Review:The Plot to Get Bill Gates 171
| The Plot to Get Bill Gates | |
| author | Gary Rivlin |
| pages | ? |
| publisher | Time Business |
| rating | 7/10 |
| reviewer | Jon Katz |
| ISBN | |
| summary | This book is the story of these idiosyncratic, sometimes rabid cabal of Silicon Valley muck-a-mucks known within Microsoft as "Captain Ahab's Club" for their obsessive pursuit of Redmond's own contemporary version of Moby Dick. |
Aside from Daddy Warbucks, billionaires aren't very popular. Beyond the obvious reasons - envy and resentment - they tend to be a strong-willed, arrogant lot. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan - don't generally get to be billionaires through sensitivity and thoughtfulness.
Still, even by billionaire standards, Bill Gates seems hard to warm to. For one thing, he's the richest billionaire ever, topping more than $50 billion at last report. He seems almost lug-headedly arrogant, building a shockingly ostentatious digital place outside Seattle, practically mooning the judge during his recent anti-trust testimony, and of course, bludgeoning, acquiring, cutting down and stream-rolling innumerable competitors over the years.
Almost nobody seems to love him, not even other rapacious, slash-and-turn tycoons.
Gates is also personally elusive. He is not charming, charismatic, or appealing. His best-selling business books are vapid and cold. The carefully orchestrated interviews he gives - always in friendly, even adoring environments -- are banal. They reveal little vision or daring.
And for the many entrenched individualistic, Libertarian elements of the Net and Web, he is a nightmare: monopolistic and greedy and the purveyor of over-priced, ever obsolete, buggy software that exploits consumers and promotes computing ignorance.
Yet there he is, firmly atop the digital heap, a colossus who engulfs, devours, co-opts or buries wave after wave of competitors. Who now has so much money and power that he's become an icon rather than a CEO, capturing our imagination no matter what his gargantuan conglomerate does. Gates has nothing left to prove. And it's way too late to cut him down to size.
According to Gary Rivlin, author of the new book "The Plot to Get Bill Gates," (Times Business, $US 25), the people who hate Gates and are out to get him - the likes of Scott McNealy of Sun, Marc Andreessen and James Barksdale of Netscape, venture capitalist John Doerr, various anti-trust lawyers and government officials have become a culture all their own.
This book is the story of these idiosyncratic, sometimes rabid cabal of Silicon Valley muck-a-mucks known within Microsoft as "Captain Ahab's Club" for their obsessive pursuit of Redmond's own contemporary version of Moby Dick. (And that's not counting the nerds and geeks working in the open source and free software movements.)
For many of these people, says Rivlin, Gates has become an obsession. They talk and think about him constantly. He is always looking over their shoulder, the invisible man at every business meeting. What would Gates do? What does he think? What is he up to? They dump on him behind his back, then swoon at the sight of him.
At some point, writes Rivlin, Gates ceased to simply be a powerful computer industry figure, and instead, "infiltrated the world's dream life." A small universe of talented, driven people are working night and day to cut Gates down to size. But Rivlin's book suggests it may be too late for that.
Instead of tracking Microsoft software, Rivlin's mission is to track the various reincarnations of its CEO, "Gates 3.1", and the grievances - some substantial, some frivolous and ill-informed - that so many have against him.
This is fertile ground. Media coverage of Gates has been shallow. Gates is typically demonized or lionized, and neither stereotype seems quite right. Rivlin's notion - to understand Gates through his many adversaries - may offer the most telling insights yet into the reasons he's so successful, perhaps the best insight into Gates that we're ever going to get.
Rivlin presents a fair, intensely researched and direct account of the people who have taken Gates on, the generally losing struggles they've waged, and the insanely overheated business climate in Gates and his foes have been operating.
Gates inspires much stronger emotions in his adversaries than among the general public. Many of plots against him not only fail, they sometimes do more damage to the plotters than the target.
In fact, "The Plot To Get Gates" is as much a business history about the rise of Microsoft and the computing industry as it is a conspiracy story.
Amid much Gatesian hype and hysteria, it's refreshing to encounter some history and facts and a linear account of Microsoft's intricate battles and strategies.
Gates has prevailed mostly because he is a monomaniac, concludes Rivlin, because he believes he can and must win every time. He believes he is smarter, tougher than anybody else. He might be right.
According to Rivlin's chronicle, Gates is an indestructible life form: Chop off one leg and three more grow back; knock him over and he get gets up taller. Every effort to best him seems only to make him stronger, richer and more ferocious. Even the most savage assaults seem mostly to annoy him, like the original Godzilla swatting down those pesky jet fighters.
If you can judge a man by his enemies, Gates looks better. Rivlin doesn't show us anyone more agile or noble.
Still, this account comes at an odd time in Microsoft's history which may finally be doing to Gates what all of his many determined detractors couldn't.
While there's no sign that his company will totter and fall anytime soon, one has the sense that the history of the Net and the Web are moving past the man. Microsoft and its software are still pre-eminent, but the company no longer seems to be at the heart of the action.
The open source and free software movements - the literal antitheses of Microsoft and it's business philosophy -- have gained a strong foothold on the Net, demonstrating at a minimum that one can live digitally without turning over money to Microsoft, presenting the business world with its first real alternative. And stunningly successful new business platforms -- eBay, MP3, e-trading sites, ICQ and Hotline messaging systems - have sprung up entirely apart from Gates and Microsoft.
His company's many expensive lunges into the media world - Slate, MSN, MSNBC, the Sidewalk sites - are all struggling, sold, or on the block. It isn't Gates? new ideas that keep him so flush; it's the old ones, so durably profitable.
Rivlin's saga of the many, mostly unsuccessful efforts to challenge Gates and Microsoft are compelling for what they reveal about the man, especially since he (despite the media that swarm around him) has revealed so little about himself.
Gates is ferociously tenacious, competitive and - at least when it comes to defining his own role --- fleet-footed. He has an amazing capacity to re-engineer himself - thus his company -- no small skill in so fluid and brutally competitive a marketplace. Like the late Chairman Mao, he does business with a revolutionary fervor, zero tolerance for competition, and a continuous sense of (sometimes brutal) upheaval and renewal.
There is, nonetheless, an unyielding blandness about the man that makes it as difficult to hate him as to like him.
If we know more about Gates than we do about Onassis, Rockefeller or Morgan, it's sometimes tougher to care. Stacked up against history's billionaires, we have to struggle not only to understand him, but to remember why we want to.
Buy this book at Amazon.
NOISE (Score:1)
NOISE (Netscape, Oracle, IBM, Sun, Everyone but Microsoft) used frequently.
One reason this cabal is unsuccesful is that some (McNealy and Ellison) are vying to be Gates-like figures themselves. This is certainly true for Ellison.
Re:Micro$oft wouldn't MATTER *IF* (Score:1)
It may not be up to par for your average
Re:"building a shockingly ostentatious digital pla (Score:1)
Micro$oft wouldn't MATTER *IF* (Score:2)
Who out there would begrudge Bill a dime *IF* his software worked AS ADVERTISED?
Many consumers would buy and be happy if the code worked. The desire of many people to topple BillCo wouldn't exist if they didn't feel dissapointed by Micro$oft releases.
This 'disapointment' in Micro$oft is the achilles heal. All the competitors have to do is to promise and then deliver.
