Bill Gates is coming to your living room, whether you like it or not. Read the interview here.
Gates taking a seat in your den
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2005/01/05/fi…
Hmmm intersting :
“During a demonstration of digital photography with a soon-to-be-released Nikon camera, a Windows Media Center PC froze and wouldn’t respond to Gates’ pushing of the remote control.
Later in the 90-minute presentation, a product manager demonstrated the ostensible user-friendliness of a video game expected to hit retail stores in April, Forza Motor Sport. But instead of configuring a custom-designed race car, the computer monitor displayed the dreaded “blue screen of death” and warned, “out of system memory.”
The errors — which came during what’s usually an ode to Microsoft’s dominance of the software industry and its increasing control of consumer electronics — prompted the celebrity host, NBC comedian Conan O’Brien, to quip, “Who’s in charge of Microsoft, anyway?”
Gates, who was sitting next to O’Brien on a set staged to look like NBC’s Late Night set, smiled dryly and continued with his discussion.”
I’m going to get my red book, acording to Gates:)
???
And this debate will always be there. I’d be the first to say that the patent system can always be tuned–including the U.S. patent system. There are some goals to cap some reform elements. But the idea that the United States has led in creating companies, creating jobs, because we’ve had the best intellectual-property system–there’s no doubt about that in my mind, and when people say they want to be the most competitive economy, they’ve got to have the incentive system. Intellectual property is the incentive system for the products of the future.
U.S. patent and IP system wasn’t the best. U.S. was just lucky that only few people were enforcing them in court. In these last days this is becoming daily fashion and courts are full of cases like that. I’d say that economy like that is striving to its own breakdown and technological stop. (when paper patent becomes worth more than implementation, people stop inveting and making, they start imagining things and put them on patent portfolio. Worth is the same. Workinng and earning or patenting and suing)
And Gates is the one to talk about paptents and IP rights??? Hell, put Jack the Ripper for the judge and jury then.
[example #1]
Patenting virtual desktops #20030189597 in 2004????
http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1077781268.html
[example #2]
The Tab patent, number 6,785,865
Inventing TAB use in 1997????
[example #3]
Patent No. 6,754,472
Inventing wearable devices in 2004????
There are more but, I just had a quick review what I could remeber without searching trough patents
And they had so much bad taste to sign their own people as inventors in this patent portfolio???
I’d rather live without any multimedia device than having Bill Gates in my living room.
Especially after this little gem hidden in the interview.
When asked about efforts to reform intellecutal property rights and if he thought a reform was neede he answered:
“No, I’d say that of the world’s economies, there’s more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don’t think that those incentives should exist.”
Amazing, I wasn’t aware that I’m a communist for thinking that something like the amazon one-click patent is bad idea, but if Billyboy says so:
Arise ye workers starvelings from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want…
>>Well, no one invests more in security of their browser than what we do on IE.<<
Of course Mozilla didn’t have to spend millions patching holes in software that was flawed from the very concept.(activeX) I remember reading about potentional holes in the Active X design years ago. The past few years people saw coming.
>>here are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises.<<
All FOSS users are Communists. That’s right people who don’t believe in MSFT patents, are communists and we know what to do with Commies right people.
Well guess Bill what musicians and moviemakers are protected under copyright law, not Patent Law. Items under patent law CAN’T be reversed engineered making software compatiblity impossible. Then again MSFT was never big on being ‘compatible’ with others.
if anyone is coming to my living room its going to be steve jobs
no ms products in my home (don’t like them)
microsoft free since 1993
Wow, that really angers me. I think Mr. Gates really must be a college dropout, and high school as well. He doesn’t seem to understand that patents are not a part of capitalism, and actually create a short period of monopoly (capitalisms worst enemy) to repay someone for their work.
But this is the guy who told hobbyists they were crooks for not paying $19.95 for software that he spent two weeks working on.
Sometimes I’d really love to sit down with one of these “smart” people like Mr. Gates and set them straight. I’m sure he knows he’s wrong though, he’s probably saying things for the press and to make his psycho Window-lubber fans happy.
I have to wonder how most of you would react if the artical raid Steve Jobs is coming to your living room insted of Bill Gates?
Would there be so much backlash on this thread or would be find it as being another great idea like iPod or iTunes or whatever Apple seems to. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me but i’m kinda tired of all the automatic bashing that goes one whenver some artical has MS or Gates in it.
Just use what you want to use and move on already. This is getting old.
