Bill Gates Transition/Retirement

[janstett]

Actually, no, especially the Apple stealing from Xerox business. This is one of the most persistent myths of the computer business. There's no real truth to it.

BS. It's widely acknowledged that Apple's team visited their friends at Xerox PARC, Steve Jobs spearheaded the road trip. To say otherwise is revisionist history.

EDIT: I'm going to dig up the episode of TWiT where the early Apple guys discuss it with Leo Laporte, just for one of a million documentations of it.

http://twit.tv/48

 

[IJ Reilly]

BS. It's widely acknowledged that Apple's team visited their friends at Xerox PARC, Steve Jobs spearheaded the road trip. To say otherwise is revisionist history.

Incorrect. The trip was arranged by Jef Raskin, not by Jobs. In fact Raskin, who was heading the Mac team at the time, organized the trip to Xerox for the purpose of persuading Jobs that a GUI computer was worth pursuing. It worked so well that Jobs immediately took over the Mac project. That was the real effect, not Jobs "stealing" anything from Xerox.

Not as dramatic, but the facts often aren't dramatic.

Edit: Jef Raskin's essay on this subject:

http://jef.raskincenter.org/published/holes.html

 

[XForge]

That's our money that he is giving away. So 'we' are the greatest philanthropist that the world has ever seen. We just give him an avenue to help.

That ain't MY money; I've never paid retail for a copy of a Microsoft program in my life. I inherit licenses when people sell me used stuff. And sign them over to me. Legally. No, I'm serious. Stop laughing.

 

[mozmac]

Way to go, Bill. I'd like to see more people in the world that are willing to dedicate more of their time to saving humanity.

 

[DougTheImpaler]

Wonder how this might affect further development of MS applications for the Mac, most specifically MS Office...

 

[Billy Boo Bob]

Wonder how this might affect further development of MS applications for the Mac, most specifically MS Office...

I think they "signed" on for 5 more years, although that could be just to support it, not necessarily keep developing / improving.

 

[Billy Boo Bob]

The poll numbers are....interesting- 99% are in the positive range when added together, and 60% are in the negative range-(are we certain that Gates isnt investing in MacRumors? ;-) -I always thought % polls had to even out to 100%... this ones 159%.

I think that's because you can select multiple options in the poll. Checkboxes vs. radio buttons. If it were radio buttons (one–and only one–choice), then they would total 100 %

 

[weg]

Ah we are talking about philanthropists right now in History.

He said Gates has basically piggy-backed on Carnegie

That he was extremely slow to donate anything

Yes, CMU is really the place where people'd starve to death if it wasn't for Gates' donations, ain't it?

 

[Willis]

hmm, Gates is a good guy for what he does. But hes still a donkey.

Ah well, end of the day, his money is going to good causes, and it seems Vista got left out [/cuebadjoke]

 

[sushi]

Wonder how this might affect further development of MS applications for the Mac, most specifically MS Office...

Doubt it will change. MSFT makes money with their MBU of which Office is their primary product.

I would imagine that when the Intel update of Office comes out we will see a vastly improved version of VPC.

 

[mrblah]

So he was slow to donate money, maybe he had a life changing moment in that made him suddenly want to help people. Are born again christians any less christian than those that were simply grown to be christian?

Acting like hes not genuine is about as stupid as all the people who think Bono is doing charity work in africa only for publicity. It seems like the only way you can genuinely be charitable is if youre poor, all the rich people are just faking it.

 

[elgruga]

Rich people and 'philanthropy'

Rich people dont see much - well they are rich and they dont have the problems of waking up in the GUTTER with no food and no way of getting any.
How can a guy like Gates even know where to start?
Well, he could first spend time finding out why, in a world of plenty, we have poverty.
What he will discover is that most 'Aid' goes to local corrupt politicians or warlords working with the CIA.
He will discover that 'aid' is only given if you agree to accept that the US and other countries will take all your natural resources and pay peanuts for them.
He will find that the IMF supports very low wages for poor people in 'third-world' countries.
He will discover that poverty is a way to CONTROL people.
Oh, wait a minute, Bill Gates LOVES to control people - he gets a kick out of it - look at his business practices.
SO instead of stopping disease and helping people to help themselves, he will give cash to a few corrupt 'charities' that pretend to help while supporting evil US foreign policy and paying their staff huge salaries.
He will talk to the people who 'know best' - not the actual poor people.
Well, we wouldnt really want get too close to poor people, would we Billy?
POVERTY is an INDUSTRY.
CHARITY is an INDUSTRY.
GATES is a liar and a fool and a coward, and all you sappy computer geeks who think he is 'doing good' need your heads examining.
GATES is spreading stupid USA foreign policy around the world - he will make poverty WORSE by supporting the evil status quo.
And yes, BONO is just as stupid as Gates, and as corrupt.