The OpenSource movement has the advantage. While promising and delivering, the product does not have to have a cash flow to survive, unlike the commerical world.
Death by 10,000 paper cuts, or an attack of artic circle mosquotoes is what BillCo fears.
"building a shockingly ostentatious digital place" (Score:2)
Even the inevitable disruption of construction was carefully orchestrated to minimize its impact on the neighborhood (to the extreme of buying neighboring properties to provide a buffer zone during construction.)
Notably, there are currently a couple of law suits around Seattle concerning overscale houses and disruptive construction practices, but Bill's house hasn't been the target of similar actions. In all honesty, this is a very nice and sensitive piece of architecture, and Bill is not a bad neighbor (at least in a residential sense.)
Or at least..... (Score:1)
Remember, Hitler was a nice guy if you sat down to tea with him too.
Anyone offended by my use of hitler, feel free to substitute JDRockefeller, ACarnegie, TAEdison (before you flame for this one, research edisons position with regard to licensing motion picture technology) or any of the usual political figures.
Re:Microsoft not relevant? (Score:1)
I'm pretty sure more people run these
on Windows than on all other OSs combined.
Err.. Are you serious? What you say is true, but it is meaningless. Change MP3 to "rubber tires", change Hotline to "gasoline" change Windows to "Ford Model T", OS to "automobile" then pretend it's 1930 when you say it.
Other than die-hard techies, I meet very few
people who complain about windows
because it can't stay up for 27 days.
Oddly enough, I meet many people who turn off the computer after 15 minutes because everything is cocked up and they think it must be something they did, when in reality the problem is garbage software. And I'm not just talking about Winders9x.
Re:Micro$oft wouldn't MATTER *IF* (Score:2)
Win98 crashes on me generally within minutes of opening up any real application such as Microsoft Office. Last time I had to edit a Word file I was 3/4ths done when I did something that the Office97 authors had not anticipated and Win98 crashed, and had to start over from scratch. Even WordPerfect isn't that stupid, at least WordPerfect saves a backup from time to time so that if the system crashes you can recover at least part of your work.
-E
Re:Micro$oft wouldn't MATTER *IF* (Score:1)
The OpenSource movement has the advantage. While promising and delivering, the product does not have to have a cash flow to survive, unlike the commerical world.
Paradigm shifts are kinda funny that way... detractors always say "There's no money!" Well duh... there wasn't a lot of money in the desktop market nor the internet when they started out either. Now they're two of the world's most lucrative technologies.
As Open Source matures, Bill will worry. Oh wait, he already is... ;^)
It's sorta sad seeing CEO's get whipped up in a tizzy like that. It does remind me that technology is most definitely an immature market (in more ways than one). It also reminds me that in the world we live in today, it's the weidos with obsessive-compulsive "issues" that grab all the power and money (I'll consider myself comfortably wealthy when I break the 100K a year barrier [or will I? ;^} ]).
At any rate I've stopped complaining about Microsoft a while back and settled down to complaining about Windows. Well, okay, I'll really lay it on thick when I have to sit through one of those Microsoft training (propaganda?) videos. But other than that, I pretty much consider MS to be a big giant on its way to slowly falling asleep. Millionaire syndrome, I think.
- Dave (currently sitting through a MS training [DOH! propaganda!] class).
Someone moderate this one up! (Score:1)
Re:hrm.. (Score:1)
Gates did start out with a dream... He tried very hard to impliment it. And in the process he very nearly destroyed the very industry he helped create. But then again, it seems as though his contemporaries (Ellison, McNealy, etc) are hell-bent on self-destruction. Their single-minded focus on one man distracted them from the real issues: making money, building market share, and so forth. Microsoft was always on the offensive, and everyone else was on the defensive (with the possible exception of Sun). Anyone who's watched a football or baseball or soccer or chess game knows who's more likely to win in a scenario like that.
I think that Gates deserves his fortune, but not the rest of the world's, too. I don't want MS to control our basic telecommunications infrastructure (hell I don't want any one organization to do that... power corrupts and all that). Look at the last major organization that controlled our thoughts and speech the way MS does now: The Roman Catholic Church. No more Tower of Babel of competing standards (religions). A CEO (pope) controls a corporation (church), and maintains his stranglehold over the consumers (peasants) by keeping control over his proprietary protocols (Latin Text Bibles), and by charging a small amount of money for upgrades (tithes) every once in a while. Competitors (heretics) are driven out of business (excommunicated), or bought up (forced to "confess" their sins). The executives (Bishops) grow fat with the excesses of wealth from stock options (church properties).
But then comes along Linus Torvalds (Martin Luther), a sometimes unwilling crusader for freedom.
Ok, that reference has been made before, but it bears repeating. After all, the Catholic Church in it's height of power was very nearly responsible for the Dark Ages (illiteracy was promoted and encouraged to prevent people from asking too many questions about their center of power, the Bible, among other things; therefore not a whole lot was written about that 1000 year epoch). Compare this to growing trends promoted by Microsoft to "make things easier" for you. Who needs literacy (computer or otherwise)? All you need to do is point and click! It's that simple! Oh don't pay attention to how proprietary our formats are... We're the One True (Microsoft) Way!
Comments were made about how proprietary formats are changing so fast that information stored today is lost a year from now. The storage mediums are slightly to blame, but that may become less of an issue as technology becomes sturdier (hopefully). The real issues are the data formats. When a software package is only partially compatible with previous versions of itself, data is lost. Imagine how much literature written only 10 years ago is lost today because the data formats are no longer supported! Probably not a whole lot now, but if these proprietary protocols continue their long march towards converting the masses, stuff like Jon Katz's review above (I caught the smart quotes, Jon... use Demoronizer :^) might not be readable in 15 years. Oh sorry, we don't support that old format, why don't you buy our new product instead!
Yea verily, we are in a Dark Ages of sorts. Our hope? Universal standardized formats. ASCII is still used everywhere; it probably won't go away. HTML and XML may probably also be what will be used for long-term storage. The reasons? The formats are simple, yet extensible and useful enough for a long time.
Hmmm I appeared to go off on a rant. I'll stop now. Maybe I needed to vent after listening to a Microsoft guy spout out "Global Market" and "At Your Fingertips" one too many times. Gods, I hate buzzwords. :^)
Re:hrm.. (Score:1)
Bill Gates is not Ellison, Wozniak, or Jobs. He never risked anything real in his life -- lots of paper, perhaps his ego, but he never risked going hungry, not having a roof, or being forced to work in a fast food joint.
He has shown himself to be a very good businessman. I wouldn't confuse this with being a productive member of society. [Though to Gates' credit, most companies of Microsoft's size -- and the bussinessmen who lead them -- have done far worse things than MS]
I come not to praise Gates... (Score:1)
McNealy and Ellison want to take one Gates for the same reason Dillinger robbed banks- "That's where the money is." Why is it considered irrational to look at the richest man in history and go "gee, I'd like a peice of that action"?
And lastly, I think the amount of time Ellison/McNealy spend on taking on Gates is vastly overrated. Even such proposals as RawIron (which is tangential to Oracle's anti-Microsoft thrust if anything is, considering the OS they're talking about replacing is _Solaris_) was seen as yet another bungled attempt to take on Microsoft (see http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_2878.
