Official: Bill Gates is 47.77 times more popular than Spawn of the Devil

[Tony]

Official study shows

 

Why do so many people hate Bill Gates?

[JoeP]

I like Bill Gates.

 

I wouldn't necessarily want to go to the poub with him, but I admire the guy. He's kept me gainfully employed for 25 years!

[DaFoot]

Why do people hate Bill?

 

Jealousy for most. Then some will blame him personally for any and all problems they've ever had with their Windows based computers (regardless of wether it is Windows at fault or not).

[SimpyTimpy]

I suppose along with Paul Allen, Bill Gates helped the desktop computer boom (I'd say started, but that wouldn't be strictly true) - so any issues people have with how the world is being shaped by computers, or the problems they have in using them are generally pointed in Bill's direction.

 

What they fail to give him credit for is the absolute revolution that Microsoft has helped create, and the world would likely be a very, very different place if he didn't start up Microsoft.

 

He really is a very important person - he's probably had as much influence over the world as any other modern day man.

[ken1]

hes held technology back for the last 20 years, selling overpriced software that doesnt work & using illegal tactics to crush any kind of competition.

 

is the short answer.

[ken1]

I like Bill Gates.

 

I wouldn't necessarily want to go to the poub with him, but I admire the guy. He's kept me gainfully employed for 25 years!

 

but you couldve been doing something useful, instead of rebooting computers & wondering 'why the hell doesnt this work?'

[..::Lear::..]

I assume the spawn of the devil is george bush

[JoeP]

but you couldve been doing something useful, instead of rebooting computers & wondering 'why the hell doesnt this work?'

 

 

Funny - I did as much as that before Microsoft as I did after.

 

I could have done REALLY useful stuff, like re-written every program to run on slight variations of operating systems, which si what tended to happen in my early years as a developer.

 

Basically, Linux came about because of Bill - it would never have been written if the developers hadn't had access to cheap(ish) PCs with a quasi-stable operating system (DOS) on which to develop.

 

Given that when DOS / Windows came out you couldn't buy a copy of Unix for less than a few hundred quid, and CP/M only ran on 8080 / Z80 processors, he kicked things off big style.

 

As for holding stuff back for 20 years...hmmm....I doubt it.

 

It's the 'tall poppy' syndrome - see someone being succesful and hack their legs off.

[ken1]

well, digital research had a competing version of dos, which was better, unfortunately they suffered the same fate as any other company that dares to compete with ms.

 

are you saying that dos was an outstanding technical achievement that nobody else could've written? do you think we wouldnt have pcs without microsoft? they just got lucky with a deal with ibm & abused their monopoly position since. i'm pretty sure if any other company had got the deal, we wouldnt have been stuck with dos & they couldnt have made an operating system that was much worse.

 

ibm invented the pc, not ms. it was the cheap, easy to build, computers that started the revolution, ms held it back with its pathetic operating system.

 

windows costs a few hundred quid too (retail price)

 

so yes, he's held technology back for his own commercial gain.

[SimpyTimpy]

well, digital research had a competing version of dos, which was better, unfortunately they suffered the same fate as any other company that dares to compete with ms.

 

are you saying that dos was an outstanding technical achievement that nobody else could've written? do you think we wouldnt have pcs without microsoft? they just got lucky with a deal with ibm & abused their monopoly position since. i'm pretty sure if any other company had got the deal, we wouldnt have been stuck with dos & they couldnt have made an operating system that was much worse.

 

ibm invented the pc, not ms. it was the cheap, easy to build, computers that started the revolution, ms held it back with its pathetic operating system.

 

windows costs a few hundred quid too (retail price)

 

so yes, he's held technology back for his own commercial gain.

 

Like Joe said, if it wasn't for Microsoft we could easily have 4 or 5 different Operating systems all controlling a slice of the market. Sound good? Well, it'd mean interoperability would be even worse than it is now.