other tens of thousands of M$ employees would have done something without Gates around.
Or would you be running DOS or Windows 3.1? ( which was also innovative)
Actually, both were derivative, not innovate, but yes, business could and did run on those.
Would 99% of offices have a computer in them?
Absolutely.
Or, would you be flipping burgers at BurgerKing? (which runs NT, last time I checked)
I wasn't flipping burgers before Gates came along, nor was I doing so before those 90's 'innovations' you cite. So why would I be flipping burgers now had Gates retired in 1990?
Look, M$ as a company has done tremendous things and, by virtue of most folks being too lazy to care, or by virtue of their predatory ways, most of us use M$ software today. But what innovative things has Gates done in the 90s? Another respondant suggested the turnaround of M$ to embrace the Net. That was impressive, but hardly innovative. It was imitative in the extreme.
I mean, governments have a temendous influence on our lives. That influence doesn't mean they are innovative, however.
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Re:Sour grapes? (Score:2)
And I challange any
And to futher torpedo your argument...Linus did do something......he ripped off Andrew Tannebaum.
Re:Sour grapes? (Score:1)
It seems everyone here just wants to hate Microsoft purely for the fact that they aren't Linux. Let's not forget how PC's got onto everyone's desktop to begin with.
Re:Sour grapes? (Score:2)
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Re:Steve Jobs? In the '90s? (Score:1)
Nate
Re:it's a lie!! (Score:3)
This would be funnier if Gore actually said that. He didn't. What he did say was an exaggeration but evidently not enough of one that his opponents could refrain from exaggerating his exaggeration. And their spin seems to have worked really well -- every gullible sucker in the US (of which there are evidently tens of millions) thinks that AL Gore said that he invented the internet.
Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thomson (Score:1)
Re:Totally a matter of opinion. (Score:1)
Gotta do it (Score:1)
As an everyday computer user: "I thank Mr. Gates for giving me a fairly easy to use operating system to cut my teeth on"
As an educated software engineer: "Mr. Gates we need to talk about that pile you call an OS...."
Re:Steve Jobs? In the '90s? (Score:1)
> Steve Jobs would undoubtedly earn a spot in the
> top 5 in a list covering the 1970s or the 1980s.
> But in the 1990s?
> Jobs turned Apple around,
Perhaps not in the 1990s. Though bringing Apple back from near death and thus giving customers a viable commercial alternative to the Wintel monopoly is nothing to be sneezed at. I think, that with OS X coming next year, we really haven't seen the full impact of Jobs' return. Yet. He may well be flying high on next decade's list.
> but Apple isn't really important to computing as
> a whole anymore, not with an 8% market share.
Neither is Linux, if we are going by market share, as the two are in the same neighborhood, with the one in the lead depending on who you talk to. If you want to go by CompUSA floor space, Linux is a distant third, with Apple #2 and MS #1 (and still idiotic). And I'm writing this on a Linux box, so don't think me a MS troll.
> but with the exception of case design,
> Apple--and Steve Jobs--don't shape computing
> anymore.
No, MS shapes it, by ripping off Apple, Next, and now their own viruses! But wait till OS X comes out. If Apple doesn't seriously drop the ball, they will have a stable, easy to use, modern OS. On top of really cool hardware, and a bunch of well known apps, it will be seriously attractive to the masses. Then, the only things that will save Linux is that Apple is *not* out to rule the world, and Linux is free and runs on anything. It isn't impossible that OS X will be able to make some serious dents in both Linux and Windows, especially at the end user level. That is Linux' weak point, and MS is too busy with their five year old strategy of merging Win 9.x with Win 2000/NT to notice.
> Palm should get props for making the handheld
> computer into something for the masses back in
> '97.
Indeed. However, it would be nice if Palm continued to innovate, rather than just multiplying its models.
A case for Jobs (Score:1)
If Tim B-L deserves 1st for knocking together a web-browser, then maybe Jobs deservers his place for producing the box that Tim insisted was a neccessary tool to develope his hypertext system.
Of course Tim's real motivation may not have been the objective C RAD platform, or the UI, but because, like the rest of us, he found those black cubes and their laser disks rather sexy
Whatever you say you cant escape it, the WWW was invented on a Jobs machine.
Bill DID do something (Score:1)
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DigitalContent PAC [weblogs.com]
Re:Larry Wall for #2 (Score:1)
Yes, now there are other options Python, php, asp, Java Servlets, etc. but Perl was the first and is still one of the best ways to develop applications for the web.