Re:Micro$oft wouldn't MATTER *IF* (Score:1)
Otherwise, more people would be in a better position to let the free market and market forces improve the product.
Re:Nightmare for libertarians? I think not (Score:1)
> it yourself. The freedom to do that, and to
> cooperate with others to the same ends is the
> only thing the world "ows" you.
That is where you're wrong and why your attitude is too much one of a peasant. The world, or rather, the market very much owes all of us something:CHOICE. Choice is the payment we get out of being the smaller cogs that allow the obscenely wealthy to have something to base their success on. Benefiting by building wealth through capitalism is not just for the robber-barons.
If good product is only to be found in a museum, then there is little point in capitalism for the rest of us.
We should demand better and ignore those fools that think the system doesn't owe us anything.
Re:So what? aka very bitter nerd (Score:1)
Re:Can you spell Monopoly? (Score:1)
Now, why people might buy DOS over MacOS is just a matter of another natural monopoly.
hrm.. (Score:5)
With all that in mind, I think in some ways you and I, here, where we can benefit from everyone else's work for free, and with the ability to give freely back to those around us, have it better than bill with his stacks of money, paranoid friends and enemies, and life of coldness and business.
Nightmare for libertarians? I think not (Score:5)
And why is this a problem? After all, Gates has done nothing the prevent those who would make something better for themselves from doing so: [GNU]/Linux is proof of this.
Of course, the screams go up, you can't make money "selling Linux" (without something else on the side, like support). You can't buy a Linux distribution or get it pre-installed with the same ease. Finally, Billy-G's got all the distribution mechanisms sown up tight pushing his garbage around.
All true. But, all irrelevant.
The world doesn't owe you a profit -- if people value what you make (even if it is garbage) you will make one.
The world doesn't have to bend to your desires or make your life more convenient. In short, the world doesn't owe you the ability to get a Linux distro the way you might want to. There aren't any Indian restaurants close to where I live and I like Indian food. That's my tough -- I can buy a cookbook and prepare Chicken Vindaloo myself if I want.
If you want something better than Windoze, build it yourself. The freedom to do that, and to cooperate with others to the same ends is the only thing the world "ows" you.
Clearly, enough people thought it worthwhile to improve and expand on Linus Torvalds' personal operating system itch. They (we) did it not to "get rich" but to build somethibg better for ourselves. That this goal was achieved, beyond anyone's wildest dreams, serves to prove that Billy-G is no impedement what so ever to personal and collective effort.
Those who despise him for his wealth are just envious bastards who would think nothing of stealing if they could get away with it.
Of course, he still flogs useless garbage, IMNSHO, but if people are willing to buy it, who am I to interfere?
Oh, dear... (Score:2)
Look. On most points, I tend to agree with you. Most people don't get AIDS by any other means than doing one of several very stupid things. Quite literally they bring it upon themselves. I know it sounds like a heartless way of saying it, and I'm not saying they don't deserve help, but that's more or less the way it is in most cases. In most.
There are others, however, who don't exactly have a choice in the matter. I could point to the classical example of the baby born with it, but that's too saccharine. I'll point to the ones who get it by, say, a bad blood transfusion which by some freak accident slipped through the screening process. Or worse, the ones who were deliberately infected by others who use their disease as a weapon (yep, such people do exist; there was a dentist in Florida several years back who infected nearly 20 people in this manner. They claim it's a move born of desperation, to force scientists to find a cure, but I don't think that makes the crime any less horrid).
Oh, and the other reason to invest in AIDS research: there are scientists who predict that by about 2010, AIDS will mutate and evolve into an airborne form, as contagious as the common cold. The other half insist that this is a ludicrous idea, that viruses take longer than that to evolve, and I tend to agree with that, but still, let's consider the 11-year one the worst-case scenario. Suddenly, it's not a "sinners' disease" anymore, is it? It's a plague which could well wipe humanity off the face of the planet. That's the thing: we need to find a cure, or at least a vaccine, fast.
I still don't like Bill Gates. And his donating $100G to AIDS research still doesn't put him in the same league as other "philantropic" billionares, who give far larger portions of their wealth away (take Ted Turner; he only donated $1G to his cause, but that was fully half of his wealth; I consider that to be the more generous contribution). But much as I hate to admit it, I've got to say Billy's actually done something good for a change.
By the way, as for the "sinners" bit; I suggest you get off of your holier-than-thou kick. You're certainly no better than anyone else; you can't even obey the simple rule of respecting all people (phrased in most translations as "love thy neighbor as thyself" but meaning exactly the same thing).
Re:Nightmare for libertarians? I think not (Score:1)
While I found Katz's "nightmare for Libertarians" comment to be typically uninformed, this "the world doesn't owe anything" huff-and-puffery is also a typical net-libertarian response. Why is it anytime someone makes any suggestion like "monopolies are bad," much less something truly radical like "maybe the way to reform government would be to make it more efficient at helping people rather than reducing its role to that of enforcer," this old chestnut comes out? Who said the world owed anyone anything? News flash: us bleeding hearts know the world ain't fair. We just have the quaint notion that working to make it a little fairer isn't a bad thing.
The American economy over the 20th century has been an absolute marvel, and Libertarians need to open their eyes and notice that that economy has been mixed capitalism, not pure capitalism. The IMF has been forcing pure capitalism down the throats of countries they've been trying to help over the last decade or two, abandoning the principles of the Breton Woods compact, and by any honest accounting it's been an absolute disaster. We gave them our theory, not our practice, and it's dismaying to see presumably well-intentioned people push those theories so hard here.
The market rewards mind share more than it does good products, and investors only reward high profits and continued growth--how that profit and growth is obtained is irrelevant to the reward. But if it's obtained through means other than providing the best possible product at the best possible price, very strange effects start happening, Microsoft being one of the comparatively innocuous ones. (HMOs are one of the less innocuous ones.)
Incidentally, I don't despise Bill Gates for his wealth. (This is another bugaboo with libertarians, I've noticed--mention "growing income gap" and they start frothing at the mouth, as if merely noting its existence is a call to sell Texaco's assets to the homeless.) That doesn't mean I can't despise him for flogging useless garbage, and you know what? You can too!
Re:hrm.. (Score:1)
Re:So what? (Score:1)
Re:hrm.. (Score:1)
It wasn't the best analogy.
If you had a time machine... (Score:1)
If you had a time machine, which of the following would you do?
Re:getting tired already (Score:1)
tar -xvf some file, But I've had difficulty finding a secretary who can even find the floppy disk on Windows95. Sure, she can save to disk from Word, but find the file on the disk from outside Word? No way. A secretary on a Macintosh however...
All Microsoft have done is try to make MacOS for the PC, and failed miserably... But damn can they market dog turd like it was chocolate cake..
Don`t say the words... (Score:1)
Two years ago it was nearly impossible to avoid these words for one day if you are in computer-buisness - now it is in many cases at least possible, sometimes it`s even normal.
Maybe even code doesn`t matter because if noone talks about gates anymore, he wont scare anyone anymore.
silence...
Re:A few flaws in your argument. (Score:1)
Re:censored link (Score:1)
Re:censored link (Score:1)
Re:Katz unreadable in 15 years (Score:2)
a: and this is a bad thing?
b: compared to when?
c: why does it have to take so long?
d: all of the above.
