Is Bill Gates a lightworker or a darkworker?

[yossarian]

People giving away stuff for free does not cause economic collapse. That idea is what economics refer to as the broken window fallacy - broken windows do NOT contribute to the economy. They detract. Conversely, giving stuff away for free does NOT harm the economy. It contributes.

There are many ways to set up copyright laws that allow creator compensation but also benefit society to a large degree. For instance you can have dates after which the source code enters the public domain - we do this for drug formulas and literature.

Under the 100% free RMS model, people would pay for developers to create specific products and then the product would be universally available. Developers therefore would have lots of work - in fact developers themselves would not only have more work but they'd have more innovative work. Instead of software people constantly reinventing the wheel, they would constantly be innovating. The value of these products would go up since their quality goes up. The average person would be more willing to purchase custom software since the custom software would be higher quality in every way.

Some say this would harm investment since no companies would pay for people to develop software, they would instead wait for someone else to do it and then freeload. There are many ways to deal with this. The most well known is just by doing the exact same thing we do today with the pharmaceutical industry - after a certain number of years the software can entire the public domain. The years where the software is exclusively controlled by the investors would give them enough of an edge on their competition to profit on their investment. It wouldn't be an incredible monopolistic amount, but it would be enough of an incentive to invest in new software. The thing about this model is that the utility of the software goes from being useful to a specific company, compensating them for their risk and ingenuity, and then when the software enters public domain the utility multiplies astronomically as it becomes available to all of humanity for free.

You can't put a price on the power of free software, and that power can be harnessed. The main thing holding us back is the FUD that has been spread about software developers starving en mass if this were to happen, and a computer dark age ensuing. The funny thing is is that the 90s WERE a computer dark age compared to their potential, and it was the mediocrity of the closed and proprietary Microsoft empire that caused it.

Steve Jobs and his NextStep computers in 1989 had functionality that is only now being re-achieved by Windows and MacOS. Why? Because Microsoft's monopoly destroyed software innovation.

YouTube - NeXTSTEP Release 3 Demo

Watch this YouTube video of NeXTSTEP power - this video was released 15 years ago and it has functionality, responsiveness, and ease of use that I still dream of today. The 2007 status quo is decades old, and just being rediscovered by Windows. Windows is so out of date that unpaid amateurs have mananged to match and sometimes surpass it's functionality. If that is not a clear sign that "corporate innovation" is an oxymoron, I don't know what is.

Today we write in C++ and various variations on C++. Why? Because Windows demands it. In the 80s they wrote LISP, Objective C, Smalltalk, and other languages that are by all standards far far superior to the lowest common denominator C/C++. In this decade, Java gained popularity for automatic memory management. LISP had this functionality in the sixties.

Anyway I guess my point is just that computer innovation has been stifled incredibly by corporate monopoly and corporate culture.

(This post is not related to the darkworker thing though. I honesly believe it's intentions that determine your polarity, not the result of your actions. Some people are greedy for the greater good, and so they are lightworkers. Some people are selfish for themselves but end up benefiting humanity far more than they benefit themselves. These people are still darkworkers. You can't know someone's intentions definitively because you never really know what someone is thinking)

[Andrew Russell]

I'm going to call FUD right back at you - as has been said many times - Microsoft, unlike its competitors at the time, understood the importance of helping developers build software (rather than trying to charge them for the privilege). This is the exact opposite of stifling innovation.

Imagine how much more of a (apparently) "dark-ages" the 90s would have been without the rich and free Windows APIs.

It's not a case of Microsoft "demanding" the use of C++. It's simply a fact that Microsoft used C for their API (a decision no doubt based on the popularity of C at the time, thanks to Unix) and that API then became popular due to its openness.

(Side note: You didn't have to use the Windows API either - Windows historically provided a POSIX layer too.)

I don't know so much about the Apple APIs (particularly historic) - but I know they used Objective C and that earlier in the thread someone mentioned their comparative closedness. Maybe if Apple were more open, the situation would be reversed?