Re:Sour grapes? (Score:1)
About Linus being behind Bill... (Score:2)
Re:Sour grapes? (Score:2)
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Re:I'm sorry, but... (Score:2)
After a second look, I notice Hemos titled it "Top 10 Most Important Tech People
3 different titles, probably better titled, "Top Ten People Whom Have Influenced Tech". We'd still have our bones to pick over them, but at least it's not as wild as assuming Steve Jobs still keeps a propeller beanie on his hatrack.
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Chief Frog Inspector
GNU and Linux depend on each other (Score:2)
On the other hand, where would the GNU project be without a stable, popular kernel? (It's only recently that the Hurd has become usable.) Linux has spread the GNU tools more widely than GNU itself has, now that the OS is penetrating deeper into business and personal environments -- the core of GNU proper has always been academia, which is an important but smaller field.
Bottom line, it's great for users to have a compiler like GCC and a kernel like Linux. There is no conflict, and no need for there to be one.
Where is Kevin Mitnick? (Score:3)
Other top 10 lists for the last decade (Score:3)
2. Dilbert
3. Ren & Stimpy (tie)
4. Tick
5. Kenny
6. Kyle
7. Cartman
8. Stan
9. Chef
10. Brian Boitano
Disclaimer: Network computing is in no way responsible for the results, outcome or bias displayed in the Top Ten list and assumes no liability for it. Please don't email us with your questions or comments as this is out final list. This list is in no way an attempt to placate the script kiddie who has sent us 3 million emails since 10:00 AM EST voting for Dogbert.
Note to self: IF s/N ratio>=facts(old news +
#'s 4-7, 9 not even technical (Score:2)
Larry Ellison - made Oracle the #1 market share DB and kept it at exactly the same proportion over a ten year period somehow making himself a billionaire even while turning his support and service organizations into complete shit.
LVG - what can you say ex RJR ex Nabisco ex McKinsy antitechnocrat who rode the greatest ecnomic bubble ever to a 'salvaging miracle' at Big Blue. How hard could it be to take a basically sound company apply textbook mgt consulting techniques to it while the rest of the tech world shot up into the stratosphere in value.
Steve Jobs - the shrinking violet permanent temp CEO watched his company go efectively nowhere in ten years. At least it didn't go toes up! (famous quote - 'all you need to make a fortune in this business is a garage and 5 million dollars').
Rick Boucher - oh yeah Congress is at the vangard of thought leadership and getting shit done at warp speed. In 10 years they'll still be debating about the shape of the bargaining table.
This list is basically a bunch of people who were either too shy to really fuck things up or just arrogant enough to fuck them up anyhow. Either way they are experts at being where the shit aint and managing to blame it all on someone else.
Linus? Um... (Score:2)
Woz I totally agree with. He should be on the list. I also agree with the idea that Gates should be somewhere near the top. We're talking "most influential to technology" not "what's best for technology". There are, however, thousands of other technophiles creating software, chips, and hacks that deserve to be on this list. When you summarize it down to 10, you lose the work of those people.
Re:Sour grapes? (Score:2)
But he didn't do any of that stuff... he was just the boss. That's like saying the CEO of 3M is a great contributer to chemical engineering. Gates is merely a competent business man...
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
Re:Oh Please... (Score:2)
You've never used a Mac, have you?
--K
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This is, of course, media spin (Score:3)
The nice people at NC are just posting things people will read.
They are pretty much right about the people on the list, though of course they're too mainstream to pick up any unsung heroes that have more to do with the way the web turned out, for example.
They also make some fairly silly statements, like "AppleTalk is still the easiest method of file and print sharing for casual computer users" or "Attribute all this, if you will, to Jobs' vision of the Macintosh: It's for people who `Think Different.'" I know, I know, I'm picking on the Steve Jobs part of the article. But let's face it, NetBEUI is just as easy as apple's networking, possibly easier since you can use a standard folder/file context rather than the chooser or network browser. And the Apple People may want to think different, but apple's sugar-sweet (sugar-water?) packaging can't be rationally seen as anything but an encouragement to think the same.
