Bill Gates

[xoxoxoBruce]

National hero? Devils spawn? Smart businessman? Two out of three?
I know a lot of, usually younger, technically savy people that think Bill Gates is the devils own.
They constantly rag on him and his company/products as being archaic and complicated. "They won't let me go from here to there without going someplace else first" in a common bitch.
They also rag on his bully business practices and incompatability with some other programs they favor.
On the flip side. From an old fart that had to be dragged into the 21st century. If Windows had never been invented, many of us would be offline permanently.
I bought a computer because I like to play with pictures. Set it up myself. Learned to use it by trial and error. But I asked a lot of questions of a lot of people that would not have been possible if we weren't all using Windows. I'm not talking estoic theory. I'm talking what button does what, kinds of questions.
I even suffered with NetZero for the first year. Now that's a lesson in frustration! I feel AOL is a perfect example of people that want some of the experience without having to learn anything in depth.
To some people a car is point A to point B, period. To me they're a source of endless fascination so I can understand how people could get "into" hardware and software.
Anyway, I really feel that Bill Gates and Windows have provided a tremendous service to the country and the world.
If it wasn't for Bill Gates I wouldn't have a PC.
If it wasn't for Bill Gates I wouldn't be in the Cellar.
Oh....THAT'S why you hate Bill Gates......nevermind.

[SteveDallas]

The Internet was around before Windows, and so were GUIs. SOMEBODY would have done it.

As a matter of fact, I would say that Apple was well on the way before Windows came around, and they were certainly getting there by the time Windows was usable (version 3).

Networking on Windows was pathetic before 95 (and not so great even then, but certainly a lot better); I remember Macs being on networks before then, but I couldn't give you a year. NeXT was the platform on which the World Wide Web was created.

UNIX has been driving the internet for its entire life.

Windows has certainly done some good, but I definitely think that Microsoft has done its share of bad things, many of which have retarded progress in the industry. It's fine to say "look where we are with Windows", but you really need to consider "How much further ahead would we be without it?"

[xoxoxoBruce]

"How much further ahead would we be without it?"

Like the war in Iraq, we'll never know.

By the time I got into this stuff Windows 98 SE came with my machine.
Listening to people that are knowledgeable all the other stuff sounds like (in the words of Maynard G Krebs) WORK!!

[perth]

i hate bill gates because hes a kajillionaire and im a phone support technician.

the thing thats frustrating about windows is that theres a better way to do it. the problem is the massive learning curve.

example: i love linux. i love that its free, i love that i have absolute control over the computer, i love that most software for it is free and in many cases, very high quality. but i have spent 2 months and 2 iterations of red hats version trying to get my goddamned sound card to work. i *know* that the problem is that the module is not enabled and i know that if i could get the kernel recompiled properly, it would work like a champ. the problem? me recompiling a kernel is the kiss of death for the operating system i do it on. i read the howtos (which is a whole other rant) and follow the directions to the tee. kernel panic on first boot.

point is, if linux really wanted to compete with windows, people who know a lot more than me would make it so that i dont have to recompile the kernel just to get sound out of my generic POS sound card.

i dont know what apples problem is. the only reason im not using one is because theyre so damned expensive (oops, theres the problem).

~james

[elSicomoro]

I'd say that Windows took it to another level, and that MS has some of the greatest marketing folks ever. But I do think that MS is retarding the industry. Not to mention, Apple keeps upping the ante.

[Cam]

I really wish I could afford to put up the cash for an Mac right now. I started out on Pc's using an old Mac Plus. I learned so much from that machine. I loved playing with it. Now I get frustrated by them, but that's becuase I hadn't used one for 8-9 years until I came to school(it's amazing what can change in that time isn't it). I would love to be able to play with one at home and try and become something more than a bumbling idiot on them when I'm trying to help people at work.

[hot_pastrami]

Well, I think Bull Gates is hated more than anything because he is the icon for a company very deserving of the public's animosity. I've worked in many areas of the computer business for many years, from tech support to software development, and I have developed some interesting views on the behemoth company.

1. Microsoft has become big enough that they no longer ask their customers what they want... Microsoft TELLS their customers what they want. There's no viable alternative for most people to turn to, so they just live with it.

2. Security... not just in the major-security-fix-of-the-week variety, which in all fairness is probably an effect caused by the fact that 99% of hackers are picking on Windows over other OSes... but just little things too. For instance, why is every application's installer freely allowed to insert things into the Startup without the user's permission?

3. Ownership... Microsoft is moving more and more to a paradigm where software is not something we buy, but something we lease the priveledge to use. Their license agreement for Windows XP states that one can only sell the software license one time, it cannot be sold again after that. And the Windows XP activation treats all of their honest customers like crooks, without actually stopping the real "software pirates."

4. As advances in processors are made, Microsoft seems to think it is their personal responsibility to suck up all those extra CPU cycles with questionably useful OS features.

I could go on and on, but I won't. Life is too short to waste time doling out criticism to someone who can't (or won't) use it constructively. I like Windows XP as a product, it's generally a good operating system and is pretty stable. But Microsoft the company, I despise. And because the company is helmed by Bill Gates, he gets a special little piece of that resentment.

I actually use my PowerMac more than I use my PC these days. Hmm. If Microsoft is the answer, it must have been a stupid question.

[vsp]

I'm using a <a href="http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/B2Main.html">Mac emulator</a> on my Athlon from time to time, and it's a whole different world. Unfortunately, the emulator only covers 68K apps, so there are lots of programs I'm missing out on.

I was in CompUSA the other day, and saw an Apple 23" flat-panel monitor. My jaw bounced off the floor and landed three sections away -- it was an absolute work of art. (The speaker and case designs were also beauts.) Nobody can touch Apple on aesthetics.

When I hit the lottery...