The monoculture of language you speak of can probably be just as easily attributed to the dot-com bubble. It's far easier, when demand is so high, to churn out Java/C++ code-monkeys quickly, instead of well rounded developers who know LISP. (Not to mention, lots of web stuff in those days had to use C++ CGIs because there were only limited alternatives - no fancy PHP or Rails.)


On the subject of NeXT - sure plenty of systems had some features that were better than other systems. I, for one, am a great fan of the Amiga, a machine that was, multimedia-wise, years ahead of its time. Despite their great features, it suffered terrible mismanagement and faded into obscurity (something you certainly can't fault Bill Gates and Microsoft for).

So maybe NeXT had more innovations with user interface, etc. Microsoft had more innovations with business models, compatibility (both software and hardware) and developer support. The market chose Microsoft, and with good reason. You've got to have the cake before the icing


Anyway, the speculation about what could happen with 100% GPL is getting a little "wild", so I'll avoid going there. But I must say that, as a developer, I am glad I have the choice to chose a proprietary licence. Or even something truly free, like zlib or bsd.

Interesting side note: It's somewhat illustrative of my point that some companies/products (eg: Torque Network Library) use the GPL to actively restrict the usage of their code (kind of like a "demo version"), rather than for any ideals about freedom.

[yossarian]

It's not simply a case of Microsoft winning in the market though. It's a case of Microsoft creating a monopoly for itself by many means, including directly killing competitors using their higher capital resources. Buying up competitors and trashing their product. Slash and burn software development.

It would be different if there was competition. But with no competition, how can we say that Microsoft actually won the market? They got an early lead because IBM was shortsighted, and are still today milking every last ounce out of this early lead.

NeXTSTEP wasn't an Apple creation. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple in 1986, and then created a new company to develop NeXT. In 1995 Steve Jobs sold NeXT to Apple, and then in 1997 returned as CEO.

In terms of innovation, you're right, the only innovation Microsoft did was their extensive backward compatibility. This was entirely to preserve their monopoly, since they wanted to leverage past monopoly into future monopoly. This also was a service to their current customers who wanted to use DOS software on all versions of Windows. So early MS adopters would benefit. It's a stretch to say that developers would benefit though, since this backwards compatibility locks developers into ancient tools and proprietary features. If DOS1 had a bug, that bug must be preserved in Windows Vista 2007 to ensure backward compatibility with all programs who may have used the bug. This makes holding on to software more cost effective than creating new software, causing stagnation in innovation.

This means that creating new software becomes more and more expensive with every new release of windows, and a large portion of software jobs go into maintaining and expanding onto ancient software and therefore working with ancient tools. These jobs, under different conditions, would instead go directly towards innovation. That is the hidden cost of Microsoft monopoly which is often not accounted for and certainly hasn't been internalized by Microsoft. (Indeed, the opposite is true. The costs are passed on to the rest of economy. Mainly end users in this case who have to pay way more for software.)

This is what people refer to as the software darkage. It's an age where processors were doubling their transistors every 18 months and yet software performance (the user experience) was getting progressively worse. The proportion of failed development projects went UP rather than down. That isn't progress!

As complexity increases over time, developers should use more sophisticated tools. But Microsoft had no incentive to create or support more sophisticated tools because that would threaten backwards compatibility and therefore threaten the Microsoft monopoly. So not only did they "not" support them, they actively went out and tried to kill them.

Innovation kills corporations because corporations don't innovate. Since corporations can't themselves innovate, any outside innovation is a threat that must be killed at all costs. And so that's what MS did.

Now that web technologies (something MS has failed to extend its monopoly into) are becoming sophisticated, the web is becoming the new platform and we are finally being freed from Windows. We are emerging from the dark age and can use more sophisticated tools to create more sophisticated software. That's what Google is all about. Writely has managed to recover a huge portion of Word functionality and make the entire program available through the web. They did this in about 2 years. Microsoft has been working on Word for over 15 years.