I personally would have liked to see people on this list that I hadn't ever heard of before (Not just people whose names I'd forgotten, and people whose names I can't escape.) Oh, and here, I just found another inaccuracy: "In his early days at Sun Microsystems, Khosla participated in the creation of the first and, today, the most successful RISC-based platform, proving that there's a world beyond the Wintel phenomenon." BZZZZZT. Thank you for playing. IBM put together the first RISC architecture (though possibly the least successful:) The ROMP architecture, which was found in the IBM RT-PC. Thank you, Network Computing, for consistently getting the facts wrong.
They seem to have Berners-Lee's microbio written out fairly well, one hopes out of a sense of reverence. And of course, as one would expect, they are ritualistically (perhaps even fetishistically) correct on the BillyG front, perhaps more out of fear of lawsuit than for any other reason. But even in the large print at the top of Linus' data they hose things up; Linus created a kernel. He no more created an operating system than I created a waste treatment plant in the bathroom this morning. This is not to denigrate the man or his achievements, which are nonetheless very important to the point we have reached today. But please, let's try for some precision.
All in all, another mediocre article from a mediocre publication. Personally, I'd like to see a "top ten slashdotters" article. Can you imagine the height of the flames?
I can only dream.
Your Sig... (Score:2)
"Your Scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
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Re:Totally a matter of opinion. (Score:2)
Huh? "Patriot missile" and "work really well" are two phrases I never thought I'd see in a sentence together.
Some more information on the patriot. [bayarea.net]
IIRC, the A10 was around long before the Gulf War, and in fact was in the middle of being phased out before the war started (and the Pentagon realized that they didn't have anything that could replace it.)
Oh Please... (Score:4)
And I'll bet that he later refuted that statement by claiming he was tired when he said it.
/HUMOR
Anyway, I definitely agree with Bill Gates' position on that list. Like the article said, whether you love him or hate him, there's no doubt he helped shape the computer industry into what it is today. (For those of you who doubt this is a good thing, we're HERE, aren't we?) Windows isn't the best OS on the planet for a lot of things, but it's inspired competition - and rigorous competition helps everyone. (I'm anxious to see an interface that can rival the Windows interface. It may not be the best OS there is, but there isn't an interface that comes close to the ease that Windows provides. That's the problem with X.)
If we had an interface that was as good as the Windows UI (and provided the same continuity! Important!), with the power and stability of Linux - the sky's the limit.
I was disappointed I didn't see MY name on the list, but....
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
What Gates did (Score:2)
1) Going into the mid 90's, Microsoft thought they had it made... they owned the desktop after all. Apple was dying, no other competition was on the horizon. Meanwhile, this little thing called "The Internet" and the little app that was available on it called "The World Wide Web" appeared. People in the trenches seized on the new idea as the Next Big Thing. But, up on the bridge of the SS. Microsoft, it was business as usual... they were passing out MSN floppies and waiting for their captured audience to flock to them. A *lot* of people (myself included) rubbed their hands gleefully waiting for Microsoft to founder on the rocks.
At almost the last second, before Microsoft's monopoly was rendered moot by Internet and network computing, Gates & co. realized that they were about to get clobbered. Gates managed in an incredibly short amount to time to turn his behemoth of a company around and take advantage of the Internet. All products became "Internet enabled" (at least t the point that they could add a bullet list to the "new features section"). They also rammed a behemoth-to-be called Netscape and sank them handily. Considering how many other major companies in the IT sector have perished or have been greatly diminished by previous paradigm shifts (i.e. DEC in the age of the PC), Gate's feat was pretty impressive.
2) Another thing that Microsoft did during the 90's is make major inroads into the server market. Going into the 90's, Novell, DEC, IBM, and various UNIXen owned the server markets. Microsoft has managed to carve out a fairly handy piece of the server sector pie, a very competitive sector compared to its familiar desktop zone where it has had Apple on the ropes for a while. The very fact that many people feel they have to become MSCE's pretty much makes Gates a shoe-in for the top ten list put together by an IT magazine.
Re:Your Sig... (Score:2)
Re:GNU and Linux depend on each other (Score:2)
My best argument for this is that people were using linux before it came with GNU stuff.
People weren't using GNU before it came with Linux
Until people use GNU/Hurds as much as Linux.. I'm calling it Linux.
Which decade? (Score:2)
Tim probably is an important name at least as far as consumer tech goes. Linus I'm not so sure about. An equivilent of Linux probably would have happened without him. (GNU Hurd perhaps)
What about the Important Jerks? (Score:2)
I think I read somewhere he's planning a comeback....
