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Comments: 293 +- Your Rights Online: A Real Bill Gates Rant on Monday February 23 2009, @09:08AM
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lou ibmix XI submitted an
email written by Bill Gates a few years ago and turned over to the feds as part of the government's antitrust case. Great quotes like 'Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?' and 'The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind.' We like to think of him as an abstract, but I think this is interesting stuff. Also, this might seem familiar. Oops.
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Technology: Bill Gates Chews Out Microsoft 836 comments
Submission: When Bill Gates isn't able to use WINDOWS by Anonymous Coward
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Massive Dupe (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Massive Dupe (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been 6 years, and he still can't install it? Maybe he should install Wubi, and try apt-get, that usually works.
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Re:Massive Dupe (Score:4, Funny)
Connecting to the SMTP port directly and writing ASCII in base 13 is better than Outlook.
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Re:Massive Dupe (Score:5, Funny)
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I know it's a dupe, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know it's a dupe, but I still love to see Gates say: "But that is just the start of the crap..."
It says it all right there. At least Microsoft knows about the problems with Windows. It is said that realizing there is an issue is the first step to resolving it :)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I know it's a dupe, but I still love to see Gates say: "But that is just the start of the crap..."
It says it all right there. At least Microsoft knows about the problems with Windows. It is said that realizing there is an issue is the first step to resolving it :)
I don't think Bill Gates is really responsible for the problems with Windows. In fact, I think it's probably one reason why he left when he did. The company just got too big for him to manage day-to-day - he wasn't the one making relatively minor decisions like where Windows Movie Maker sits on the Microsoft web site or how to install it, somebody else was making those decisions. And little decisions like that, all added up together, are 95% of what makes Windows as maddening to use as it is. And he was
Re:I know it's a dupe, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bill Gates realizing and complaining about something that could work better in Windows isn't a huge "discovery". It is his job.
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Re:I know it's a dupe, but... (Score:5, Funny)
It is said that realizing there is an issue is the first step to resolving it :)
It is also the first step to ignoring it.
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I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand all the hate for Bill. Unless if this e-mail was nothing more than a publicity stunt to make him look less evil, it shows that he wasn't happy with the way things were going. He clearly saw the direction the ship was going and he couldn't turn it in time.
Despite what you say about Microsoft now, Ballmer will always be funny to read about and watch on youtube.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
I don't understand all the hate for Bill.
Stay off my lawn.
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Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand all the hate for Bill.
Bill's the guy that's responsible for creating this monster. Obviously he didn't do it all by himself, but he's ultimately the captain of the ship.
He clearly saw the direction the ship was going and he couldn't turn it in time.
I actually don't really hate Bill (though I understand why some do). Even though I saw this email about a year ago I'm still greatly amused by it. It shows that even Bill Gates can't control the monster he's created. It's very interesting and amusing that Bill Gates, largest owner of Microsoft and (then) the person with the greatest control over it, reboots his computer nightly. That explains so much.
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Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the law of unintended consequences. The vision at Microsoft has always been to try and reduce complexity. Whenever there has been a tradeoff between control and simplicity, Microsoft has chosen simplicity. Unfortunately some things are inherently complex, and as you try to wrap them behind simplistic abstractions there comes a point where you simply can achieve what you want. Suddenly you, and your current task is one of the things that the designers abstracted away. The quote about "we didn't realise people would try and download it from the downloads page" is a classic example.
Which of course was exactly the point that Neal Stephenson made in the essay In the beginning was the command line [cryptonomicon.com].
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>>The vision at Microsoft has always been to try and reduce complexity.
If this was true, then what's more onerous is that they failed, and did so in repeated, dramatically awful ways. The competing divisions, the lack of inter-disciplinary leadership, confused market views, the lie of 'customer-focused' decision making are all what were embodied in Microsoft's decided failure. Add in the mix of tawdry business practices, lack of belief in criticism, and an insular greed-based nature, and it's not a wo
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
The vision at Microsoft has always been to try and reduce complexity.
Surely you jest.
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Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
The vision at Microsoft has always been to try and reduce complexity.