Apple releases significant OS upgrades every year, Microsoft takes 6 years to develop Vista which is hardly an improvement and breaks more than it fixes.

Google essentially represents the death of Microsoft because Google is a clear symbol that the monopoly has been transcended. We didn't transcend it by creating a new OS though, we transcended Microsoft by moving the OS off-site. Windows is so horrible that everyone (users and developers) would rather use an online OS than Windows. Many people literally use Windows entirely to run Firefox now, and then use Firefox to run all their applications. Windows has become a massive, glorified, market saturated UI.

Anyway this is totally tangential, but it does say something about the polarity of a company when they'd rather kill a new technology than let it come to fruition.

Of course we are all free people, including the entity known as Microsoft, and so we have the God-given right to induce whatever pain we feel we should induce.

[Baltar]

Originally Posted by Andrew Russell

It's not a case of Microsoft "demanding" the use of C++. It's simply a fact that Microsoft used C for their API (a decision no doubt based on the popularity of C at the time, thanks to Unix) and that API then became popular due to its openness.

Indeed, Microsoft used C because part of the OS was written in it (the parts not written in assembler), and because of the popularity C enjoyed. This decision is something that Microsoft has probably been kicking themselves for ever since. Why? Because they don't control C/C++. People who write code in those languages can technically port it to other platforms. This is why Microsoft created Visual Basic and eventually .NET and C#, the latter being an attempt to replace C/C++ and Java with their own proprietary language. They would much prefer that people use their proprietary Windows-only tools instead of something as open and ubiquitous as C/C++ or Java, because the last thing they want is people developing for an OS other than Windows.

Originally Posted by yossarian

Google essentially represents the death of Microsoft because Google is a clear symbol that the monopoly has been transcended. We didn't transcend it by creating a new OS though, we transcended Microsoft by moving the OS off-site. Windows is so horrible that everyone (users and developers) would rather use an online OS than Windows. Many people literally use Windows entirely to run Firefox now, and then use Firefox to run all their applications. Windows has become a massive, glorified, market saturated UI.

Personally I don't see this happening any time soon. I have broadband (some 5+ mbit downstream) and I absolutely hate using web browser based applications. I don't see thin-client solutions taking over the world any time soon. This would require a complete overhaul of the internet infrastructure. Google may be up to something in this regard, because they've been buying up dark fiber all over the place. We'll have to wait and see what it all leads to.

[radeldudel]

yossarian, you got a lot of opinions there that one could either share or deny, as one is inclined, but at least one sentence must be definitely untrue:

Originally Posted by yossarian

Windows is so horrible that everyone (users and developers) would rather use an online OS than Windows.

This must be untrue since 'everyone' would include me, and I like windows, especially Vista, and with .NET 3.0 (WPF,WCF,...) I absolutely love to program it, and am really happy to earn my money using this programming environment (self-employment is wonderful).

So 'everyone hates windows' must obviously be untrue

Love you!
--
I think Microsoft-bashing is such a popular sports because with such a big target you can't miss!

[Baltar]

Originally Posted by radeldudel

This must be untrue since 'everyone' would include me, and I like windows, especially Vista, and with .NET 3.0 (WPF,WCF,...) I absolutely love to program it, and am really happy to earn my money using this programming environment (self-employment is wonderful).

Next time you open up Visual Studio, think about the fact that this is the CEO of the company you're rooting for. Or perhaps you were taken in by his charming "developers" chant?

[Holistic Star]

Originally Posted by Andrew Russell

I'd have to ask someone who actually works there, but my thought is that they do spend the majority their time thinking "what would be most awesome for everyone" rather than "what would get us the most profit". Making MS (and BG?) a light company.

I worked at Microsoft in the UK for 4.5 years between 2000 and 2004 - so ask away.... (although don't ask anything technical, I worked in sales support and marketing support!)