Re:GNU and Linux depend on each other (Score:2)
My point was, Linux was a functional operating system *before* GNU was a part of it
While GNU did have a number of utilities on all platforms at the time. There was not ANY operating system that relied and would not be a functional unix system without it.
Linux is the first that would be considered dependant on GNU.
That was more or less what I was getting at, also isolating the case to PC users.
My apologies for not being more specific.
Re:#1 most important!!! (Score:2)
Soylent Green is people!
Re:RMS is not there (Score:2)
Personally, I suspect Stallman's facial hair is what kept him off the list. I would think Stallman looks a bit too much like Fidel Castro for the delicate sensibilities of mild-mannered media.
Re:GNU and Linux depend on each other (Score:3)
Right now, a linux system is typically gnu libc. Hence it relies on GNU.
See my point here?
Just because it uses utilities or whatever doesn't mean jack, and it is because of zealots like yourself that make me cringe at the RMS-tangents that enforce Linux is not an operating system.
Bull shit.
Linux is not an operating system it is a kernel.
GNU is, well.. it's just a bunch of applications and libraries. It's not an operating system either.
Linux is more of an operating system then GNU, because you can get Linux running quite functionally without GNU software.
Am I bashing GNU? No.
Am I saying GNU sucks? No.
Am I saying GNU is necessary at the moment? Absolutely, and it has benefited tremendously.
But Linux is far more of a contribution on both a social level and technical than GNU in my opinion, and until firm evidence is provided otherwise, and not the incessant "RMS said this!" crap that his blind followers spew constantly.
RMS is a hippie, that is the bottom line. He has a idealistic approach -- but c'mon. This is capitalism, and his approach is just like communism. A great system if you kill all the greed. Hell, I'm greedy. I code for money. I enjoy it.
Linus Torvalds understands that, RMS still thinks that people will understand the errors of their ways and just get along.
Until then, I run Linux.. I have GNU utilities that I use on a daily basis. Unfortunately, I think I am so strongly opposed to RMS because of his incessant desire to promote calling it "GNU/Linux" and in that desire often times coming across as either an asshole, or an idiot. Sometimes both. It is a shame because the man is brilliant.. but brilliance doesn't win by itself. You have to have a degree of common sense, and I think that is where RMS is failing miserably at.
AL??? (Score:2)
That's what I love about them high-school girls. I get older, they stay the same age... yes they do.
--Wooderson 1976
Re:it's a lie!! (Score:2)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/13640.html [theregister.co.uk]
Little-known interface (Score:2)
Re:Gates position overrated (Score:2)
Very strange. Microsoft was big in the 1980s but became *huge* in the 1990s. Windows pre-3.0 was an obscure relic. MS-DOS was crusty, and kept people from becoming common household items. Windows 3.0 took off like a shot, followed quickly by 3.1. It turned into the standard operating system. Sure, Microsoft missed the rise of the web, but everyone running Navigator was running it on Windows anyway. In a nutshell, Windows became the ubiquitous operating system. Word became the standard word processor. Excel became the standard spreadsheet. Internet Explorer became the standard browser. Visual Basic became the standard enterprise application development tool. Visual C++ became the dominant commercial C/C++ compiler. You can belittle this any way you want, but that's where we are today.
Re:Sour grapes? (Score:2)
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Re:Oh Please... (Score:3)
While Linux can be lauded for its kernel stability, the fact that Linux is based on the UNIX--with one of the most user-unfriendly command line interfaces around--has kept it out of the spotlight of serious users until today with several development efforts to give it a more "friendly" feel for newbies.
Let's face it: without Microsoft giving 85% of the world's desktop computers the ability to easily setup an Internet connection, the "Internet economy" would not have taken off like it did.
Re:Totally a matter of opinion. (Score:2)
Because of Saddam's aggressiveness, the Gulf War came about, during which a lot of American technology (Patriot missles, A10 Warthog, etc) was tried in battle for the first time and found to work really well.
Does that get him on the list? No, not really, but Spudley's got a valid point. World leaders and other non-technical but prominent people can have a massive effect on technology. To wit, would we have had radar or jet engines or the Bomb as soon as we did were it not for Hitler? For that matter, the invention of the electronic digital computer was closely entwined with the attempt to break Nazi codes. So it could be argued that Hitler had a large effect on technology in the 1940's.