Re:Nightmare for libertarians? I think not (Score:1)
However, I think you are wrong about the IMF. Their problem is that the governments they are lending the money to are corrupt, and the western agencies who are actually meant to do the development work are on a massive gravy train. The economics they push on people is pretty much irrelevant when the governments they are pushing it on are too corrupt and incompetent to implement it.
Gates is a pauper: consider Solomon (Score:1)
I don't think a mere house which takes 50 NT servers to operate* is really in the race at all. A trillion dollars might buy one of Solomon's city blocks, and young William has a good way to go to get to the magic trillion, even on paper.
I wonder what William III's foundation really spends its money on, and how closely it's tied to M$?
* Fifty NT servers... let me see... seven crashes a day? fifty a day? does he need fifty servers in order to have at least one up for each room at any instant? I guess it depends on what apps they run... I guess if he used XFree and multi-headed them, he could cut the lossage down to maybe six FreeBSD or Linux boxes.
Re:Gates to Donate $100 billion to Charity (Score:1)
It's still on the main page, too.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Re:Can you spell Monopoly? (Score:1)
>out evil FUD and buggy program. It does *not* take a good programmer to create a crappy program.
I would disagree with your last sentence, & state instead that it is a fourth strength: MS knows at what point its software is ``just good enough" to release. Whether it meets the specification, even if the specification has a typo in it, or deciding just how many bugs need to be fixed to be better than its competition (whether said competition is another company, or an older version of the software), or even if a choice between features coddles an entry-level user while handicapping an experienced one.
DOS, for example, had the ability to address 640K of RAM -- 10x more than other existing OS's -- but this ability does not increase without much work & pain. It was ``just good enough" in meeting IBM's specifications.
When WinWord had to compete with WordPerfect, bug-killing was a priority at Redmond; now that Word has no significant competition, the folks at MS devote their resources to creating more ``features" like dancing paperclips.
And trying to avoid the resource hog of Word with either notepad or wordpad leads to constant petty frustrations. (Try editting & saving a perl script in wordpad & not having to remove the
Further, MS makes their software ``just open enough" -- more open than Apple did, as well as the other non-UNIX operating systems before it -- but not one line more. Otherwise, software would not break with every revision of Windows, whether a documented revision or not.
When MS to embrace an Open Standard means to follow it ``just enough" to claim technical obedience -- but not too much, or else someone else might reverse engineer the product, & create a better one for less money.
> And, yes, Bill Gate$ is bland: he
>simply hides his greedy eyes behind an affable geek mask. Here is a man who will sell his own mother to make a buck. And because he
>knows decent people do not like that kind of behaviour, he tries to hide as bast as he can -- but more and more people realize the truth.
Actually, I think not selling his mother for a buck is one of the few business ethics he has. He appears to get along quite well with his father, who runs the charitable foundation.
Microsoft is run as the extreme form of a corporation: every calculation is made to maximize reportable profit in a way no other corporation has done before. (Watching MS dominate the computer industry is like watching play a winning Civ II game.) Employees are expected to devote every waking minute to the company while on the other hand every attempt is made to reduce the benefits paid to employees -- which is why Microsoft is having legal troubles with their numerous legions of permanent temporary workers. Partnerships are made with other companies & then abused so that MS can learn their technologies & steal their market, while keeping as much of the Windows internals an ``intellectual secret" as possible.
I can't imagine a more aggressive company than Microsoft -- unless you repealed the laws on slavery, barratry & commerce.
>To me, the beginning of the end for Micro$oft is 1995.
Actually, I have always seen 1995 as the apex of MS's dominance of the computer industry. On one hand, they released Win95 to widespread enthusiasm, on the other hand, they pulled off a major realignment of th eocmpany to focus on the Internet. Since then, it's all been either defeats or qualified successes. All that growth we see in Microsoft is cancer, & when MS falls, it will be faster than Romanov Russia.
Geoff
So far an informative book (Score:2)
A critical review of Jon's review.... (Score:1)
flunky himself. You must admit that it strongly suggests that interpretation.
Then, you write:
> Aside from Daddy Warbucks, billionaires aren't very popular. Beyond the
> obvious reasons - envy and resentment - they tend to be a strong-willed,
> arrogant lot. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan - don't generally get to be billionaires
> through sensitivity and thoughtfulness.
That's, ahh, a sort of left-handed compliment, rather than a criticism. Of course, there's *no* possibility
that billionaires got to be that way through means that broke other people, broke other companies,
trashed neighborhoods, towns, and cities, and left people poorer. That couldn't *possiblly* be any reason for
disenchantment with 'em. It couldn't be such things as, to quote J.P. Morgan, since you mention him,
"The public be damned".
> And for the many entrenched individualistic, Libertarian elements of the Net and
> Web, he is a nightmare: monopolistic and greedy and the purveyor of
> over-priced, ever obsolete, buggy software that exploits consumers and
> promotes computing ignorance
Why is it that you feel that there is *no* element that is not in the mainstream, that is against Gates & Co.,
that is not on the right? In fact, an awful lot of what you say in the paragraph above is much more of the
attitude of those of us on the *left*, rather than some libertarian fellow travelers, such as the dba who
I used to work with last year, who didn't feel that monopoly was bad.
> According to Gary Rivlin, author of the new book "The Plot to Get Bill Gates,"
> (Times Business, $US 25), the people who hate Gates and are out to get him -
> the likes of Scott McNealy of Sun, Marc Andreessen and James Barksdale of
> Netscape, venture capitalist John Doerr, various anti-trust lawyers and
> government officials have become a culture all their own.
So any group of serious competitors, who might be afraid that someone ten and twenty and thirty
times their size, who has a history of grinding competitors into bankruptcy by such tactics as
what, in international trade, is called dumping, or by simply making serious, and illegal, attempts
to close the market to them (vide the post, late last year, I believe, on slashdot, by the guy who
went to 10 OEMs, and could not buy a pc without a MS operating system (except, of course,
for IBM, who offered OS/2), are a "culture of their own"? Lawyers who may, occasionally,
actually believe in anti-trust laws, and laws intended to promote competition, are part of this
"culture"?
> This book is the story of these idiosyncratic, sometimes rabid cabal of Silicon
> Valley muck-a-mucks known within Microsoft as "Captain Ahab's Club" for
> their obsessive pursuit of Redmond's own contemporary version of Moby
They are rabid, because they'd like a share of the pie? Funny, I don't remember this kind of vituperation
when, a mere dozen years ago, it was IBM and the Seven Dwarfs, and the government used anti-trust
laws against IBM...unless, of course, IBM is Faceless (tm), and MS is Bill the Gates.
> For many of these people, says Rivlin, Gates has become an obsession. They
> talk and think about him constantly. He is always looking over their shoulder,
> the invisible man at every business meeting. What would Gates do? What does
> he think? What is he up to? They dump on him behind his back, then swoon at
> the sight of him.
Ahh, they talk of him? As in, "how do we write software that can deal with all the bugs, and undocumented
bad code usage, in his software"? And I'd really like to know who it is that "swoons" over the sight
of him.
> Even the most savage assaults seem mostly to annoy him, like the original Godzilla swatting down
> those pesky jet fighters.
The *original, original* Godzilla, as in the first movie, was Not Nice...and was *killed*, at
the end, by something the size, or smaller (it's been a while, y'know), than piranha (anti-trust lawyers?)