A brief summary: The first 3.5 years of my job I loved it there. We had as much training as we wanted, including some excellent personal development courses which have stood me in good stead for life. I managed a large morale budget for my team which I could spend to keep them happy. There were huge amounts of energy and positivity in my team and the feeling that anything was possible. And yes there was a feeling that if you wanted to try something new you could and if you succeeded it would be cool.

Now this could be either dark or light motivation - afterall, if you have happy workers that you invest in then they work harder to make a profit. Intention is all and we can't know that from a distance even when you are there.

Incidently, my last year there was hell. I went from loving my job to hating it. We had a lot of people move to work there from a rival company and the culture changed completely, it became very political and I wasn't the only one in my team depressed by the changes. I doubt billg was aware of this!

I can't speak for what happened between 2004 and today. All I can say is that it was a very exciting time, I learned a lot but I wouldn't go back!

[yossarian]

Originally Posted by radeldudel

yossarian, you got a lot of opinions there that one could either share or deny, as one is inclined, but at least one sentence must be definitely untrue:



This must be untrue since 'everyone' would include me, and I like windows, especially Vista, and with .NET 3.0 (WPF,WCF,...) I absolutely love to program it, and am really happy to earn my money using this programming environment (self-employment is wonderful).

So 'everyone hates windows' must obviously be untrue

Love you!
--
I think Microsoft-bashing is such a popular sports because with such a big target you can't miss!

First let me say, I take no pleasure in hitting.

Secondly, I'm glad you enjoy win programming. I wish I enjoyed Windows programming, God knows i'd be more useful than I am

I have used .NET a lot and it is clearly an improvement over previous Windows. There is no doubt there. I've been using .NET since it was brand new actually, both on the web with ASP.NET (.aspx) and on the desktop with Visual Basic.NET.

I am positive that there are many good people working at Microsoft, talented people that make quality software. Office is a good piece of software, though not innovative. .NET is definitely something the designers can be proud of.

But these are only good within their scope. From a wider perspective, these are actually quite limited by the overarching Microsoft decisions.

My point is not that people actually actually feel hatred towards Windows. Rather, a whole lot of people's productivity has migrated off of Windows onto web services. A typical person these days uses Windows only as a shell to run Firefox or IE - and so the "true" OS is not Windows at all - Windows becomes just the interface to web services. Google right now is dealing with tons of applications that duplicate and improve on Windows functionality, and move the features online causing Microsoft to lose control over the Google developers.

When I actually use application critical software myself I use my Mac because the user experience is so much better on a Mac. It does place a few restrictions on the developers, but it also has many powerful tools that benefit the developer a lot in ways that are impossible to do on Windows. The end user also benefits from these greatly.

These days there aren't a lot of advantages to programming on Windows, but there are numerous disadvantages. We'll see how it goes I guess. Personally I see a trend towards more powerful languages and a loss of MS control over software. This can only mean good things for the industry and the public.

I posted this running Firefox on WinXP on my PC. I'd be using Mac OS X though if I could install it on my custom hardware. (Which you can hack apparently but I'm not one for jumping through hoops when Firefox works almost as good in Windows.)

[yossarian]

Originally Posted by Baltar

Personally I don't see this happening any time soon. I have broadband (some 5+ mbit downstream) and I absolutely hate using web browser based applications. I don't see thin-client solutions taking over the world any time soon. This would require a complete overhaul of the internet infrastructure. Google may be up to something in this regard, because they've been buying up dark fiber all over the place. We'll have to wait and see what it all leads to.

The web is extremely inefficient right now compared to its potential. We are coming up on a revolution in terms of access to information. The arpanet was designed for one thing, and the WWW was designed for another. Today we use the web in ways that don't benefit from these specific designs.

Some call the next step "dissemination based" networking. Basically though there is a lot of duplicated effort and wasted energy in our current network setup, and a lot can be eliminated with some powerful paradigm shifts.