Totally a matter of opinion. (Score:2)
To be fair, it's hard to imagine a list like this not including Bill Gates, but how long has Linus been 'important'? Long enough to be number 3 in the top ten most important people of the decade? Hmmm...
And it depends how you define 'important'. Should Saddam Hussein be in there? How about Vladimir Putin, or any of a range of world leaders who've had their say over the last ten years.
My top ten list will be completely different to another person's. That's the way it is.
<irony mode=on>
Now, if I put up a top-ten list of most important people, would I have been mentioned on Slashdot? Probably only if I put Linus in there somewhere...
</irony>
It's *NOT* Linux! :) (Score:2)
Re:RMS is not there (Score:2)
Regards, Ralph.
John Carmack? (Score:2)
Is there any doubt that this man is not one of the most consummate programmers alive? Carmack & crew at id have done some of the most stunning work in the field of 3d gaming that any of us have ever seen. The man's work is nothing short of prodigious.
He is certainly very influential in the entire industry as well. John is a major supporter of opengl (remember the OGL vs. directx days?) He is on several advisory boards in the industry... he has his hands into everything from Apple to Microsoft.
When JohnC speaks, people listen.
As if it wasn't obvious (Score:2)
As far as Linus goes, I don't think we have anything to worry about....after all, he's going to be the most important tech person of this *coming* decade!
RMS is not there (Score:5)
Sour grapes? (Score:3)
Re:RMS is not there (Score:2)
Re:GNU and Linux depend on each other (Score:5)
If that's your "best argument", you're neck-deep in buffalo dung, my friend, for that argument is exactly backwards.
Many of us were not only working on GNU software before Linux, we were using it, on a reasonably wide variety of underlying kernels -- SunOS, AIX (or whatever ran on RS/6000's in those days), and so on.
And I'm pretty sure when I started running Linux 0.96pl2 or whatever patch level it was, it already came with GNU utilities.
If there was indeed a time when Linux came without GNU stuff, the number of people using it was probably less than .1% of the number of people who were already using GNU software without the Linux kernel running underneath!
Not that I insist you change your mind now that you've been given a clue about GNU/Linux history...but you might want to consider either calling it GNU/Linux sooner, or maybe when (or if) people use Linux with non-GNU tools in greater numbers (and this has long been "threatened", anyway)...
If the FSF uses "Hurd" to denote both the kernel and the OS, that certainly suggests it's okay to use "Linux" to denote the whole GNU+Linux(+otherstuff) OS. But if they call it "GNU/Hurd", they'll be risking suggesting that "Hurd" is no more a creation of Project GNU (or the FSF) than is Linux, as well as implying a useful system could be put together out of the Hurd kernel plus non-GNU utilities (and these are, respectively, false and true), which might be too risky for them. (Then again, maybe the GNU toolchain will be considered ubiquitous by the time the Hurd gets widespread usage?)
In the meantime, the fact that RMS couldn't get through a slashdot interview (or response), in which he continued his attempts to promote the "GNU/Linux" name on the basis that honesty in naming is important, without himself resorting to "name games" to smear George W. Bush, calling him by the invented nickname "shrub", strongly suggests that RMS doesn't have sufficient moral authority to persuade anyone to use "GNU/Linux" over "Linux", even if he has many other good arguments for such a choice.
But, in case I have any moral authority (which does not seem likely to me), I do prefer "GNU/Linux" to denote the class of OS that combines the Linux kernel with GCC, glibc, and other GNU utilities, without denoting anything about a windowing system, graphics capabilities, or all that much about networking, etc., FWIW. And I still wish, or recommend, that Linus would decide to wean Linux off its dependency on GCC, which, last I checked, was quite excessive, leading to too many cases where Linux depends on being compiled by a particular version of GCC, and making it harder for a true non-GNU Linux OS to develop.
Um, I said "practical". (Score:2)
The Zoomer was practical if you didn't mind pausing a second after each letter you wrote with Grafitti, and you didn't really care if syncing took ten minutes. I guess. I didn't say first PDA, which was pretty much Apple's, nor did I say the first PDA of the right size, which was the Zoomer and its slow, clumsy ilk.
The Zoomer didn't fail because of bad marketing. It was in every Radio Shack in North America displayed up front and given pride of place in the catalog. It failed because it was a deeply flawed product that did many things, none very well.