> If you can judge a man by his enemies, Gates looks better. Rivlin doesn't show us anyone more
> agile or noble.
Is thissupposed to mean that Gates looks to any degree noble? One might say that Stalin, then, looked
noble, based on his enemies (us, among others).
> He has an amazing capacity to re-engineer himself - thus his company -- no small skill in so fluid and
> brutally competitive a marketplace.
But isn't that what he's really all about - not goshawowie software, but marketing? I mean, how else
could Word push down WorPerfect, or Internet Exploder take so much from Netscape, for so little
software value?
> The open source and free software movements - the literal antitheses of Microsoft and it's business
> philosophy -- have gained a strong foothold on the ^^^
Oh, and on the nit-picky side, that sohuld be "its" (belonging to it), not "it's" (contraction of 'it is').
> There is, nonetheless, an unyielding blandness about the man that makes it as difficult to hate him
> as to like him.
And this...do I take it that you are unfamiliar with the idea that the worst part of the majority of evil
is that it is so *banal*?
mark
(with a cc to Jon)
Re:Offtopic?????? (Score:1)
We cannot take over the earth unless we make slaves of the intelligent people on Slashdot.
Re:You cant beat Gates by hitting him head-on. (Score:1)
Re:So what? (Score:1)
Unless you mean stealing time on a university computer to develop a BASIC? Hmmm. Seems to remind me of how a lot of Open Source products get started...
S.
*I* remember AmigaBasic! (Score:2)
I don't think so.
D
----
Re:*I* remember AmigaBasic! (Score:2)
But I
D
----
interesting-looking book... (Score:1)
However, you can be sure that I went to the index in the back, and looked up Linux and Linus. Indeed, Linux gets referenced a fair bit.
Looked up Slashdot too, but didn't see any mention
Re:censored link (Score:1)
In any case, the book was Visions of Jazz, by Gary Giddins, heh.
let's try this again.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/01950767
hyperlink
...interesting, the hyperlink gets converted during the preview, and strange spaces are being inserted into the non-linked url.
Oh well, try this address (it killed the barnes and noble url, too)
http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnI
(of course, I do realise this is probably more info than you even wanted.)
Very bitter luser (Score:1)
And if you want to defend little William III, you need arguments, not insults, coward.
Netscape is already there. (Score:1)
Re:Gates to Donate $100 billion to Charity (Score:1)
Re:It's not about Gates. (Score:2)
But you can't blame Gates for that--that's a political and social issue for all of US society to deal with: people who run successful businesses become enormously wealthy in the US. And it's not the wealth that bothers me (whatever makes people happy), but the enormous poverty and suffering of the bottom 20% that seems to go along with that kind of income distribution.
As for Gates, if he sticks to his promises about charitable donations, he will have done pretty much all you could ask from him to do his part.
It's not about Gates. (Score:4)
I don't like Microsoft for their technologies, just like I don't like Macdonald's food or Hertz customer service. But unlike Macdonald's or Hertz, avoiding Microsoft is becoming very difficult, no matter how poor I may think their products are. It's that monopoly position, that to me mostly seems to be the result of network effects and monopolistic practices, that bothers me.
I wonder what it is in Rivlin's background that causes him to see this as an epic struggle of hero versus villain, rather than as the technical and economic issue that it is. To the degree that Gates matters at all, he is simply the current figurehead of Microsoft. If he resigned and got replaced by someone else, nobody would care much about Gates anymore.
The failure for technical people to "bring down Gates" is probably a result of the fact that it isn't about bringing down Gates--it's about open protocols, open access, and choice. And it seems to me the technical community has been quite successful there, and there is enormous momentum in that area. If Gates and Microsoft prosper in an open, non-proprietary world (and I see no reason why they shouldn't), all the better for them.
Choice is all I want. (Score:1)
Re:Micro$oft wouldn't MATTER *IF* (Score:1)
MS software sometimes fails because they often aim for too much but generally it works exactly as advertised
Re:1 reason (Score:1)
Re:1 reason (Score:1)
That's what I meant by "computing ignorance"
Re:Offtopic?????? (Score:1)
What you seem to be suggesting is that there's some sick cabal of moderators (clearly funded by the Gnomes of Zurich, or possibly the Bavarian Illuminati) who are just out to make Katz look good. That'd be a pretty good trick, considering that moderator access is chosen at mostly-random and none of the moderators know the identity of any of the others.
I've been picked for modertator access about half a dozen times since it was introduced, and believe me when I tell you that it's not really something that excites me all that much: my initial reaction is usually to dump all my points and move on so that I can post stuff. It just drives me nuts when people suggest that folks like me are part of some weird conspiracy. I get enough of that from being a Jew.
Fnord.
Re:Offtopic?????? (Score:1)
For the record: my comment on conspiracy theories was a joke. Clearly I wasn't clear enough on that, so apologies if I've hurt your feelings.
Further - I'm not a philosopher, nor do I have any pretentions of being a philosopher. To be honest, I couldn't even have told you who Girard is, although I have a passing familiarity with the "mirror of desire" theory. It seems to me, however, that in order for that theory to apply here, the majority opinion on
I do have to admit that it's a pretty interesting suggestion: in essence, you can't reward people for posting up-moderated stuff with moderator points, because then only pablum gets moderated. But I'm not sure I buy it.
Finally, as to your implication that I'm a member of a group of "lonely people with low self-esteem who are too frightened to express an opinion or support the expression of same"... ow. So much for reasoned debate. But, if the price of disagreeing with you is to have you label me that way, fine. My stones are big enough to take it.
You cant beat Gates by hitting him head-on. (Score:3)
The only reason that Linux has been successful is that Linus et. al. do not care in the slightest about what Bill Gates is doing. They put their modest resources into a product, not a figght. If Sun, Oracle and AOL would just learn.
Although you'll never unseat Gates from the top of the heap, There are a number of people within striking distance of the Microsoft monopoly. If they would just work on their products and services rather than squabbling with Gates they might have a chance.
-Rich
Re:Or at least..... (Score:1)
Anyone offended by my use of hitler, feel free to substitute JDRockefeller, ACarnegie, TAEdison (before you flame for this one, research edisons position with regard to licensing motion picture technology) or any of the usual political figures.
The classic observation about usenet discussions is that they start to veer into the idiot zone when someone brings up Nazi Germany. Congrats.
None of those other guys murdered 6,000,000 Jews last time I consulted the history books. Neither did Bill Gates. I'm not getting upset, I just think your analogy and its self-justification are ridiculous.
Re:Can you spell Monopoly? (Score:1)
Being able to make money any which way you can is not something that counts against Microsoft. It's something we should look up to. If the same tactics were to be used against Microsoft, the company doing so would be called "creative" or at most, "aggressive".
Agreed. Scott McNealy and Larry Ellison aren't exactly the moral equivalents of Joan of Arc and Mother Theresa. There's plenty of ego and rapacity out there without Bill Gates. Think either of them would turn down MS's market share? In hell with those snowballs.
Ruthlessness? You don't grab that opportunity or stop the other guy from getting it, your business will suffer. So will your shareholders, employees, their families and kids.
