# Bill Gates **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 18, 2001, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates/76834 "2001-08-18T00:12:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Tejota](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Tejota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tejota)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates/76834/61 "2001-08-23T05:41:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DanBlather \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > > Actually, all commercial OS’s are vulnerable to 3rd party drivers. Only pure MACH implementations aren’t. > > I worked with Mach quite a bit and IIRC the drivers were in the same address domain as the microkernel, and thus could easily crash it. The “OS personality” was in a separate address space however. \*\* I stand corrected. I’ve never personally worked with Mach, but the books I’ve read seemed to imply that the microkernel didn’t shared address space with drivers. Thanks for the clarification. ---
**Author:** ![dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f19dbf/32.png) [@dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dude)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates/76834/62 "2001-08-23T11:21:08Z")
I am talking from a Brit perspective, prices may have been different in the USA. I think windows was about 1/4 of the price of os/2. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates/76834/63 "2001-08-23T20:19:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > Saying that an OS is nothing but a traffic cop completely ignores the value of the new paradaigm that Apple brought to us. Today, the we use the term OS to refer to the entire **operating environment** that users work in and application developers depend on having available. You’re referring to the term “Operating system” as the layman perceives it, as a collection of software; I’m talking about the term from a computer scientist’s POV. > [@](#): > > That includes, among other things, the Finder, the GUI shell and the presense of utilities like a calculator and a web browser. Technically these aren’t part of the OS, but **you can’t sell an OS without them** no-one wants to buy. Red Hat isn’t doing too bad with Linux. 🙂 Even Apple is giving away their Darwin OS, which forms the fundamental bedrock of MacOS X. > [@](#): > > And also remember that Microsoft misled third-party developers about which OS they were supporting (Microsoft’s infamous “head-fake”, where they told everyone to write for OS/2 because they were backing it), so when Windows first came out, the only productivity programs that were readily available were Microsoft’s. See Wendy Goldman Rohm’s _The Microsoft File_ for further details. You sir, don’t know what the hell you are talking about. MS didn’t head fake, the **were themselves** surprised by the success of Windows. [/QUOTE] Again, go read _The Microsoft File._ There’s an entire chapter devoted to Microsoft, Windows, and OS/2, including quotes from third-party developers who were told explicitly by Microsoft to develop for Windows instead of OS/2. Bill Gates may have publically stated that he was behind OS/2 all the way, but he and the MS brain-trust knew otherwise. They might not have told all of the employees at Microsoft, but the evidence shows that Gates, Ballmer, _et al._ planned from the beginning to use the Windows-OS/2 transition to screw IBM and shake loose a number of competitors in the applications market. ---
**Author:** ![Tejota](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Tejota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tejota)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates/76834/64 "2001-08-25T20:39:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rjung \* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > > Saying that an OS is nothing but a traffic cop completely ignores the value of the new paradaigm that Apple brought to us. Today, the we use the term OS to refer to the entire **operating environment** that users work in and application developers depend on having available. > > You’re referring to the term “Operating system” as the layman perceives it, as a collection of software; I’m talking about the term from a computer scientist’s POV. So what? Windows isn’t a purists OS. It’s a consumer one. Yes, techinically, Windows is a bunch of stuff that _incudes_ an OS, rather than merely an OS. :rolleyes: So is every other “OS”: OS/2, Unix, VMS. All contain more in the box than just an OS. > [@](#): > > That includes, among other things, the Finder, the GUI shell and the presense of utilities like a calculator and a web browser. Technically these aren’t part of the OS, but **you can’t sell an OS without them** no-one wants to buy. Red Hat isn’t doing too bad with Linux. 🙂 Even Apple is giving away their Darwin OS, which forms the fundamental bedrock of MacOS X. [/quote] And the RedHat CD contains a TON of stuff that isn’t part of an OS in your purist terms. It has a GUI, I’ve no doubt that there is a calculator in there somewhere. You don’t honestly believe that if Red Hat sold a disk that contained only the linux _kernel_ and left you to get the other pieces from someone else it would sell as well? > [@](#): > > And also remember that Microsoft misled third-party developers about which OS they were supporting (Microsoft’s infamous “head-fake”, where they told everyone to write for OS/2 because they were backing it), so when Windows first came out, the only productivity programs that were readily available were Microsoft’s. See Wendy Goldman Rohm’s _The Microsoft File_ for further details. Why should I need to read a 3rd hand account? Unlike you. **I was there**. I saw what happened, and while I don’t know what this book says. I do know that what _you_ say it says is a pile of horseshit. Yes MS told everyone to support and write for OS/2. That was what they were themselves doing. The Windows team was even smaller than the Mac team in those days. Nearly everying else was OS/2 focused. > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > You sir, don’t know what the hell you are talking about. MS didn’t head fake, the **were themselves** surprised by the success of Windows. > > Again, go read _The Microsoft File._ There’s an entire chapter devoted to Microsoft, Windows, and OS/2, including quotes from third-party developers who were told explicitly by Microsoft to develop for Windows instead of OS/2. As I said, internal MS developers were told the same thing. When Windows 3.0 shipped the ratio of _internal_ MS developers working on OS/2 support was **10 times** the size of the Window’s team and and other developers working on Windows products. MS had more people working on Mac applications than on Windows applications. > [@](#): > > Bill Gates may have publically stated that he was behind OS/2 all the way, but he and the MS brain-trust knew otherwise. They might not have told all of the employees at Microsoft, but the evidence shows that Gates, Ballmer, _et al._ planned from the beginning to use the Windows-OS/2 transition to screw IBM and shake loose a number of competitors in the applications market. Nonsense, the evidence does not show that. Unless of couse, you think that Bill’s master plan included diliberately wasting 90% of his developers for a the better part of a year after Win 3.0 shipped. That 90% was working on OS/2 and applications and support for it. I was a part of that support, and I know that the people working on Windows stuff were a relative minority. I know that they had relatively low status as well because we all believed that they were on a dead-end product. I saw that change in status as Win 3.0 became more successful than we ever imagined and OS/2 continued to languish. It was a few months after that that Bill reacted to the obvious and re-organized the dev teams in favor of windows and away from OS/2. By then Windows 3.0 was nearly a year old. I suppose that the sense of the rise of Windows and death of OS/2 happened inside the company before it happened outside. What people outside probably saw was a sudden, dramatic shift in emphasis. But make no mistake, this was only **after** the sales of Windows had broken records. It was a reaction to the market, not a push. And it was a surprise for us as well as you. You have no idea of how many man-decades of nearly completed code from inside MS that never saw the light of day because of that shift. You only know about what it looked like from the outside, and thus, you fail to understand. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-gates/76834.md?page=3)