The Newton didn't fail because people were too primitive and stupid to understand its genius. The Newton failed because even when they got the speed and handwriting stuff right, they were still trying to sell the new models for $1100 USD and they were the size of a rack of barbecued ribs.
The Palm was the first PDA that had the right size (zero carry), the right price (under $400 from the start) and the right interface (simple and efficient). Consider this: it took Microsoft and its hardware partners three years and three product iterations after the Palm was introduced to figure this out and make a product that could grab more than 10% market share.
Steve Jobs? In the '90s? (Score:4)
Jobs turned Apple around, but Apple isn't really important to computing as a whole anymore, not with an 8% market share. They make nice, leading-edge machines, they have a nice UI, and they're swell at industrial design again, but with the exception of case design, Apple--and Steve Jobs--don't shape computing anymore.
Where's Jeff Hawkins? He's arguably the inventor of the first practical PDA. Just as Apple deserves enormous credit for making existing "outsider" technologies palatable in the '70s and '80s, Palm should get props for making the handheld computer into something for the masses back in '97.
No Filo and Yang?? (Score:2)
Re:Totally a matter of opinion. (Score:2)
Soylent Green is people!
Ken Williams (Score:3)
Most of my early motivation in computers was do to my desire to figure out "How did that do THAT?". Which quickly followed by "How do I do that myself". I am sure many geeks today feel the same way.
Don't forget Sierra on-line was one of the early companies to promote sound boards (especially theRoland MT-32), they stared on-line gaming a long time ago (remember the Sierra Network), and they also became heavily involved in 3-D after they bought Dynamix. They also were early adopters of CD-ROM based games. I have to say part of Sierra's problems was they were ahead of their time by about 2 years. They were in markets that didn't exist yet.
I have to mention that there is a strong Internet bias in the top 10 list. Some of these people I have never heard of. Remember that the Internet only became main stream a few years ago, but games have been main stream much longer (and therefore have influenced more people).
Re:Oh Please... (Score:2)
Outside of America Online, how many "proprietary" services has prospered and grown today since 1995? Even Microsoft Network and Prodigy have evolved into essentially another ISP like Earthlink.
As for the UNIX command line, yes, it is very powerful, but trying to figure out the syntax is like an American trying to learn Chinese at times. And some UNIX fans think that's the "charm" of the operating system....
Re:Missing?? (Score:2)
While Alan Kay, Steve Wozniak, and RMS are certainly more important than many of the names on that list, remember that some their most significant achievements (the GUI, the Apple II, the GNU project and GPL license) are more than ten years old.
However, I agree that John Carmack ought to be on that list.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Re:It's Linux/GNU (Score:2)
Re:Totally a matter of opinion. (Score:2)
Unfortunatly they also had the highest losses (when your job description includes flying past SAM sites and man portable SAM launches at low speed it is rather hard to avoid getting shot at.)
What about Jeff Bezos? (Score:2)
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#1 most important!!! (Score:2)
You GO girl!
Soylent Green is people!
Re:Proof. (Score:2)
Re:GNU and Linux depend on each other (Score:2)
Are you on glue? PC users weren't using GNU before Linux (unless Minix used them, but I don't know that anyone used Minix anyway), but other people (largely academics) were.
And in other news... (Score:2)
Several concussions, and even two fatalities, have been reported so far. When reached for comment, Bill Gates said, "What were they thinking? It was just another Top Ten list which I nearly won. Do they do this every night Letterman reads his?"
That list looks rigged...! (Score:2)
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WhoooHoooo!!!! I made the list (Score:2)
The ones I miss are people made a difference, rather than just tons of money. Linus and TB-L made a difference because they were techies, not just to make money. Bill G. and Larry E. are just businessmen in a pissing contest to see who can scam more money off an ignorant public.
the AC
Re:#1 most important!!! (Score:2)
Um.......Girl?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Re:Sour grapes? (Score:2)
The operative phrase being 'used to be'.
Gates is not a hacker any more, he's a suit.
--K
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Re:Oh Please... (Score:2)
I find MacOS (8.0 and 8.5, the systems on our network) to be clunky, uninformative (Windows does a SLIGHTLY better job on this end, but not much.), irritating, and in some cases, condescending. "Oops! A system error occured!" (Cute little bomb icon and all.)
