Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates Meet for the First Time Ever
Technology
225
Beiträge
110
Kommentatoren
1.0k
Aufrufe
-
The Conference at Redmond
Well, they finally did it. Bill Gates, the Monopoly Warlord of Redmond, and Linus Torvalds, the caffeine-fueled architect of Linux rebellion, have shaken hands like two aging mob bosses who accidentally showed up to the same funeral. The image alone is enough to make a ThinkPad burst into flames. Gates, the man who once viewed free software the way a vampire views sunlight, now smiling alongside Torvalds, the supposed Patron Saint of Open Source, as if decades of digital trench warfare never happened. It’s like watching Che Guevara and Milton Friedman split a dessert sampler and talk cloud strategy.
Mark Russinovich, playing the role of High Priest of Corporate Reconciliation, quipped “no major kernel decisions were made.” But let’s not kid ourselves, this wasn’t just dinner. This was a symbolic convergence, a ritual unification of cathedral and bazaar into a suburban steakhouse of existential despair. Somewhere in the void, the ghost of Richard Stallman is chain-smoking over a broken Emacs install, muttering, “I warned you bastards.” The only thing missing from that picture was a scroll of NDAs and a PowerPoint titled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Surveillance Capitalism.”
What we witnessed was not diplomacy, it was absorption. The rebel king has been invited into the palace, offered wine, and handed a commemorative hoodie with the Microsoft logo stitched in ethically-sourced irony. Forget forks and pull requests; this is the final merge. Linux has breached the 4% desktop market share, and capitalism has responded the only way it knows how: by smiling, shaking hands, and quietly buying the table. Welcome to the Conference at Redmond. Weep for the dream. Or laugh maniacally, if you still know how.
I may frame this. Poetry.
-
::: spoiler spoiler
sdfsafsafsdaf
:::I answered Honytawk
️?You seems to be up in arms defending a shitty billionaire and his shitty charity, repeating over and over again that they did "some good", what kind of argument even is that? Dictators do "some good" too you know.
-
Nah, I have worked in IT education and in helpdesk. Average user doesn't have a better time getting into Microsoft products, it's not easier for them than FOSS. The reason for Windows domination is Microsoft spending money and lobbying power to put it in front of every user.
Maybe true today, but less true in earlier times (90s and early 2000s) when Microsoft was really gaining dominance.
-
::: spoiler spoiler
sdfsafsafsdaf
:::I don't think you realise the bad things he did (and still does, like patenting everything he 'funds' in research) versus the "some good" things coming out of it, that's about it I think. That's why your comments make me feel like you excuse an execrable people "just because 'some good' came out of it.
BTW I had to scroll throug the whole original post, Connect (the lemmy soft) lost your answers, so if you answer to this I might not be able to respond.
-
I answered Honytawk
️?You seems to be up in arms defending a shitty billionaire and his shitty charity, repeating over and over again that they did "some good", what kind of argument even is that? Dictators do "some good" too you know.
::: spoiler spoiler
sdfsafsafsdaf
::: -
I don't think you realise the bad things he did (and still does, like patenting everything he 'funds' in research) versus the "some good" things coming out of it, that's about it I think. That's why your comments make me feel like you excuse an execrable people "just because 'some good' came out of it.
BTW I had to scroll throug the whole original post, Connect (the lemmy soft) lost your answers, so if you answer to this I might not be able to respond.
::: spoiler spoiler
sdfsafsafsdaf
::: -
That was balmer though, IIRC. Crazy times
It was Balmer, but Gates was in the back clapping along and jumping over a chair lmao
-
Search the web for “polio”
-
That was balmer though, IIRC. Crazy times
I recently learned that Steve Ballmer is a director of and major donor to the Jewish National Fund, which supports the Israeli military and the settlers in the West Bank and around Gaza. This made me like Steve Ballmer slightly less.
Does Steve Ballmer Support Israel?
Does Steve Ballmer support Israel or Palestine? Discover the surprising ties and investments that reveal his true stance in the tech world.
Shop Israel (shopisrael.com)
-
Buddy, if I open Photoshop it's gonna take me hours to learn how to do one thing too, what a horrible example lmao. There's like so many easy slam dunks you could've said too.
If you think Photoshop has anywhere near the learning curve that is GIMP then I'm sorry. There is nothing I can do to convince you and this conversation is dead in the water. If something free was on par even slightly with Photoshop, then a whole industry would have shifted over to avoid the burden of costs. There's a reason the potato shop UI hasn't changed in 20 years.
-
You should not expect to use a tool (edit: competently) without spending time learning how to use it. Photoshop has a learning curve too, even if it's an easier one.
Yes, as an artist I will choose the path of least resistance. Open any new drawing app today: Procreate, Infinite Paint, Krita, Fresco and look how clean and easy it is to get right to the point and start working. Now open GIMP and pull my eyelashes out already. The tool should not get in the way of the task. I'm with Steve Jobs on this, sorry. Computers are means to an end. For some they can be hobbies. Linux exists. Have fun.