The Bill Gates/Citizen Kane thing doesn't do it for me. I would expect him to be pretty happy right now
Crap software? Since when was quality a primary determinant of what people buy? Turn on your most successful TV channel, read a tabloid newspaper or the national enquirer. Crap sells. People eat it up. As H L Mencken said, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
Sickened by the "injustice"? Your problem. The rest of us just deal with it.
I'm normally an inveterate Katz basher (boycott theaters that won't let underage kids watch South Park? sheesh! Get a life!) but I thought this review was OK.
Moderation - Censorship & Editorial review (Score:1)
Actually, to call slashdot's system moderation is a bit of a misnomer. It really has to do with to very closely allied things called 'editing' and 'censoring.'
You see, the job of an editor is to read all the garbage that nobody else wants to take the time to read, and decide what in that pile of crap (other wise known as 'the slushpile') is worth paying money to read. Then that much gets published. In the world of paper, publishing is expensive, as is buying a magazine or book. This tends to mean that the editor discards a great deal of material, and thus what gets published is closer to being worth the money. A great deal of worthless garbarge still gets published, but at least it doesn't read like it was written by a five year old!
Censorship is the almost the same thing as editorship, with the difference being that a censorship is blatantly about preventing 'dangerous ideas' from spreading, or protecting sensitive young minds. In actual practise, the diferance is nothing! Because the editor has to discard so much material, they always end up discarding stuff mostly because they simply disagree with it, or it gives them a creepy feeling.
So what does the world of paper publishing have to do with slashdot? On slashdot, the purpose of moderation is to keep the signal to noise ratio at a respectable level. For the most part, it's very effective - When was the last time you saw a "first post?" It's no longer in every single story. Mission accomplished! But why does it work? The posts aren't deleted, they never happen! And why do they never happen? Because they're moderated to -1, and most people never see them, which means that posting a 'first post!' comment won't get you the attention that you want. So why bother?
And so yes, moderation does boil down to editing, simply because that's what is required to change the S/N ratio! and nothing less will work. Which is why the moderator guidlines include:
Personally, I think the 'this is boring' and 'Katz sucks' comments fall under both 'something said 15 times already' AND 'They detract from the article they are attached to.' If you explain in depth and detail, with footnotes, why it is so, that might contribute something positive to the discussion. Your comment comes close to that, and so it hasn't been moderated down. But neither will it be moderated up. If the comment not only doesn't contribute to the discussion, but is actually a waste of time to read, it should be moderated down! And thus it will discourage such posts in the future, and increase the S/N ratio here on slashdot. Being moderated down is a cruel thing to do to someone - i.e. causing 50,000 people to ignore them. But it is an effective way of saying 'contribute something positive!'
We all know darn well that you can filter out katz' articles if you so choose. If you want to have someone a bit more mainstream (whatever that means on a 'news for nerds' board) take the soapbox, then why don't you take a whack at it yourself and submit an acticle or two?
Katz and the "rules of engagement" - READ THIS (Score:1)
BTW, I've observed Katz as a factually sloppy, intellectually dishonest fruitcake with delusions of relevance. The fact that Rob & Hemos continue to foist this knothead's opinions on us as 'features' might be a sign that Slashdot isn't about community discussion but is becoming increasingly about a codified agenda.
How about encouraging someone slightly more mainstream to use the soapbox as well? The tit-for-tat opinions would provide a more balanced view and we might start attracting the type of well considered attention (as opposed to the screaming-penguins) that will drive Linux further into the market and more programmers into the Linux world. Katz is the antithesis of the reasoning that we need and adds nothing to the debate but piss 'n vinegar (I was going to just say vitriol, but then reread his SouthPark censorship BS first and decided PnV was more accurate.)
Whether you agree or disagree, let me hear from you.
M.
Re:Katz and the "rules of engagement" - READ THIS (Score:1)
By the same token, the degree to which 'this rulez' and 'Katz is god' is spouted makes for what one would initially THINK would be a balanced degree of illiteracy: knothead pro-Katz vs. knothead anti-Katz.
My main beef is the tendancy of moderators to thumbs up or thumbs down the comments, no matter how thickheaded, based on whether THEY like the article or not. That's not the purpose of moderation. I presume (and the moderator's FAQ bears it out) that the idea of moderation is to thumbs up the comments that speak with particular clarity on the original article, be it pro or con. To do otherwise is to turn the process into a censoring method based on the moderator's opinion of the original article.
I have a novel idea (plant your tongue firmly in your cheek and GRIN): Enforce good grammar and the screaming penguins will either have to think about what they're saying while they learn not to dangle their participles, or they will go ELSEWHERE. Either would be preferable.
Thanks for your comments.
Re:I come not to praise Gates... (Score:1)
Re:Nightmare for libertarians? I think not (Score:1)
themselves from doing so: [GNU]/Linux is proof of this"
He didn't, because he couldn't. And if he could, he certainly would have done something.
Re:I come not to praise Gates... (Score:2)
Because only in the movies can a couple dozen snub fighters take down the death star. It is one thing to focus corporate resources on taking down a small opponent; it is quite another to focus corporate resources on trying to take down the de facto standard for desktop computing. My suggestion to those who feel they can only succeed in a world where Microsoft fails is to get a life, a clue, and a better business plan.
Re:Can you spell Monopoly? (Score:1)
Your point is?
Lots of companies are ruthless. "Playing nice" may make the world a better place overall, but that's not what business is about. Business is about money.
Being able to make money any which way you can is not something that counts against Microsoft. It's something we should look up to. If the same tactics were to be used against Microsoft, the company doing so would be called "creative" or at most, "aggressive".
And what's wrong with being ruthless? When somebody is being ruthless, he is being self-protective at the expense of others. Just like a cornered dog biting at anybody who comes too close. Is this something we should be upset over? No-- it's natural.
So what if MS writes buggy software? Nobody *has* to use MS, just like nobody *has* to use Linux. The whole "pre-installation monopoly" bit is bull. Most people would buy Windows anyway, even if it *weren't* pre-installed.
And FUD? It's not like your rant about the MS monopoly isn't just as bad.
Re:Can you spell Monopoly? (Score:3)
1) Basic began life at Dartmouth. I don't know if a corporate contractor made it (is that who Computer Sciences is?). The BASIC interpreter is the only thing that (AFAIK) Gates ever actually wrote. Even then he knew the way to make money was to control the OS. He wanted BASIC to be *the* user interface to computers. He made arrangements with a number of hardware vendors to get MS-BASIC in the ROM on their machines. Captive consumers!
2) MS-DOS used to be known as 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products. It was written by Tim Patterson to make it easy to port CP/M applications to the new 8086 processor. The 640k limit was imposed not by MS-DOS but by the IBM-PC architecture. The physical memory limit of the 8086 was 1MB. MS-DOS was available for other hardware (the Zenith Z-100 leaps to mind) where it could address more than 640k just fine. I'm not praising MS-DOS, jut trying to put the blame wth IBM where it really belongs...