Gimme a break. How about an informative system error message, or an error dialog that will let me save my work, and close my applications BEFORE hitting that [RESTART] button. (You know the dialog box I'm talking about. The one with the red-laced title bar that won't let you click anything else onscreen.) And what's up with those sounds? A car crash? Come on. This isn't a kid's computer, but it acts like it. The whole 'Drag to the trash to unmount' idea needs to go too.
I can go on, but I don't think I need to.
The only interface I consider to be superior to Windows would be The Console(tm). You have all the power, right there. No cute decorations, no fancy interface, just raw power. The command line is superior, because in a Graphical environment, you have to click your way to your command. Multiple steps.
On the prompt, you mentally choose your command, and do it on the first step.
It's not as pretty as a GUI, but it's FAR more powerful.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Linus I understand, but Gates? (Score:2)
But Gates? What's he done in the 90s? Now if this were a list of the 80s, I would agree. He helped turn M$ into a powerhouse during the 80s. But by 1990, it was already dominant, and what's new since then? Windows? Same old, same old, but with newer bugs. Word? Uh, 80s. Bob? Uh, forget that... Buying off congressmen? Maybe that was new for the 90s, I dunno. Oh, I get it! Lying in court! That was definately a 90s sort of thing.
Here is a quote from the article justifying the choice:
"People who admire him point to his unwavering vision for Windows as the universal operating system, and Microsoft Corp.'s leadership in developing applications for that environment. "
ROFL! "Unwavering vision for Windows" = lack of vision for anything else! And M$'s "leadership in developing applications for that environment" = killing any other company who tried to do the same.
________________
Re:Geez. Talk about self-importance! (Score:2)
Re:Did you even read the article? (Score:3)
If you still want to see the Unix creators' names in lights, then go to another top ten list. Or better yet, go in a cave and make your own. And don't come out until you can live for today!
GNU - Gnu's Never Upstaged (Score:2)
INTERACTIVE [mikegallay.com]
I'm sorry, but... (Score:2)
--
Chief Frog Inspector
Re:GNU and Linux depend on each other (Score:2)
But thank you for proving my point as to the zealot-attitude of RMS-disciples.
You people will just discount any opinion that does not coincide with the "GNU/Linux" philosphy as being portrayed by a mindless idiot that doesn't know what they are talking about.
I just find it funny, how instead of actually reading and listening to what I said you chose to insult me and call me names. Thanks for further backing up the parent post, I appreciate the assistance.
But until you people learn how to actually debate and hold a rational discussion instead of blindly claming everyone is wrong and insult them then you wont gain publicity.
Now how is the clueless moron?
Re-read the above part, "brilliance doesn't win, common sense is required" and you sir, seem to have neither, really.
Aleph One (Score:3)
--
Re:Oh Please... (Score:2)
Ok, so in NT we have big manly BSODs or GPFs instead of cute little bombs.
Gimme a break. How about an informative system error message, or an error dialog that will let me save my work, and close my applications BEFORE hitting that [RESTART] button.
Are you saying Windows can do this? News to me. When an app GPFs, generally that's it for your data.
I have never seen any warning like 'Your machine is about to BSOD! Would you like to save your work?'...
The whole 'Drag to the trash to unmount' idea needs to go too.
Yeah, just like 'click Start to shut down the machine' needs to go, right?
The only interface I consider to be superior to Windows would be The Console(tm).
It's not as pretty as a GUI, but it's FAR more powerful.
I love the console as much as any UNIX nerd, but console vs. GUI was not my point at all.
My point was that, IMO, MacOS has the best *GUI* out there.
Yes, it has some annoying quirks (like no command line by default), but I think it comes off as being better designed than the Windows GUI.
--K
Mmmm...Holy war goodness.
---
Re:The requisite Gore joke: (Score:2)
Even so, the internet was created in the mid 1970s, not the 1990s. People making fun of Gore should at least have some basic understanding of things themselves.
Re:Sour grapes? (Score:2)
Tim Berners-Lee is there. He did something. Linus did something. Bill made money. Innovation in technology? Not Bill.
--
Re:RMS is not there (Score:5)
Re:it's a lie!! (Score:2)
Well, lets go back to sand.
The WWW is based on computers and computers are based on silicon. Silicon comes from sand.
Well sand is based on atoms, .........
Enough already
Re: Sour grapes? (Score:2)
Linus Torvalds (...) did what no one else has been able to do: By creating an operating system (...) he got the attention of big companies like Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sun and many other PC makers and, most significant, Microsoft
Hmm... makes you wonder who these guys were rooting for in the first place...