Edit: oh no! The FOSS evangelists are not feeling it. I get it. I use a lot of FOSS apps for work. That doesn't mean we have to be evangelical in our defense of FOSS. Recognize there are issues and we can work to fix them. Don't get so defensive, Lemmy. My god.
-
Buddy, if I open Photoshop it's gonna take me hours to learn how to do one thing too, what a horrible example lmao. There's like so many easy slam dunks you could've said too.
Also, I never mentioned Photoshop. Open any standard drawing app that was developed recently: Procreate, Infinite Paint, Krita, Fresco. Look how straightforward it is to start working. Look at the Ui. It doesn't get in the way.
Edit: oh no the FOSS evangelists are not feeling it. I get it. I use a lot of FOSS apps for work. That doesn't mean we have to be evangelical in our defense of FOSS. Recognize there are issues and we can work to fix them. Don't get so defensive, Lemmy. My god.
-
The Conference at Redmond
Well, they finally did it. Bill Gates, the Monopoly Warlord of Redmond, and Linus Torvalds, the caffeine-fueled architect of Linux rebellion, have shaken hands like two aging mob bosses who accidentally showed up to the same funeral. The image alone is enough to make a ThinkPad burst into flames. Gates, the man who once viewed free software the way a vampire views sunlight, now smiling alongside Torvalds, the supposed Patron Saint of Open Source, as if decades of digital trench warfare never happened. It’s like watching Che Guevara and Milton Friedman split a dessert sampler and talk cloud strategy.
Mark Russinovich, playing the role of High Priest of Corporate Reconciliation, quipped “no major kernel decisions were made.” But let’s not kid ourselves, this wasn’t just dinner. This was a symbolic convergence, a ritual unification of cathedral and bazaar into a suburban steakhouse of existential despair. Somewhere in the void, the ghost of Richard Stallman is chain-smoking over a broken Emacs install, muttering, “I warned you bastards.” The only thing missing from that picture was a scroll of NDAs and a PowerPoint titled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Surveillance Capitalism.”
What we witnessed was not diplomacy, it was absorption. The rebel king has been invited into the palace, offered wine, and handed a commemorative hoodie with the Microsoft logo stitched in ethically-sourced irony. Forget forks and pull requests; this is the final merge. Linux has breached the 4% desktop market share, and capitalism has responded the only way it knows how: by smiling, shaking hands, and quietly buying the table. Welcome to the Conference at Redmond. Weep for the dream. Or laugh maniacally, if you still know how.
Where does Richard Stallman fit into this?
-
I may frame this. Poetry.
Here is the historical picture to go along with it
-
About that, Tom Scott is also old now.
That's why I said older.
But yeah ... Sad truths.
-
Also, I never mentioned Photoshop. Open any standard drawing app that was developed recently: Procreate, Infinite Paint, Krita, Fresco. Look how straightforward it is to start working. Look at the Ui. It doesn't get in the way.
Edit: oh no the FOSS evangelists are not feeling it. I get it. I use a lot of FOSS apps for work. That doesn't mean we have to be evangelical in our defense of FOSS. Recognize there are issues and we can work to fix them. Don't get so defensive, Lemmy. My god.
I'm not going to spend hours downloading all of those and comparing and contrasting how easy I find their UIs. Some people have different hobbies. Imagine that, holy shit!
-
Where does Richard Stallman fit into this?
Richard Stallman fits into this like a ghost no one wants to admit is still haunting the room. He’s the ideological father of the free software movement, the one who laid the philosophical foundation Torvalds built Linux on, even if Linus never invited him to the party. Stallman didn’t want better software; he wanted freedom, moral clarity, and a digital commons free from the grasp of corporate overlords. While Torvalds was writing C, Stallman was writing manifestos, and now, with Gates and Torvalds grinning like co-conspirators at Redmond, Stallman is the angry prophet shouting from the parking lot of a surveillance palace, still clutching his GNU banner and a half-eaten sandwich.
But the tech world, especially the sanitized, investor-friendly version of it, has no time for prophets anymore. Stallman is inconvenient: brilliant, uncompromising, abrasive, and stubbornly allergic to PR. So while Linus gets photo ops and Gates gets legacy-polishing TED talks, Stallman gets quietly airbrushed out of the narrative like toe-cheese in the Matrix. Yet in many ways, he’s the conscience neither of them can fully erase. He’s not in the room, but the room still trembles when someone whispers “GPL.”
-
I'm not going to spend hours downloading all of those and comparing and contrasting how easy I find their UIs. Some people have different hobbies. Imagine that, holy shit!
Hey guess what? They pretty have the same minimalist ui. Way to miss the entire point I made
-
Round 1, FIGHT!
-
... or as I have taken recently to call it, GNU plus Linux.