They were designed, in this country, to not only reward the designer, but to give him incentive to show people how he did what he did. Patents are open Mr. Gates; let’s see your source so we can copy it in 20 years. Wait, that’s a little long isn’t it. We’d be copying like DOS 2 now…
Software patents, lately, have simply been obvious though. Just plain obvious…
<<I don’t know, maybe it’s just me but i’m kinda tired of all the automatic bashing that goes one whenver some artical has MS or Gates in it.>>
Maybe you should actually read the article. Do you agree with Bill Gate’s ideas of patents and communism?
If Steve J, made the same comments, you bet people would have the same reaction.
Do patent-loving capitalists ever tire of the ol’ red scare?
Watch out for those reds. They’ll take all the incentive out of your work. They’re boogie men, I tell ya.
Does anyone recognize when the boy cries wolf anymore?
I mean how many times has Dubya and his Homeland Security Department gave us terror warnings that didn’t result in any terrorism or captured terrorists?
How many times has Gates tried to scare you away from the GPL and GNU software because he’s trying to protect you from all this evil free stuff?
When will you think for yourself and recognize who these people really are? They’re selfish capitalists who only really care about your money. They don’t care if you have enough to survive, but they’ll be happy to take what little you have to line their pocket books.
Communists don’t like this class system. They’d rather you didn’t need money to survive. They’d rather give you everything you want and need and hope that with a little education you will produce something good for them and everyone else. Its about taking care of eachother, not some mythical economy.
Economics is simple. Its all supply and demand. The goal is to make enough supply to meet demand. With all this technology there’s no excuse why people have to do without. No excuse except greed.
I agree with part of what your saying. To get into the “holy OS wars” on ever MS post is silly.
But, you have to admit, Gates is inflammatory. I’m not an MS fan, and I don’t use it at home other than a game box. But I don’t care much about what they are up to. But I am amazed that MS stockholders don’t put make some effort to keep him in the background. He is one of the most inflammatory and hated leaders in business.
OpenSource is like Cancer? Being against Patent law is Communist? What’s his encore?
-b
i don’t know if it’s my fault, but Gates is very boring, he better not talk anymore…
It’s not whether Gates is smart or not — he’s just a talking head that says whatever he thinks will increase MS marketshare and profits.
Think he lost all credibility with this one. He’s obviously an idiot. And he must have changed his mind since 1991. Perhaps he was a communist back then. The fall of the iron curtain made him change;)
“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.”
Bill Gates (1991)
On the contrary, exactly what he said in 91.
I just googled for the quote and there is a second sentence:
“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. The solution … is patenting as much as we can … A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.”
http://gnu.open-mirror.com/philosophy/guardian-article.html
I’m just disappointed that Conan O’Brien chose to do this little lame sit-down.
As far as comparing presentational style goes: I would take Steve Jobs over Bill Gates everyday of the week, and twice on sunday
Hehe! The anti-patent cite where I found the quote must be the real idiots for excluding the second sentence then:)
“Its because its Microsoft. The trolls will come out of hiding and bitch about MS. Dont want Bill in your den? No big deal. I for one dont want any silly penguins in mine.”
No it’s because it’s software patents. I want to be able to chose what’s in my den. And I want my Windows box to work with my whatever. For that to be possible we need open standards and or an army of reverse engineers. Not software patents!
Microsoft has been saying this same line for the last dozen or so CES shows. It still isn’t there. And this time the demos even froze and bluescreened.
Those against ‘the penguin’ in their living room may well be shocked to know that a fair portion of digital stbs run embedded linux. Without bluescreens. Oh the horror.
Nuf said.
This is great, by boy Bill is coming over to chill in my living room.
Careful there, chilling in your living room will be patented in no time.
not mine either, sometimes i get tired of TV advertising and come close to removing my TV all together, TV advertising is as bad as email spam now…
if it was not for local news & weather i sure would get rid of my TV…
You might agree with him or you might not. Personally, I don’t agree with him about everything while I do about other things.
However, writing about “Bill Gates coming to your living room, weather you like it or not” while original article speaks about many other serious things is really… hmmm.. depressing. If you are able to make comments about what he said, do that. If you’re not… well…
Oh, and about patents: we should start trying to think about how to counteract that instead of simply yelling that it’s not fair and trying to avoid it. We know that stricter patents rule will be approved so it’s a matter of “when”, not “if”. And please, also note that reverse engineering is PERFECTLY legal in EU when it’s aimed to achieve interoperability…
As I am a communist, I didn’t get really angry about he calling others communists (would hope !) and to me that only shows what we knew: he didn’t always have great ideas…
President Bush,’Either you are with us, or you are not’
Now Bill Gates,’Either you support patents or you are a communist’
This is not biased but simply the undertitle of the original article.