Check out this Google lecture if you're interested. It's very well done IMO.

A New Way to look at Networking - Google Video

[radeldudel]

Originally Posted by Baltar

Next time you open up Visual Studio, think about the fact that this is the CEO of the company you're rooting for. Or perhaps you were taken in by his charming "developers" chant?

*grin* yeah, I already knew - I love it when people are compassionate about what they do, even and especially if they have no fear of showing it very vivid

But I don't use VS because of him. I just use it because it suits my needs very well.

Love You!

[Andrew Russell]

Originally Posted by yossarian

This means that creating new software becomes more and more expensive with every new release of windows, and a large portion of software jobs go into maintaining and expanding onto ancient software and therefore working with ancient tools.

I think that, somehow, you've got all the info right but landed at the wrong conclusion. Windows maintains backwards compatibility very well. Thus less time is spent re-writing old software for new APIs (ie: maintenance). Thus more time can be spent creating new features (ie: innovation).


Baltar: Yes, Ballmer is a raving lunatic. But he's 100% right about "Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers". Dark or light, Microsoft cares a great deal about developers - which is why Windows is so successful.

There are a lot of arguments since my last post that are, well, nonsense. It seems there are plenty of myths and assumptions that Microsoft does everything for themselves and to damage everyone else. For instance, Microsoft didn't make .NET and C# to somehow force developers to lock into a language for only their platform. They made it to give developers a fantastic platform. They even standardised it to allow and encourage it to be ported to other platforms, because that's what developers wanted.


On the same point that radeldudel took issue with - It's not a case of Windows being "so horrible" that everyone wants to work online. It's simply that online software has some major benefits over thick-client software (for a certian selection of applications). This would be the same with any operating system and it doesn't automatically make Windows "horrible". It would be more fair to compare Windows with Mac or Linux.

Originally Posted by yossarian

it also has many powerful tools that benefit the developer a lot in ways that are impossible to do on Windows.

Not being an Apple developer myself, I'd really like you to list those benefits that Apple gives you as a developer? I do find it hard to believe that you could beat Visual Studio (particularly seeing as you can get its components for free). What does it look like on the API front?

[Mayo]

If Gates had become lightworker he would finance ANONYMOUSLY around the world:

-Medical Schools
-Engineering & IT schools
-hospitals with most recent tech and with best specialists that got schooling in one of his Md. schools
-entrepreneurship centers that teach kids how to develop local small businesses that will fuel the local economy
-communal infrastructure: electricity, potable water, broadband IT infrastructure (even as a corporative profit co. he would do much good there)
-....

He would not be charity, he would be local community DEVELOPER - and believe me those are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS...

About Buffet he is The Miser - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, he's so cheap he is really miserable... money.. money.. money.., also i saw about his niece on Oprah who works as a house keeper for another rich family... (^_^) ... a Buffet that works as a house assistant(servant)... LOL
Buffet & Gates are nothing different than Rothschild, Rockefeller, etc... well Rothschild's are at least a coherent family if nothing else... they were DARK-darkworkers for centuries.

[Adrienne]

Originally Posted by Mayo

About Buffet he is The Miser - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, he's so cheap he is really miserable... money.. money.. money.., also i saw about his niece on Oprah who works as a house keeper for another rich family... (^_^) ... a Buffet that works as a house assistant(servant)... LOL

So, you think that if a parent or grandparent has money it is their job to give said money to kids instead of allowing them to be self sustaining?
I have no idea how cheap he is or not. But, what i do know is kids have to make their way in the world just as the people who make money do as well. You give kids the tools and they will do as they will. Some dont want to take the opportunity, some dont want to work hard, some dont want the responsibility or whatever. As to his niece.. Maybe she likes it, or maybe she doesn't, but the consequences of her actions have been such that ended up as a housekeeper. If she wanted to change that, the power is with her and no on someone just handing her money..