Surely you jest.
I am quite serious, and stop calling me Shirley.
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Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
> It's the law of unintended consequences. The vision at Microsoft has always been to try and reduce complexity. Whenever there has been a tradeoff between control and simplicity.
Have you ever actually compared Windows to MacOS? Microsoft most definitely did NOT choose simplicity, rather they have always chosen flexibility - the ability to configure and reconfigure the system to run on different hardware and to do different things.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Funny)
The vision at Microsoft has always been to try and reduce complexity.
Alas, their hallucination has morphed into a very bad trip indeed.
The quote about "we didn't realise people would try and download it from the downloads page" is a classic example.
Who the hell mixed PCP into their acid?
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Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm keeping a copy of this and some other beauties. Anytime anyone wants to know why I think they should switch to Linux of OSX, I just show them the emails. Even Bill G is tired of Windows and how it works, why shouldn't joe the pc user be?
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Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
From the perspective of developers once it builds and there aren't any showstopper bugs, everything is fine.
Usability is likely one of the hardest things to get right because it forces (anyone really) to look outside of their own perspective. I don't see this as a disease of just software developers, but everyone. Different users want different things out of the software, and sometimes those ends are at cross purposes. I won't defend developers as a whole class here, because I've seen some (and worse) of what you're describing. I will point out that it's a grand generalization though.
The problems Bill describes seem pretty inexcusable. It seems more a systemic problem than a particular one.
The point of Bill's email is that he tries new products and tries to make these 'dumb user' type critiques of it.
Heh. Dumb is an odd description for it. We've all experienced these same frustrations with using Microsoft software. Go to the horrible MS website, spend a lot of time looking for the DL, hopefully find it, wait wait wait while it DLs, machine locks up to being un-usable, finally install it.. but wait.. reboot! (assuming you survive the reboot).. now hope it works. No? Go to step 1.
If I had to identify the single biggest underlying problem here.. it'd be that the user doesn't have a single place to go to install new software that just handles it all for you (and doesn't make you reboot) like say..... a package manager under Linux ;).
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Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand all the hate for Bill.
You may hand in your geek card at the door.
If BillG's actions as the head of Microsoft we're enough for you, then surely his new mission of spreading IP law across the third world should get your attention? The Gates foundation makes for-profit investments that are killing people they claim to be trying to save [latimes.com]. Bill is personally heavily invested in big pharma [theregister.co.uk] and Gates supports strong IP law [newmediaexplorer.org] in order to protect his profits.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Has Microsoft done some not cool stuff? Sure...I guess. At the same time, Bill Gates created an excellent company from the ground up, arguably created an entire industry (which, if you work with computers, you can thank him for your job), and continuously made the company profitable over and over again.
You already say its arguable that he created an entire industry, and it is. I believe this industry would have existed perfectly without them. And working for a web company I can tell you that Microsoft is actively holding back the industry you claim they created.
And of course Bill Gates is supporting strong IP. Duh. You would too if you had that kind of money and industry to protect.
So the richest man in the world is lobbying for laws that will make him even richer at the cost of others. And now you claim we should feel empathy for him?? To me, it's kinda like the definition of greed...
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I don't think anyone was trying to manipulate you. But it does seem that your zeal to hate the great "evil" makes you look like you have a chip on your shoulder.
The question there has to be whether it's implied or just (incorrectly) inferred. I don't only despise Microsoft and I don't believe that they are inherently immensely worse than their competitors, or J. Random Corporation. What I believe is that they are in a unique position to do damage, and they take advantage. And they must be stopped. I do believe that the rise of the corporation signalled the end of personal rights, and if we want them back we're going to have to do certain things to limit the rights,
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When you have billions of dollars, it's hard to be sure that all of it is doing good, and not doing evil.
Ah yes, the "saving the world is hard" argument. That's what the Gates foundation said in a press release explaining why they would not be examining their investments for ethical acceptability. Of course, this immediately followed a press release claiming that they would review their investments for same.