That old saying is totally against what Bully Boy Bill wants. The more you go towards a life dominated by one company you are reducing choice. Choice is what evolution is all about. Some choices in the evolutionary tree turn out to be no so good and end up a dead end. This is where I see MobsterSoft going. The more they strive to be the “be all and end all” of Computing, Home Entertainment etc etc etc, the less they will be able to do anything properly. But hey, we have bought into the lifestyle so we will just have to live with it.
Not me comrade.
I am not a communist(I own shares, property etc) but I have read the works of Karl Marx. I wonder home many people who talk about communists actually know what one is? But that is OT.
Let him try to dominate everything. This will spur others to innovate better and make his dreams just that.
Keep on talking Billy Boy and keep on putting your foot in your grinning mouth.
my 0.02sum worth.
Didn’t noticed that. So I’m sorry for what I said about the title of this post as it’s part of being wise to admit you did a mistake. I did a mistake and my remark about the title should be then addressed to publisher of original article.
However, people here could have extended that in a better way…
When i got my kid’s they will never use XBOX >:)
That is for sure !!!
In a way, the FOSS community IS communistic. People work for the good of the community and their own personal satisfaction.
A fundamental difference between FOSS and the well-known communistic governments is FOSS is entirely voluntary. It’s bringing balance back to a woefully out of balance market. One might even argue that it is a capitalistic market’s response to monopolistic behavior. I would, but that doesn’t make it true.
nor in my bathroom, my bedroom, my kitchen, my cellar, my yard, nowhere in sight in fact.
@ mark
Steve Jobs mentionned that he’s not interested in PCs in the living room. And that they’ve been a failure sales-wise.
DiVX/Xvid DVD players: That’s what is new in my living room.
I don’t need a noisy PC in there. God knows I have too many cables lying around already in my living.
I have to wonder how most of you would react if the artical raid Steve Jobs is coming to your living room insted of Bill Gates?
In other words, would I want to jump into a swimming pool filled with thumbtacks, or stick my nostrils together with crazy glue? (kthnxweirdal)
I see Steve Jobs as being the lesser of two evils, though not that much less evil. Just look at the iPod – Apple wants to dictate to its customers what they can and can’t play on their iPods, and released a firmware update that purposely locked out a non-Apple codec. So, do I want Steve in my living room? Hell no. Both Steve and Bill can kiss my white ass.
Maybe you should actually read the article. Do you agree with Bill Gate’s ideas of patents and communism?
Well, if you are a person who demands that all software must be open source, then yeah … you are pretty much a communist. If you insist that people code something and then give it away, what does that make you if not a communist? If I build a badass word processor and sell a copy for $100, if the person who bought it is able to do anything they want with it, then my profit is basically $100, since he could now just give it to whoever he wants. I’m sorry, but that’s not capitalism.
Gates is NOT coming to my living room, wether he wanted or not.
Thankyouverymuch, My choice is Apple Computers and PC-mediapc’s with Freevo+Linux.
Um Apple could of used the DMCA to sue Real into oblivion for that stunt. Instead they quietly updated the ipods, and annouced months later that it was done. Apple said Harmony didn’t work anymore in December, yet the last ipod update took place in October. Not to many people noticed.
Now I am personally of the stance that Apple will have to license their DRM to both hardware nd other music stores soon.
I figure they will do so by the time they hit 500 million downloads. Also note iTunes is the only cross platform music store. The rest REQIURE IE. IE is in the news weekly for yet anoter exploit.
Now if Apple was king of all computers the yes Steve jobs would be just as bad. Apple isn’t the kind of company though that can be there.
I’m going from Xbox to PS3 in 2006.
Nevermind Gates or Jobs, I need a den, period.
Do communists got dens?
Not to mine, he’s not! I deal with corporate monopolistic trespassers very harshly!
“if anyone is coming to my living room its going to be steve jobs”
You can have him. I’ll take Evangeline Lily.
“Microsoft will also work with television outlets like the Discovery Channel and MTV Networks to create tools for delivering content, as well as advertising, into the home.”
This sounds very familar to the plot of the Anti-Trust movie.
I’ll stick to my home brewd media devices thankyou very much.
Linus and Stallman are way more fun to chill with in my pad then some nerdy short dude with cash.
Nevermind Gates or Jobs, I need a den, period.
Do communists got dens?
In communist FOSSia the dens get you !
If you enter into you communist den your DNA-code will be automatically open sourced allowing others to fork your code resulting in so many clones of yourself you will ultimately die or never get any market share.