3) Here I won't argue. I bought Windows 1.0 (how much will some of you pay me for a copy of the 1.0 manual? I've got it, you want it? I don't think I have the 5-1/4 floppies any more, but I might. I can look. I fired it up, played reversi a few times, erased it from my 10M hard drive and never ran it again). I will, however, point out that Digital Research was the arrogant corporate giant. They overcharged big time for CP/M-86 and they really did not keep up. No heirarchical file system (of course, neither did MS-DOS v1), no forward motion on the core system (but look at GEM later and at DR-DOS, once their lunch got eaten, they got innovative again). MS-DOS v1 reeked compared to CP/M, but MS-DOS v2 added some critical stuff and CP/M was too expensive and didn't move. I can't blame MS for CP/M's death. It killed itself. I *can* blame them for killing DR-DOS, however, with their bogus 95 "no more DOS" baloney. As for all the other products they've killed, each of those companies also rested on their laurels. Word 2 caught up with WP and Word 6 kicked its butt (and I *hate* Word!). MS actually made better (if fatter) apps. Borland? I don't know why people went to MS from Borland. As a guy who writes software for a living, I found the Borland stuff to be consistently far superior to the MS tools. I don't know why Borland lost. MS really started being abusive IMHO with DR-DOS and with Netscape. In both of these cases they used their OEM licensing agreements and thus their control of the distribution channels to crush the innovator.
So, while I dislike MS software, I don't think MS is wholly to blame for the demise of every defunct ISV, nor do I think that every sucky thing about PCs is due to them. IBM deserves a lot of blame for building and designing well below their capabilities.
One last thing. Would we have been stuck with the cruddy architectural heritage of the IBM PC design (which we still fight around to make good computers) if all software had been open source? Hell, no! We could have moved to new architectures with little effort if we had so desired. It is that "base of applications" sold binary by closed-source companies that have us locked on that set of legacy design crud. Those companies cannot cost-justify moving to a new platform ("why when there are gazillions of PCs?") but when you have the source, you can do it yourself. It is a chicken-and-egg thing. With the source, you just clone the d--ned chicken!
Ramble mode off...
Re:hrm.. (Score:1)
I'd be happy to shoulder 1% of his paranoic burden, in exchange for, say, 1% of his monetary burden.
If a mere 100 of us went in together on it, we could unburden him altoghther.
Re:I come not to praise Gates... (Score:1)
Microsoft neglected the "pair of pliers and a blowtorch" part.
Re:Gates to Donate $100 billion to Charity (Score:1)
I suspect it would do more good to give $5Bill to AIDS research now, than to give $100Bill in 20 years.
Re:getting tired already (Score:1)
Maybe I'm wrong, and if I am, so be it, but I just don't agree with you.
-- ioctl
Re:Air vector vs. 'other' vectors Re:Oh, dear... (Score:1)
Unfortunately, this won't necessarily apply to AIDS. Due to its extended incubation period, a carrier of the virus can spread it for years before dying.
On the other hand, TANSTAAFL applies to the microbial world too; if we're lucky, the resources that a putative airborne AIDS virus spends in building a more durable coat will also make it less virulent (by not reproducing as quickly, for example). But I wouldn't want to count on that.
Re:hrm.. (Score:1)
Re:hrm.. (Score:1)
Re:Nightmare for libertarians? I think not (Score:1)
It doesn't matter what I like and don't like in Latex or MS-Word. What matters is that I have no choice but to use MS-Word in some cases. The document format isn't anywhere near being a standard, and so far no MS alternative has been compatible enough with MS-Word. Even different versions of MS-Word can't agree on the same layout for the same document to the extent of dropping information here and there. And the problem is, I don't have the choice!
I wish the situation were as simple as to be my choice only.
Re:getting tired already (Score:1)
If you want to know why we have PC's in so many houses I would say that the invention of html and browsers (heck tcp/ip too) has everything to do with it and MS Windows very little.
Why does he get so much credit for "what he has done for technology"... the way I see it the man hired some F-ing brilliant marketing people, that is is claim to fame.
Tha Almighty Zoltar
Re:Micro$oft wouldn't MATTER *IF* (Score:1)
I've heard navigator 4.6 was *really* bad, (I'm still using 4.01 or somthing, and that may be the only reason I don't use IE exclusively)
the underlying OS dosn't have anything to do with an applications stability. The only diffrence the OS makes is if it will bring down the OS with it. Linux and NT won't go down. 98 will almost never go down, 95 will probably not go down, and the mac OS will most likly go down.
maybe you should actualy try MS-OSs before mindlessly bashing them. some computers are going to have trouble no matter what you do
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
Re:Micro$oft wouldn't MATTER *IF* (Score:1)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
What the hell? (Score:1)
anyway, his dad, who is supposedly running the thing is a lawyer, so he's probably a libral himself.
he worst part is that HIV causing AIDS is a sham, and most of his money will go to supporting the corrupt system that produced this whole situation
Then what *does* cause aids? Remember were talking about africa here, not the US. really, do you have *any* facts to back up your quite frankly bizzare clame?
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
100gigabucks (Score:1)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
Re:1 reason (Score:1)
Well then, you are an asshole. let me guess, you're the kind of Sys-admin who puts crappy security on there systems, that does nothing to stop a determined hacker, but *does* cut down on productivity by forcing users to go through miles of red tape.
Though you might think of yourself as a nerd, you're the *bain* of nerds, a crappy sys-admin who makes life dificult for people who know how to use a computer.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
Cock Cheese? (Score:1)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
All power comes from the barrel of a pen (Score:1)
Re:Gates to Donate $100 billion to Charity (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure I've heard this about him for some time now. The interesting thing is the "sometime in his lifetime" part. It would be news if he was making a comitment to do this by the end of the year or something. He's not. He's going to do what a lot of super-wealthy do, move it to charitable foundations to keep the government from getting 40% of it when he dies.
How much of $100 billion do you need to leave to your wife kids, etc when you pass on. $10 billion ought to be enough. So the other $90 billion gets put in a foundation to be doled out for cancer, aids research, feeding the hungry, etc. Wow, imagine that! Now Gates' legacy is that of the largest benefactor of all time, rather than the greedy opressive slaughterer of competitors richest billionaire of the 20th century.
Sheesh.
Re:Gates to Donate $100 billion to Charity (Score:2)
Right, which as someone pointed out, would be great if he kicked in some *now* to start jacking-up research efforts rather than later. $1 billion now would be great. $100 billion in 30 years is good too, but how many would die that could be saved if he started parting with some of his riches this year?
I'm not saying its not generous either way, just that *if* he's sincere about making a difference, why wait until later?
Re:So what? (Score:1)
creating stuff and then releasing it for free is pretty much normal acceptable and expected behaviour at universities. i cant think of a university i've heard of having a rule against this. (it is certainly possible, i just dont know of any)
however, most of the universities i am familiar with do have specific rules against using school resources for personal financial gain.
so i dont think comparing using time to build a product you are going to sell and using time to build something you give away is really a valid way to vindicate that behaviour.
Re:hrm.. (Score:1)
As for Billy himself, I got nothing against him. Got billions and billions? More power to him!
I have a problem with anyone who has a stranglehold on the industry. It is a bleak time for everyone during the reign of a monopoly because you see just what we are seeing: stagnation and complete crap in the software industry. We see alpha quality software coming out as release software (ie5 and netscape 4.whatever, for example).
Once Billy is no longer grand poobah of the software industry I will be happy to ignore him like I do everyone else. And once the new emperor sits at his throne, I will fight him as well (well, until it is me on the throne, anyway =)
Re:He's giving it all away to fight AIDS (Score:1)
So basically when the cure for AIDS is discovered we'll have the ability to slow down the aging process significantly. Imagine being able to live hundreds of years within Bill's lifetime...
