[NBLUG/talk] Linus responds to M$

Mark Janes 707mjanes at comcast.net
Sat May 19 11:30:09 PDT 2007


John Nouveaux wrote:
> At 4:57 PM -0700 5/18/07, Mark Janes wrote:
>   
>> While M$ is simply too big to ignore, Gates and his minions are not the
>> omniscient beings they try to portray themselves as being. Way back
>> when, Bill Himself couldn't imagine why anyone would ever need a hard
>> drive bigger than 640 Mb;
>>     
>
> At the risk of being pedantic...
>
> The figure was 640 *KB* and...
>   
I stand corrected. Also a bit embarrassed as it reveals my failing memory...
> There is *no* credible documented evidence of which I'm aware proving 
> Bill Gates having ever said this and, in fact, when questioned 
> directly Bill denies ever having said it.
>   
Naturally. How many of remember every prediction we made 27 years ago?
Although, this particular misquote certainly has taken on a life of its
own, and not just with Linux users.
> Google away for lots of references to this, none which *prove* it to be true.
>   
Did that. Found this at
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/sci_update.cfm?DocID=206 :

"In 1981 Bill Gates said "640 kilobytes [of hard drive memory] ought to
be enough for anyone."" In fairness this was a time when individual
bytes still mattered, years before the mass digitizing of audio or video.
> And whether Bill said this or not, it's been so oft repeated now it's 
> become one of those "facts by repetition" things which become "true" 
> by their very existence. This, of course, does not make them true.
>
> By the by, I'm completely willing to admit I'm wrong on this in the 
> face of legitimate, credible evidence. 
>   
You're right. Repetition only makes something factual in the political
arena (Take a lie, make it big, repeat it often...), not in any
scientific endeavor. Thank you for bringing this misquote to light.
> OK, back to bashing the innovation-pit which is Microsoft...
>   
I seem to have gotten away from the initial subject of this thread-
Linus Torvalds' response to M$ claims on the kernel and other Open
Source applications, and for that I humbly apologize. To me M$' claims
sound a lot like those of a plaintiff's attorney talking about a lawsuit
when the evidence is weak or nonexistent: a lot of vague innuendo with
few or no specifics. Usually when a truly strong case exists the
prosecutor or plaintiff will put out at least a few specifics. Torvalds,
as far as I've been able to find out, categorically denies any
infringement. Should be interesting to see if M$ can make a legitimate
case, especially in non-US courts.


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://nblug.org/pipermail/talk/attachments/20070519/f527cd22/attachment.pgp 


More information about the talk mailing list