Remember GNU = war , Licenses = Freedom and we’ve always been at war with those communist hippies.
Sounds like Gates’s (and the **AA’s) wet dream. Lock everything, DRM everything and force consumers to buy more shit that they don’t need and watch a lot of crappy ads. My guess (with the current level of consumer intelligence) is that this dream will probably come ture, although there will still be an insignificant group that will use OSS software and block ads/pirate all that crap.
I think that you all misunderstood the heading. The point is:
If you run FOSS on your media box, Bill will personally come to your den and remain sitting until you install Windows. He will also announce a hunger strike, so you better do what he says quick!!
An when he comes, where will he seat? On my Mac?
i don’t even have a TV … never mind a games console or an mp3 player or a mobile telephone … … how presumptuous of the article!
“You can have him. I’ll take Evangeline Lily.”
You can have her. I’ll take Salma Hayek.
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/01/05/bill_gates_free_cult.html
(Trackback
Yes, tell him to come to my house first. He’ll surely starve to death
. Seriously, I don’t care how bad he smells lol, sitting in my living room isn’t gonna get me to change to Windows (or go through any OS install on a media machine for that matter)!
And I thought he’d just whore patents and sue anyone who made any money and competed with him!
as above
If he offers Cheap and Quality products he may get in.
Gates is fool. He is all cashed up and stinking drunk with ego.
Apple + Linux will shut his mouth time willing.
firefox isn’t only being installed on windows systems this same is also happening on mac os x, people have safari and firefox
Gates seems like a political front-man for MS, the money people, the entertainment industry, and ultimately, the Pentagon. Patents on music or other file formats give the patent holders leverage on independent content creators and musicians via access or cost restrictions. Hitler or Stalin would have broken down the home door. Gates and Jobs simply want to make sure that independent content creators have no home for their content in the first place. The only difference is the hard sell versus the soft sell. It’s too bad Americans cant see the difference.
As posted by many above, although there is a minor amount of MS in my house, Bill is completely arrogant in assuming that IE is “still there.” How? I run Linux in my shop. No IE there, I use Firefox. Now, I have a Windows machine, also with Firefox. OK, but I DON’T use IE except for windows updates because he gives me no choice. About “hundreds” of smart people working on security, well the firefox crew has THOUSANDS of REALLY SMART people working on it.
He is a little dopey. sorry
The last MS product I used was win95 and I’m not planning on starting again. My computers are happily running OSS, and will continue to do so, and I don’t have a TV so I think I’m MS safe for now.
Nobody is going to force Bill Gates down your throat. He isn’t on your PC. He isn’t on your PDA. He isn’t on your servers. So everyone that’s whining about this should stop wasting their time and go back to whatever they were doing. Sheez.
I can’t wait until the moderators go through the reported posts in here, I for one am tired of seeing trolls have a field day every time someone or something remotely popular is mentioned on the Internet.
People have the freedom to chose, if they like Microsoft then let them use Microsoft products in peace; If they like OSS software then let them use OSS software in peace.
I use both Windows and Linux and I feel no urge to make any unfair claims towards one or the other, both have their merits but I preffer the ideals of Free software. You don’t see me flinging my fecal matter at Bill Gates every time he makes a public statement or appearance even if I don’t like monopolies.
The only thing worth saying now is thanks to those of you who were mature enough not to troll; With all the advertisements, porn, spam and other pollution already on the Internet we don’t need trolls making the problem worse.
Yeah yeah, but M$ is still a malevolent incarnation with an insatiable thirst for blood.
As a result of this, some people got soem funny ideas
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/01/06/more_gates_creative_.html
“Well, no one invests more in security of their browser than what we do on IE.”
Monetary investment in security is less important than having a correct design or architecture. Firefox has better security with less programmer effort.
“And so with auto update and IE, you’re getting the top security team and the quickest response team that there is anywhere.”
Actually, some security vulnerabilities in IE go unfixed for months. Open source software tends to have a faster responce time to security vulnerabilities than Microsoft software has.
Actually, some security vulnerabilities in IE go unfixed for months.
And some go unfixed longer then that. According to Secunia, there are still about 21 unpatched vunerabilites in IE. I guess the nickname “Internet Exploiter” is befitting of that buggy browser. No amount of spin or FUD refering to FOSS supporters as communist changes that.
What is “den” in this case? There are such many words to translate into.
Bill Gates isn’t really coming to my living room. What will come is the Blue Screen of Death.
Interesting that we really may have no choice. With all the deals MS is doing with both consumer electronics companies and cable companies, we really may not have a choice. Hell, you could have MS in your cable box.
