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Bill Gates finally getting a Harvard degree


But does he really deserve one?

Do we really care?

People receive honorary degrees all of the time. Why is this any different?

Does this mean no more beta versions of windows?

LordFerret wrote:Bill Gates finally getting a Harvard degree


But does he really deserve one?

What's wrong with this?

He presumably will get his honorary PhD for Business/Economy or whatever it is called in the US.
Apparently BG was incomparably more successful in this subject than any one of his former Harvard Profs.

So...

Well the only remaining question might be about "honesty"!

I don't know about the role of "honesty" in connection with PhD's in the US. At least on my PhD documents it is written that I may loose my PhD title whenever I behave "dishonestly".

So.......what

Bye Fridger

PS: Awarding honorary degrees is a very effective means for Universities to receive significant donations from the people concerned...I happen to know quite a bit about these habits in the US...

Dollan wrote:Do we really care?

People receive honorary degrees all of the time. Why is this any different?

It's not THAT common...

t00fri wrote:It's not THAT common...

But BILL too is not that common, IMHO.
Bye

Andrea

Certainly he earned it.
He is definitely a marketing genius besides being a top-gun developper.
Whatever people think, he has brought the graphics UI to mainstream.
Xerox invented it at the PARC and Apple stole the concept very early with the Lisa computer.
Bill Gates saw before anyone else the huge potential of the concept of "windows and mice" as a revolution in computing accessibility.
As early as mid-eighties, I remember of a version of PageMaker running on top of the first Windows engine, yes, a Windows runtime only. I know this from being a user then.
It was smoking anything else out the water, including Apple.
There was nothing to be compared with.
Bill Gates never gave up and went on developping Windows (Ver 1.0 then 2.0 then ... this is history), even against internal opposition within Microsoft. He was a visionnaire.
I am getting involved with Vista, right now. It is an amazing and already very mature OS.
I am a Linux guy for many reasons but I believe Vista has a huge potential.
I am impressed.
So, to cut it short, yes, he is a great developper and marketer.

Despite all of his marketing prowess and expertise as an entrepreneur, I find him nothing more than an opportunist... albeit a very successful one at that. He was never the 'top-gun developer' people think he is, his very first operating system was purchased on the sly from someone else who created and wrote it... and all of his successive releases since being written by yet others he'd hired. This is documented historical fact, as are his entrepreneural tactics of deliberate supression, market manipulation, and elimination of competition. Still, there are those who see that as being "successful". So be it.

In light of all those who put forth the discipline and effort, attaining their grade and proven worthy of it, I feel he is undeserving. But that's just my opinion.

And Fridger -
"PS: Awarding honorary degrees is a very effective means for Universities to receive significant donations from the people concerned...I happen to know quite a bit about these habits in the US."
You couldn't be more correct!


Sorry for being so negative folks, but I guess someone has to be.

Well said, LordFerret!

Boux wrote:I am getting involved with Vista, right now. It is an amazing and already very mature OS.
I am a Linux guy for many reasons but I believe Vista has a huge potential.
I am impressed.

I'm not impressed at all by Windows Vista. Unfortunatly I was stupid enough to buy Windows Vista Ultimate since I had been using the Release Candidates and they had potential to be a great OS. But buying this OS was a really stupid idea since it contains so many bugs. I really can't get into my head how it's possible that a huge software company like m$ releases an OS with this many flaws. I think I should get back to XP or even get back to linux, which I haven't been using for years now.

I think that hopefully Vista will become useable with SP1, if not, I have been wasted way to much money for a product that does not fulfill the promises...

I could also add that I have about 28 years experiance with computers, so the problems that occurs are NOT created by me.

I am NOT at all impressed with Vista. I would really want to get a refund...

bye, Anders Pamdal

Boux wrote:Bill Gates saw before anyone else the huge potential of the concept of "windows and mice" as a revolution in computing accessibility.

I don't believe that's what he invented and made him rich. Apple was far ahead in this area at that time.

What made Gates a rich man was the idea of software as a product. In those early days, nobody would have thought of paying for software. The software came with the computer and was an integral part of it. The revolutionary idea was to monetize the software and turn it into its own industry.

And a few years later Richard Stallman started the GNU project as a reaction to this new trend in software development.

In all the years I've been using Microsoft software/products, I have been repeatedly telling people my golden Microsoft rule - and that is... never buy the first release of anything they sell. They have a proven track record and long standing history of initially releasing software which is bug-ridden. This is actually their marketing tactic: premature release to gain attention and revenue, updates to fix the initial release bugs (using the public as beta-testers), paid-for additional updates for later 'enhanced' features after everyone is essentially 'locked in' to the product.

In the letter, Gates expressed frustration with most computer hobbyists who were using his company's Altair BASIC software without having paid for it. He asserted that such widespread unauthorized copying in effect discourages developers from investing time and money into creating quality software. He cited the perceived unfairness of gaining the benefits of software authors' time, effort, and capital, but then depriving them of the royalties they are entitled to by copyright law.

Some contend the letter became an important milestone for the development and expansion of "proprietary software" in the retail software market. Similarly it is also considered an important milestone in the development of the free software community, precisely because it contends that such a movement should not be possible and could not result in professional-standard software.

- Wiki's Open Letter to Hobbyists

Of the first paragraph in the quote above, I can think of no greater offender (in under-handed business dealings) than Gates himself.

Of the second paragraph in the quote above, Gates can only wish that the freeware community would not strive (and succeed) in professional-standard software. It was a very bold statement to make coming from one who manipulated the market and industry as a whole to his advantage. I take great joy in seeing such things as Celestia come to fruition, and likewise with GNU. How he must hate the Open Source community.

Sorry but I'm just not a very big fan of Gates, Microsoft, nor Intel. I have my reasons.

LordFerret wrote:Sorry but I'm just not a very big fan of Gates, Microsoft, nor Intel. I have my reasons.

--
Dell Dimension 2400, Pentium 4 @ 2.4ghz, 256mb mem, 80gb HD, Intel 822845G integrated graphics with 64mb RAM, WinXP, Celestia v1.4.1

Funny that after such a diatribe you're still using Windows.

There is no need to hate anyone really, this is just software. Nobody is forcing you to buy or even use MS software.

I personnaly rarely use MS products, not because I hate Mr Gates or think proprietary software is wrong but simply because Linux fits my needs better.

Heh heh!... you have me there! Yes, this computer is running XT, it came with it... just as all new computers will now come with Vista. Unfortunately one of my favorite past-times, online gaming with Half-Life DoD (I've been into it since beta 2.1, I'm also a SturmBOT waypointer), requires Windows... the only portion of the package designed to run under Linux is its configuration for dedicated server. I have future plans for a Linux box, I've been considering SuSE.

And, I never said I hated Gates... "I'm just not a very big fan of Gates". Call it strong disapproval.