Bonum Certa Men Certa

Bill Gates Bashes GNU/Linux and Out Comes His Fear

"Linux is a very complete and sophisticated operating system. And there is a lot of work being done to improve it in and of itself, particularly to make it easier to use and easier for people to set up on their personal computers."

Paul Maritz, Senior Vice President, Microsoft



A reader has just made a suggestion, one which he probably will nag us about repeatedly (albeit in a good and constructive way). "It would be smart to always include a reference and live links to the technologies Microsoft is trying to imitate or bury," he says.

"One obvious component of operant conditioning is that along with each and every criticism, there should be a clear push towards the desired behavior or knowledge. That's for the readers," he says.

“It is probably web 2.0 stuff and Java Server pages, J2EE, to guess wildly at a few that Microsoft is trying to bury”He continues: "For Microsoft, if one fails to mention the products and technologies they are trying to distract you from, then Microsoft has still gained a win."

A previous post on the subject which brought these suggestions spoke about Silverlight. "It is probably web 2.0 stuff and Java Server pages, J2EE, to guess wildly at a few that Microsoft is trying to bury," says the reader. "Someone into web application development should be able to give some real relevant technologies," he advised us.

Further: "Promoting MySQL, Postgresql, Apache (including Tomcat, Lenya, Lucene, etc), Java, Javascript, Perl, Python, NetBeans, Eclipse, Kdevelop, Qt, Qtopia, GTK+, wxWidgets and so on helps neutralize Microsoft's anti-media tactics of saturate, diffuse and confuse."

He gives an example: "I bet a lot of people don't know that they could be making GUI-based programs with native look and feel for 3-4 platforms at once. Qt does that."

Okay, so the reader appears to be right on point. We ought to advocate rather than negate. Watch, for example, the following new observations which are made on the very same subject in Bruce Perens' Technocrat:

"Gates said students will want to try Microsoft's tools because they're more powerful than the open-source combination of Linux-based operating systems, the Apache Web server, the MySQL database and the PHP scripting language used to make complex Web sites."

...sounds like someone's in denial.


Bill Gates appear to be drawing attention to the technologies which worry him. He even includes (by name) the platform which Microsoft pretends to be negligible -- GNU/Linux. Microsoft's SEC filings suggest otherwise, but that's where we are. Microsoft keeps that infamous poker face on.

An analyst who studies Microsoft almost exclusively, Joe Wilcox, adds this:

Microsoft is looking to get a whole lot back from its program. DreamSpark isn't charity. It's business--protecting Microsoft's entrenched desktop-and-server software business model from competing products, and, most importantly, from the Web 2.0 platform.


Mind the fact that he agrees with us that it's only charity in disguise. There are expectation for something to come in return. Microsoft has mastered the use of charity as a business tool, but that's far from news [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9].

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
 
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October