This always hits a cord with me. I am told I am still a baby all the time when people find out how old I am… early 20s). I never got a penny from relatives. I worked my ass off for years working 90 plus hours a week since I was 15, going to school, working, and I always made time for volunteering. Years of hard work later, I have a pretty kick butt investment portfolio, and I make decent money and I have a business that is starting to thrive. I have some long term business plans that I hope will go a long way to improve the state of the world. Now, I still work 90 hours a week, but it is working on my business and volunteering that takes up that time. (Finished with school, YIPPEE). I have relatives who would love for me to just pay for them since I have the money and they don’t. They take vacations and spend a ton, but they look at me that I should just give them money (since from their perspective, i have money and they dont) when they cant even hold a job. And it is my fault because I wont just pay for them. They drive nicer cars, live in more expensive places, don’t make any money, and don’t keep a job. I have had people accuse me of similar things, not helping family. I wont support someone being a leach on society. If they showed an ounce of wanting to improve their life, go to school, or even if they wanted to volunteer their time full time to worthy causes, I would stand behind them 1000 percent and help them even financially as much as I could.


Adrienne

[Baltar]

Originally Posted by Andrew Russell

Baltar: Yes, Ballmer is a raving lunatic. But he's 100% right about "Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers". Dark or light, Microsoft cares a great deal about developers - which is why Windows is so successful.

This is certainly true. Microsoft does want people to make software for Windows, so they do try to make good development tools. Don't confuse this with caring about people though. They're doing this because it's good for them.

Originally Posted by Andrew Russell

There are a lot of arguments since my last post that are, well, nonsense. It seems there are plenty of myths and assumptions that Microsoft does everything for themselves and to damage everyone else. For instance, Microsoft didn't make .NET and C# to somehow force developers to lock into a language for only their platform. They made it to give developers a fantastic platform. They even standardised it to allow and encourage it to be ported to other platforms, because that's what developers wanted.

Don't be so quick to assume that Microsoft's intentions aren't to lock people into making Windows software. Below is a nice quote from Wikipedia about Microsoft Vendor Lock-in. This isn't mere speculation, it's a direct quote by a Microsoft executive. And by the way, Microsoft's own portable .NET implementation is not very suitable for development and distribution (its license forbids commercial use, and it supports only two non-Windows platforms out of the box). It was Novell/Ximian that created a usable cross-platform (five platforms + Windows supported) .NET implementation called Mono.

In an internal memo for senior management Microsoft's head of C++ development, Aaron Contorer, stated:

The Windows API is so broad, so deep, and so functional that most Independent Software Vendors would be crazy not to use it. And it is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system instead... It is this switching cost that has given the customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO [total cost of ownership], our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties [...] Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, [but] it would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move. In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago.

[Mayo]

@ Adrienne "You give kids the tools and they will do as they will."

My question what has Buffet tought his sons and daughters who produced such a child that chose an option to work as a servant (she has i think major in arts..).

If you have a son or niece and you have say 100MM$US in your bank account wouldn't you invest in her business education and seed money so she could start a business.

Tell me what is easier: to start of poor and no education and suceed, or start with seed capital and good education and succeed??

If everyone is quoting Buffet and Gates can do you think they started poor????!!!!!
No way Hose !! Buffets old man was a senator, his family was already MM, same thing with Gates -- senators, CEO's (chairwoman of United Way International -- Mary Maxwell Gates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) ..... They could buy little Billy mainframe if they wanted that would translated in today money cost cca. 500K-1MM$US, and i am sure they did... LOL (^_^)

BTW Adrienne(regarding business): go for it!! (^_^)

[Mayo]

Oh i forgot,

Bill Gates is only one thing: a great salesman and great CEO like Buffet is, Bill actually bought DOS system, he had not developed nothing.. Windows system was bought (ripped) of from Xerox PARC programmers,... he is not a programmer and never was, he was and is a business leader(disguised in sheep clothing ) who was pretty good tutored by his mother and his relatives on how to shark around business ventures,...