Stick that in your word processor.

Oh and BTW, I dont CARE which 'OS' you use.
I dont CARE about Windows or MAC - its just NOT important, at all. That game is OVER, friends.

Go here - http://www.yayacanada.com/index.html - if you want to open your minds - this is NOT the place for debate about real issues - this is a vanity/geek/computer site - essentially worthless.

 

[celebrian23]

I'm glad. I honestly believe he is a genuine person doing good work. Just because he hasn't always done the right thing doesn't mean he can't now. And you may hate microsoft, but because of microsoft Apple has some of the technology it does have. He has been extremely important and influential to this industry, in both bad and good ways.

 

[BackInTheSaddle]

Rich people dont see much - well they are rich and they dont have the problems of waking up in the GUTTER with no food and no way of getting any.
How can a guy like Gates even know where to start?
blah blah blah

I didn't know Howard Dean posted on Macrumors.com...Welcome!

 

[iMacZealot]

I like how he's trying to cure diseases and all like malaria, but how's he going to stop mosquitos carrying malaria if he couldn't even get the bugs out of Windows XP?

 

[mcarnes]

hmm, Gates is a good guy for what he does. But hes still a donkey.[/cuebadjoke]

Actually, I think he prefers the term "longhorn".

 

[Space Cowboy]

Bill gave us Applesoft!

Apple had a great games machine with Steve Wozniak's INTEGER BASIC built right in, but Bill Gate's Applesoft BASIC (floating-point & high resolution graphics) delivered a really useful dream machine... the AppleII.

 

[mrblah]

News flash elgruga: not everyone is born rich. You wonder how they would know what its like being poor? Bill Gates is not a Walton, he made his fortune from scratch rather than inheriting it. Many musicians were also by no means rich or even middle class before they made it big. Nothing in your post made the slightest bit of sense or was remotely coherent, were you drunk and mad at "the man"?

 

[SParis]

News flash elgruga: not everyone is born rich. You wonder how they would know what its like being poor? Bill Gates is not a Walton, he made his fortune from scratch rather than inheriting it.

Hmmm... this kinda contradicts this:
"Bill Gates was born in Seattle, Washington to William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates. His family was wealthy; his father was a prominent lawyer, his mother was the first female Regent of the University of Washington, and his maternal grandfather, J. W. Maxwell, was a national bank president." (emphasis mine)

Coming from a rich family certainly helps and in anwer to your question, no, I don't think Bill has any idea what it's like being poor. How could he?

 

[ezekielrage_99]

Though his money and fame mostly comes from stolen products and monopolistic business practices. meh? who cares, he's saving lives! *smoke screen alert*

Didn't Lenin say something to the extent "History is written by the winners"?

Gates always played by the rules the end justifies the means, right or wrong I do have respect for a person who can be that successful. He has been completely unscrupulous, monopolised products and profited from questionable business practises/ethics, still if he didn't take the IT industry by storm it probably would have been someones who we are all complaining about.

 

[aquajet]

Edit: Jef Raskin's essay on this subject:

http://jef.raskincenter.org/published/holes.html

Very interesting read. I'll admit I had a few misconceptions about the genesis of the Mac. Lots of other interesting essays there too. Thanks.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Very interesting read. I'll admit I had a few misconceptions about the genesis of the Mac. Lots of other interesting essays there too. Thanks.

The punchline to the story is, after Jobs took over the Mac project, moved it to a separate building from the rest of the Apple campus, and raised that famous pirate flag, he canned Jef Raskin. Consequently, some people discount Raskin's telling, saying he was bitter and tried to take too much credit for the genesis of the Mac project. I don't honestly know, but he was there at the time, and many who'd tell a somewhat different story, were not.

My personal punchline to the story is that I ran into Jef Raskin at a MacWorld a few years ago. He was standing right next to me at a booth. I could hardly believe the name I was seeing on the badge. I introduced myself and we chatted for awhile (He said, "welcome to my expo!"). Afterwards, he send me a copy of his book, "The Humane Interface."

 

[Fabio_gsilva]

Rich people dont see much - well they are rich and they dont have the problems of waking up in the GUTTER with no food and no way of getting any.
How can a guy like Gates even know where to start?
Well, he could first spend time finding out why, in a world of plenty, we have poverty.
(...).

Well, I think you lost the punch line here...
Don't criticize so strongly something that you don't know for sure.

 

[york2600]

Oh how I love the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. I worked for them in 2002 administering Windows 2000 Servers and helping digital high schools figure out how to work their magic. I used the $$$ to buy a nice Power Mac G4. I thought it was an appropriate use of money.

 

[aussie_geek]

A Steve Ballmer figurehead is a scary visualization..

Very Scary...