James Gosling? (Score:2)
I know, this is a controversial opinion, but Java's made a mark on the industry, and its entire span of influence has been within this decade, so perhaps its creator should be on this list.
At any rate, I see more of a reason for Gosling to be in the top 10 this decade, than Jobs or Gates, whose major influences were in the last decade.
But yes, lists like this are stupid.
Re:Steve Jobs? In the '90s? (Score:3)
Most of these choices are awful.
1. Tim Berners-Lee: Ok, this is a damn good choice
2. Bill Gates: What the hell has Bill Gates personally done in the 90's? 80's maybe, not a very important person in the 90's.
3. Linux Torvalds: Linus bringeth the kernel. Linus bringeth a new Unix revolution. Linux bringeth good attributes to this list.
4. Jim Clark: Jim did an amazing thing. He sold out his company to both AOL and Sun! (Note: sold out)
5. Larry Ellison: All Ellison does is skydive and ensure that we commoners cannot afford Oracle.
6. Lou Gerstner: Famous for implementing IBM's latest "Me too" philosophy.
7. Steve Jobs: I rarely hear his name...which is a good thing.(I hate him more than Jon Katz)
8. Elias Levy: Interesting choice. I don't think he should be regarded as one of the most important, though.
9. Rep. Rick Boucher: Of course, the token politician
10. Vinod Khosla: It's about time someone remembered Vinod. Good choice
Re:Geez. Talk about self-importance! (Score:2)
--
Re:The requisite Gore joke: (Score:2)
Jobs? Over half the discussion of him details what he did for Apple BEFORE 1990.
Same deal with Gates.
Since the people who wrote the article were apparently willing to blur the lines a bit by focusing on so many past deeds, getting snippy and pointing out the actual creation date of the internet may not mean a whole lot.
As it is, Gore's infamous quote has only appeared within the past ten years, and to 99% of the world's population, the 90's *was* the birth of the internet.
Does that qualify as basic understanding?
Re:Geez. Talk about self-importance! (Score:2)
So, uh, Nelson Mandela really would have been a bad choice.
Larry Wall for #2 (Score:4)
Re:Gates position overrated (Score:2)
You're wrong.
In the 1980s, PCs were still in a weird position. It wasn't until Windows 3.0 was released in 1990 that things went through the roof. By the late 90s, Windows-based computers were ubiquitous. Word completely trounced all competitors, too (remember, Word Perfect dominated the late 80s). Excel dominated the spreadsheet market (remember Lotus 1-2-3 and VisiCalc?). Bill Gates wasn't personally responsible for any of this, of course, but Windows and Microsoft took over the computing world in the 1990s. The previous decade was a wind-up.
Re:Sour grapes? (Score:2)
Re:Sour grapes? (Score:3)
Won't you join in?
Re:Sorry, no can do. (Score:2)
Bill Gates well-deserved position (Score:2)
In my humble opinion. Which is obviously the undeniable Truth and you're an idiot if you don't totally agree with me. Oh, yeah.
Missing?? (Score:2)
Hey, I'm not arguing that all these guys were influential...but sheesh, gimme a break.
Berner's Lee and Steve Jobs, but not Alan Kay? For cripes sake, Kay invented modern GUI.What about Steve Wozniak ? Hello? Steve Jobs wouldn't have been as sucessful if not for Woz!
Ummm, sheesh. Linus Torvalds, good and well. What about Richard Stallman? What good is a kernel if you can't compile it and don't have OS utilities to use it with?Also, there's an area that they didn't cover: modern gaming. While this might not seem like an overly important part of tech: consider this: Games in general have pushed hardware designers to increase the potential and capacity - for example, video cards and sound cards, which have grown so powerful over the last 6 or 7 years that they rival top stuff from 10 years ago, state of the art stuff that cost millions of dollars. Why don't we see any mention of Carmack, Sweeney, Woston or Romero?
Re:Sour grapes? (Score:2)
Gates is not irrelevant, but his "bringing computers to the masses" was really initiated in 1980's, by 1990 it was a matter of momentum.
Tim Berners Lee (Score:2)
Yeah, Tim Berners-Lee, he's great and all, but he gave us the text web. Marc Andreesen should head the list if they want to get into who created the web we know and love today.
eof