Capitalism needs a free market (Score:1)
Re:Nightmare for libertarians? I think not (Score:4)
Capitalism is a system that allows people to become wealthy by making other people wealthy. From a capitalism's perspective (which is not to say from a capitalist's perspective), the point of a company is to produce services and/or products for the people. Capitalism only works because of the honkin' huge carrot-on-a-stick of corporate profits.
Does this sound like communism? Think about it. Pyramid schemes are detestable by capitalist standards, specifically because they produce nothing. Extortion is uncapitalist. Capitalism works only so long as it is very hard to make money without giving something in return.
Does Microsoft give to the people? Only in the same way that a heroin dealer does. Microsoft software isn't good; it's addictive. You have to have it because everybody else has it.
The system we put in place to serve us has failed. This doesn't mean that we have a bad system; it means that we have to fix it. Until we do, our capitalism will continue degenerating into a nonproductive anarchy.
Re:getting tired already (Score:1)
Re:Katz and the "rules of engagement" - READ THIS (Score:1)
The fact that Rob & Hemos continue to foist this knothead's opinions on us as 'features' might be a sign that Slashdot isn't about community discussion but is becoming increasingly about a codified agenda.
What? Are you really that paranoid? Everyone has a secret agenda, oh no, they can't just be trying to be friendly in providing a useful service? I don't know why, but I try to err on the side of trust most of the time. It pays off - it turns out everyone isn't out to get you.
Fair enough, you don't agree with Katz. That's your decision. Perhaps you should volunteer your opinions to be posted as features and see if the community warms to your ideas more.
And finally, if you want my opinion on why moderation seems biased against those who dislike Katz: I find that a large proportion of posts which dislike Katz to be poorly written and excessively angry. I know it bugs me that so many people feel they must vehemently proclaim their feelings about his writings - is he really that bad? So of course, when the odd post gets moderated down, or worse - a pro-Katz post is moderated up - those who are anti-Katz start turning on the real flamage and concocting conspiracy theories. Some of those posts definitely qualify for moderating down - but no, if you moderate down a post exposing the evils of Katz, you are part of the conspiracy.
Basically, I think that some people need to learn to relax a little more.
Re:A few flaws in your argument. (Score:1)
Wordperfect sucked. Crashed all the time when I used it. Nothing like spending 3 hours writing a paper and having it crash and hoping the .tmp file has part of it.
Here I must disagree. I've rarely had a problem with WordPerfect (I've used versions from 5.1 to 8.0 on various platforms). It certainly crashes less than any version of Word I've used, and I find it alot less annoying.
Give me WP5.1 over Word97 anyday.
Re:Micro$oft wouldn't MATTER *IF* (Score:1)
cy
Re:"building a shockingly ostentatious digital pla (Score:1)
Don't let his nice face mislead you, he still enbraces and extends every open standard he sees on the road. In a sense, he help create the GLP -the only technology money can't buy. He is the runaway dead-beat dad of GPL (I won't tell who the mother is which will give you unpleasent imagnation )
CY
Re:Nightmare for libertarians?.... -winmoden (Score:1)
ignorance? (Score:1)
Why would you want them to be ignorant?
Are we to understand that you would begrudge them the knowledge that you posses? And why? To have control over them? Pah!
Gates and mispent money (Score:1)
AIDS and poor type organizations.
He seems to have forgotten about the free market under which he has gained those billions. And he seems to have forgotten about the government patheticos who want to take his money/power away from him.
So instead of contributing to the various libertarian organizations out there (Think tanks like cato, or even the libertarian party, which have both defended his right to do business), he contributes his money to the politically correct liberal organizations, who are busy trying to take him down.
Why do I get the feeling that his wife is doing all of the contributing?
The worst part is that HIV causing AIDS is a sham, and most of his money will go to supporting the corrupt system that produced this whole situation.
Re:NOISE (Score:2)
In this light, McNealy, Ellison and Andreessen become the Sarumans, Denethors and Borimirs of the OS War of the Ring. The greatly desire to overthrow the current tyrant and become tyrants in their own turns.
I guess those who seek to destroy the Ring and have no new Dark Lord are the OSS proponents. That makes us the good guys I guess. Petreley never actually said this but the allusion was there.
Interesting comparison, even in the light of this revue.
-M
Can you spell Monopoly? (Score:2)
The real reason Bill Gates and his company, Micro$oft, are (were) so successful is that they have shamelessly exploited (read "embraced and extended") the best ideas of others. Examples:
1. BASIC: at one point the only product MS ever made, it was actually invented by Computer Sciences researchers, in order to teach programming. Being "Open Source" (well kind of...), BASIC was milked by Micro$oft for all it was worth -- and we now have VB and the wonderful Basic-for-Apps that allow script kiddies to create virii-things like Melissa. They made many small Computer companies bleed through the nose for the "privilege" of having M$ Basic on their machine (anyone remember the crappy Amiga M$ Basic?).
2. MS-DOS used to be known as "Quick and Dirty Disk Operating System". Micro$oft bought the company and sold that product back to IBM. It was so ridiculously uninteresting (640KB limit, blah, blah, blah) that IBM and M$ made sure CP/M (at this time the dominant OS on microcomputers) could be installed on PCs instead. The stroke of genius (for Bill Gate$) was to retain all rigths to MS-DOG. Once IBM compatibles were born (Thank you Compaq), gazillions of dollars started flowing into M$ coffers. This is where it starts to be interesting.
3. Windows. I won't get too far into this one. M$ stole the idea, lock, stock and barrel, from Apple. Who had stolen it from Xerox's PARC. It took them no less than THREE iterations (three!) to get this ugly piece of crap functional. In the meantime, since they were still making gobs of money from MS-DOG, they stabbed IBM in the back (not a big loss), sunk Digital Research (a company 1000% more creative than they were) and threatened, bullied, bought and pressured every other software maker known to man. Lotus? Let's do a 1-2-3 killer! OS/2? No way! Wordperfect? Here comes WinWord! DBase? Let's buy Fox Software! Borland? Here comes Quick C & Quick Pascal! Internet? Let's become an Internet company and pollute HTML every chance we get! Every time, they used their competitor's ideas and turned out mediocre, inferior imitations of the real thing... All of this bankrolled by the near-monopoly of MS-DOG.
And so on and so forth. I could talk about Windows NT (entirely created by VMS people, from Digital Corp.), "Visual" C++ (marrying a non-M$ language and NextStep development environnement), Exchange (Notes-Killer), etc... etc...
Let's face it: Microsoft only stregths are (a) its ruthlessness (b) its ability to make money any which way they can and (c) its ability to churn out evil FUD and buggy program. It does *not* take a good programmer to create a crappy program. And, yes, Bill Gate$ is bland: he simply hides his greedy eyes behind an affable geek mask. Here is a man who will sell his own mother to make a buck. And because he knows decent people do not like that kind of behaviour, he tries to hide as bast as he can -- but more and more people realize the truth.
To me, the beginning of the end for Micro$oft is 1995. When Win95 was released, for the first time, many people realized that a company this size, able to spend such an obscene amout of money to hype a product that was nothing more than an s____y upgrade to an inferior product could not be honest. Even M$-paid press drones realized that.
Re:hrm.. (Score:2)