I am all for not supporting MS, but I fear these guys are slowly lining up the pieces so we will have no choice. And although I dislike MS deeply, I do use Office which I still think is tops. But of course, I hope I have another option I am comfortable with in the next year or two.
So what do we do if you want to stay MS free?
Apple seems to think the platform is the iPod, and it stops there. They seem happy with accessories for their MP3 Player. This is not a complete digital home solution.
TiVo uses Linux and are good peeps, but their gross lack of innovation has put them behind the market. They announced that in 2006 they will have HDTV for cable, but that is late if they get it done on time, which TiVo never does.
What are the other options for average consumers? Sure, there Linux choices out there, but not for guys like me who want to spend zero time maintaining and configuring.
MS is probably going to pull this off. And I can’t believe sometime in the near future, it won’t be Bill Gates in my living room, but the blue screen of death.
Bill doesn’t understant anything about communism.
Communism is about government control of everything. ” Giving to the working classes and its delegates the control of production means” in USSR style formulation.
A Communist US govermnent would nationalize Microsoft, Microsoft employees would become public workers, Windows would be available for 1$ and the full Office Suite for 2$ to everyone ( which, IMHO, is the real price 😉 and all other OSes would be illegal as well as free development tools. Bill would be jailed, would have to do a public “autocritique” of his bad behaviour and go through political reeducation then he would get a job in a ‘kolkose’. As you see, it has some strong both negative and positive aspects.
Comparing FOSS with Communism is pointless.
FOSS political philosophy is about freedom, as a political regime it would be Anarchy ( free use, free creation as well as freedom of stealing other’s ideas ), which has also some big plus and minuses !
“Bill doesn’t understant anything about communism.
Communism is about government control of everything. ” Giving to the working classes and its delegates the control of production means” in USSR style formulation.”
Hey, this is socialism not communism. Communism comes from “community” word and free software also benefits the community.
Yes, I am a software communist and f*** Bill Gates and american imperialism.
Yes, I am a software communist and f*** Bill Gates and american imperialism.
So do you work for free? If not, why do you expect Microsoft to? If they released a new version of Office and handed out the source code with it, its value would be like $0 at that point.
>>If they released a new version of Office and handed out the source code with it, its value would be like $0 at that point.<<
Why – the value of the Microsoft Software is $0 … WHATEVER THEY DO! The price isn’t !
A faster way to get mindless humans to watch TV (with poor quality programming) all day and spend their money on the products forced to them on the commercials. This is why I don’t own a TV anymore. If prefer to keep my money under my control. The last straw was when I was watching a basketball game and could not tell where the three point line was due to the super-imposed advertising on the court.
Bill Gates is _more_ than welcome to take a seat on my couch. I’m getting it ready for him. Once he sits down it will automatically lock him there and he will get a painful zap each and every time a Windows computer gets an error, gets a virus, or gets an unwanted popup.
Windows XP is the most reliable version of Windows ever shipped. This goes into the, “Sucks less, more bloated” category.
On a further note. Bill Gates finally notced that iPods sales are doing VERY well. With this kind of insight and finger on technology he might have noticed we’ve moved past 286 based computers. No wonder MS is behind everyone else in true innovation.
Grandpa Simpson? Do you think he actually fell asleep at the end of the interview, it seemed to me like he hadn’t finished his story too 😉
After reading the interview and the comments here, I think it’s great that there’s so much interaction and activity going on via the internet in comparison to even five years ago. Open Source and Open Information, think about it…seems to me that Microsoft is loosing a lot of ground on so many fronts, previously so well protected.
They used to totally control the software market; browsers, email clients, even the desktop itself. Not any more. Suddenly OSX is touted as the “best” option, particularly for consumers, who are sick to death of viruses and breakdowns. Linux is the system of choice for hobbyists and the technicially minded along BeOS and others.
In the information war Microsoft seem to be loosing out too, people are no longer convinced they need to continuously update their software and gag at the thought of Bill’s old dream of personal “licences” for MS products, they hear the words “Anti-trust” and think of only one company, they hear of alternatives and read articles about governments backing Open Source solutions.
In the interview Gates glosses over the XBox which was/is ok, as was/is their work on PDA stuff, but is it just me? ..or do they kinda loose interest in things which exist in highly competitive markets?
And I notice Gates isn’t exactly quick to congratulate Apple for their vision (something which his company currently lacks), particularly in the music distribution market, Apple have re-launched themselves on the back of selling lossy music and turning a harddisk in a box into a fashion item!
I have an Open Source joke for Bill…
How do you eat an patent-elephant? With many forks 😉