This argument is of course pure horseshit. You have a responsibility to invest your money ethically. To do otherwise is to simply abstract away all your bad behavior on to a proxy. If you invest in genocide
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
Bill Gates is the one who, with Steve Balmer, created a Microsoft where it is more important to win by leveraging Windows than competing on quality. He's also overseen them target one software technology after another which were cross platform and therefore threats and had to be eliminated.
What was once a tiny software company who made a Basic interpreter became a monster threatening anyone and everyone if they did not do things One Microsoft Way. This is Bill Gates' fault as much as it is Steve Balmer. Just look at the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation for more proof. From what I've heard, if any school or library takes funds from them, they are not allowed to use open source software. They just constantly limit choice and that has been Microsoft's business method for over 20 years. IMO
LoB
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Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
Yes.
I worked for a couple places that were funded by M$ or accepted donations. I suggested a FOSS solution for something, and was told quite explicitly, "We can't, its in the contract."
Now, it's certainly possible the man was lying to me, or mistaken, or if you want to get cute, there was no actual legal obligation to eschew Open Source but M$ reps *implied* that there was, and the folks in charge assumed, were cowed, or simply too slow of mind or weak of will to look at it closer, resulting in this gawdawful run-on sentence i can't seem to fix.
But why wouldn't they add an exclusivity clause to such agreements, and why wouldn't most FOSS-ignorant public school and library administrators agree to it, thinking "who needs crappy free weird software written by teenage hackers, when i have professional polished shiny software for free?" They have never heard the drug-pusher analogy, i suppose, which is weird considering they're in at-risk public schools. Ahem.
Now, you asked for proof. I obviously cannot (and would not) provide a copy of any documentation from former employers, but you DID ask. I am not posting anonymously. Therefore, if you discount my account, as it were, then *you* are now the conspiracy theorist.
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its easy (Score:5, Informative)
In some of those published emails, you can see Bill Gates:
-Asking to add Windows-specific quirks to the ACPI "standard" [slated.org], just to make Linux more dificult. "It seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that Linux works great without having to do the work [...] Maybe there is no way to avoid this problem but it does bother me. Maybe we could define the APIs so that they work well with NT and not the others even if they are open. Or maybe we could patent something related to this
-Asking their teams to add IE-specific crap in the HTML code generated by Office [slated.org], just to make harder for other browsers to display things: One thing we have got to change in our strategy - allowing Office documents to be rendered well by others people browser is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPIETARY IE capabilities" (emphasis by gates, not mine)
-Lobbying Intel to get them to do all their design work in Windows desktops, not in Linux.
-A lot of other "fun" stuff.
And you wonder why people hates Gates? ;)
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Abstract (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Abstract (Score:5, Funny)
You know, composed of a lot of straight lines and sharp angles, both eyes on the same side of his head, lots of colors everywhere, that sort of thing.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
From Microsoft's website:
Since CEO performance is in the news... (Score:5, Insightful)
"'This is a shocking e-mail. Shocking!' And I said, 'What do you think I do all day? Sending an e-mail like that, that is my job. That's what it's all about. We're here to make things better.""
Apparently he either really sucked at his job, or it was the job of the people who worked for him to completely ignore what he said.
it's actually a fantasy game! (Score:5, Funny)
FTA: "In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations."
Finally, someone at Microsoft admits that you have to use magic to make Windows work right... I would comment more, but I am on my way to my daily Ballmer goat and bull sacrifice.
Re:it's actually a fantasy game! (Score:5, Funny)
FTA: I would comment more, but I am on my way to my daily Ballmer goat and bull sacrifice.
Ah yes, where you let a live goat or bull into the Ballmer enclosure at feeding time.
Because Ballmer doesn't want to be fed... he wants to hunt!
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Re:it's actually a fantasy game! (Score:4, Funny)
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Carter Pewterschmidt (Score:5, Funny)
Usability and the Bottom Line are Incongruent (Score:5, Insightful)
Ironic (Score:3, Interesting)
NEW! (Score:3, Funny)
That's one way KDE/GNOME should emulate Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
Now let's turn the conversation the other way...to KDE and GNOME. Bill Gates here, is just being a typical newbie if he is anyway. No offence to him here. But if he were to send such a "rant" to the GNOME folks, you all know what kind of answers he'd get.