A really true Darkworker! (^_^)

[Adrienne]

Originally Posted by Mayo

@ Adrienne "You give kids the tools and they will do as they will."

My question what has Buffet tought his sons and daughters who produced such a child that chose an option to work as a servant (she has i think major in arts..).

If you have a son or niece and you have say 100MM$US in your bank account wouldn't you invest in her business education and seed money so she could start a business.

Tell me what is easier: to start of poor and no education and suceed, or start with seed capital and good education and succeed??

If everyone is quoting Buffet and Gates can do you think they started poor????!!!!!
No way Hose !! Buffets old man was a senator, his family was already MM, same thing with Gates -- senators, CEO's (chairwoman of United Way International -- Mary Maxwell Gates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) ..... They could buy little Billy mainframe if they wanted that would translated in today money cost cca. 500K-1MM$US, and i am sure they did... LOL (^_^)

BTW Adrienne(regarding business): go for it!! (^_^)

What’s wrong with someone being a servant, if that is what she wants? Maybe she likes that so she can work on her art? Maybe she sees it as a way to understand things from a different perspective. Maybe it is her way of objecting to the way rich society lives. Who knows?
You right in the fact that if she wanted to do something different with her life she should have the opportunity to do such. But regardless of her uncle/grandparents or anyone is, she can do it none the less. Sure it could be easier for her, but maybe not.

You would think that it would be the rich well to do kids that would grow up and do the amazing things. And some do and some don’t. Just as some kids who are very poor grow up to do great things and some don’t. I have not been a rich kid this life, so I cant speak from experience, but they might have their own set of trials and tribulations that we know nothing of. Perhaps the very trials and tribulations that less well to do kids go thru is what makes them want to rise up and be great. I know a lot of what I went thru as a kid grew my character and set my values. Maybe if I was not maybe I would have turned out differently.. I don’t know. I would like to think I would have gotten an even earlier start on my goals. But there is something to be said for growing up and earning your own way instead of always knowing you had a safety net.

And thanks Mayo for the business wishes! I wish you the same in your ventures

Adrienne

[yossarian]

Originally Posted by Andrew Russell

I think that, somehow, you've got all the info right but landed at the wrong conclusion. Windows maintains backwards compatibility very well. Thus less time is spent re-writing old software for new APIs (ie: maintenance). Thus more time can be spent creating new features (ie: innovation).

What you're missing is that it locks developers into ancient tools, ancient bugs, and ancient platforms, and therefore locks users into a mediocre experience.

Apple has higher standards for its developers which is why the user experience is superior.

For a lightworker, the point of the software industry would be to serve consumers and give them the best possible experience.

For a darkworker, the point of the software industry would be to make as much profit as possible for as long as possible at any cost.

Windows has shattered consumer confidence in software. People use Windows not because they like the apps they get but because there is no alternative.

On the same point that radeldudel took issue with - It's not a case of Windows being "so horrible" that everyone wants to work online. It's simply that online software has some major benefits over thick-client software (for a certian selection of applications). This would be the same with any operating system and it doesn't automatically make Windows "horrible". It would be more fair to compare Windows with Mac or Linux.

Thick client applications are hamstrung from the very beginning when they develop on Windows (or Java for that matter) because the tools are so incredibly primitive. How many failed software projects have there been on Windows? .NET is primitive compared to what they were using in the 70 and 80s at MIT, or compared to what the NeXTSTEP allowed.

People only think .NET is good because they live in a Windows-world and have no idea that there is anything else out there. I mean to typical programmers the only other alternative is Java, and why is Java popular? Because Sun hated Microsoft (this time it's literal) so much that they decided to suicide their business in an attempt to dethrone MS. Of course Java is a piece of crap! That's what you get when you create a language intended to hurt Microsoft rather than a language intended to be useful to humanity.