This is not to say the KDE folks get it either. But for Linux to succeed even in the minutest way, it must meet Joe Public's expectations...and this can be done while at the same time meeting expectations of whoever it is at present.
I guess I will be labelled a troll but what I am saying is the truth...so go right ahead and mod me down.
Re:That's one way KDE/GNOME should emulate Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? It's a tool. The majority of "Joe Public" don't have specialized tools to work on bikes/cars/woodworking/electrical/floors/whatever. Does that mean that professional tools for those tasks should be re-designed for those "joe publics" to use without skill?
I don't want my tools to be n00bified, they work great as they are, and appreciate them going in a direction that doesn't ape a broken paradigm. Thanks.
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Re:That's one way KDE/GNOME should emulate Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that different software suits different people is lost on those with this mentality.
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But for Linux to succeed even in the minutest way, it must meet Joe Public's expectations...and this can be done while at the same time meeting expectations of whoever it is at present.
Define "success", then prove meeting "Joe Public"'s expectations is a requirement for such, and *then* prove that meeting them can be done doing only changes that don't alienate any of the current users. Good luck with that, you're gonna need it.
As it stands, your post is just unsubstantiated opinion, off-topic as it pertains to Linux instead of Windows, and very likely a troll since you're using a CEO's letter to his employees to imply that the Gnome and KDE developers react badly to any criticism from 'ne
even more ironic, he praises add/remove (Score:5, Interesting)
It's funny that he praises the add/remove programs control panel. Try opening it up when you have a file system mounted that contains a whole lot of files. Apparently this control panel, even though it has a cache of installed programs in some subdirectory, plus roughly the same info in a registry subtree, this sterling piece of software goes off and looks at every file on every device. That's the only explanation I can think of why the disks whir for like two hours before this control panel lists anything.
And even then all that work was for naught, because the items listed have not been even slightly vetted for correctness. You click on some of them and get an immediate "no uninstaller found" or even more cryptic messages, and no way to remove these useless entries. This control panel is a classic fail, with it doing slow and useless work several times over and still missing the whole point of what it should be doing.
Bill, you got real problems when you think this really crapalicious control panel is a shining star.
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It has nothing to do with a fragmented Registry. My Registry is not fragmented and the time goes from two hours to 20 seconds when I unmount the disk with all the files.
And the installed programs list in the registry is only 15 entries, that should not take two hours to load.
It's just poor design. You should never have to scan the universe when you already have the info in at least two places, the Registry and the installer directory. And of course it's a bad idea to have the info in two places.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Problems opening the control panel can often be due to poorly written 3rd party control panel applets (.cpl files). My control panel would frequently lock up or open very slowly....
Well that sounds like a very poor design decision, synchronously calling into 3rd party code to see if it's okay to remove such code. IMHO an uninstaller should have more confidence and authority. What's the point of an uninstaller that is subordinate to its minions?
If you are talking about the time taken to list installed programs, this was sped up considerably with Vista, which begins to show installed programs instantly...
No thanks, I tried Vista for an hour and then returned the laptop. Plus this is a pointless hack. I do not care if the items start showing up as they're found. I need to see all of them.
...and populates the list in a fraction of the time XP uses for the same task.
A fraction of two hours is still too long to wait for
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Like a complete moron who has not even the slightest clue what a computer is never mind how to use it for even the most basic functions.
So, you've never even heard of usability testing? Note that almost every question he asked was rhetorical. He was putting himself in the position of a non-technical user who wanted to do something that should be simple but who was getting thwarted at every turn.
But hes a business man not a nerd he gust acts like one so as not to make the employees uncomfortable.
OK, I like Gates about as much as the next person who doesn't like him, but he's definitely geekier than 90% of Slashdotters. The fact that he can step back and look at things from an outsider's perspective is actually a good thing and something y
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:thanks but I need more than a lower case j (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, great. So you're reproducing.
Thanks.
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