Why do normal developers write Windows software? Because the users are all using Windows.

Why do users use Windows? Because the developers of killer apps write exclusively for Windows.

Why do killer-app devs write exclusively for Windows? Because Microsoft uses it vast capital resources to ensure this. What they can't beat they buy, what they can't buy they destroy.

It's vicious arm-twisting that Microsoft has based its entire business on.

The "Developers! Developers! Developers!" chant isn't something to benefit society. The chant is Microsoft corporate strategy because they know that controlling developers is the key to their monopoly.

Not being an Apple developer myself, I'd really like you to list those benefits that Apple gives you as a developer? I do find it hard to believe that you could beat Visual Studio (particularly seeing as you can get its components for free). What does it look like on the API front?

Apple has bugfree and powerful interaction with OS features. It also has OS features that are simply unheard of in the Windows world. Cocoa, Automator, Spotlight.. a consistent and productive look and feel. A seamless user experience. Access to all the powerful Unix tools that Windows devs are barred from using.

Of course the downside to Apple is that the hardware is premium and therefore expensive. So you give up some hardware freedom but gain superior software. For most uses this is a worthwhile tradeoff. For some things, like games for instances, this still isn't worth it since you need bleeding edge hardware.

The Microsoft world is useful for some things, but only the things that contribute to their OS monopoly. The Apple world is useful for some things, but only the things that contribute to selling more Apple hardware.

This is why, at heart, I wish we'd all write open source. So we could benefit everyone instead of just the specific people that Apple and MS allow us to benefit. Or in the case of Java, the specific people that Sun allows us to hurt, since Java was invented to hurt not create.

The benefit of web services is that you can write your software on whatever platform you want. If monopolistic control is removed from Microsoft, companies may actually start to compete on quality which would result in a great benefit to humanity.

[radeldudel]

It's a pity this thread is deteriorating into a typical 'my OS is better than your OS' fight.

On the other hand, I think we already agreed that you can't tell if someone is dark or lightworker by their actions, so this thread seems finished anyway.

Love You!

[Michael Chui]

Actually, I think they're pissing over whether or not their OS is a lightworker or darkworker. It's kind of like an atheist versus theist fight. "Your God is a darkworker!" "No, your belief is a darkworker!" I enjoy it far too much, though; it's simply too easy to relish being able to say, "You're all wrong!" and fall into the trap myself.

"No, your operating system is a darkworker!"

[yossarian]

So is the peanut gallery made up of lightworkers or darkworkers?

No one can ever know, but I think it remains instructive to take a look at results of actions, so that neophytes of either side can further cultivate their specific polarity and ensure they are having the effects they intend.

[Michael Chui]

Nah, the peanut gallery is a darkworker!

[John Wesley]

Dark. Definitely. I think you'll find most famous people are extremely dark. Most adults become almost self-less at a certain age, but some highly talented people maintain a strong individual identity their whole lives.

[Yukio]

Originally Posted by Developer

One might assume he is a darkworker, having become the world's richest man as founder of a monopolist company, crushing all competition with ethically dubious actions and retarding the development of the computing industry.

On the other hand, one could argue that he is a lightworker, as his foundation is doing some excellent work improving people's lives in parts of the world where computers are irrelevant compared to basic needs like food, clean water, and medicine.

What are your thoughts?

This is a question to think about ... Does anyone remember the early days of Microsoft? Like the Microsoft MS-DOS and IBM PC-DOS?

What's about MSX !?

And the later OS/2? What happened to IBM OS/2 Warp !? Later IBM sold the Personal Computer division ...

[Yukio]

MS-DOS =/= PC-DOS
MSX-DOS =/= CP/M
Windows 95 =/= OS/2 Warp

It is weird that some companies are now considered "out of business" ... Well, bad market would be "bad market".

The sad thing is that with "compatible" operating systems , there was a second or third supply!