Bill Gates gives his views on Linux | Linux Today

Bill Gates gives his views on Linux

Written By
Web Webster
Web Webster
Feb 5, 1999

This text was written by Claus Sørensen, PR
Manager of SSLUG.

Bill Gates visited Denmark today and the national broadcasting
station brought the event. Here is the transcription where Bill
Gates was asked about Linux.

Interviewer: “There’s a whole group of questions about
competition. And especially this Linux system. What do you think
about that?”

Bill Gates: Ha-ha. There has been a history of free software
coming out of the university environments. The original browser was
a free product. There’s a webserver called Apache there’s a free
prouct. And in almost any category of software you find free
software.

Typical what we have with Linux is essential UNIX as it was
defined twenty years ago.

And people get a kick out of having the source code – gives the
possibility to play around with that.

What we’re trying to do with Windows is solve a different kind
of problem. We’re trying to create a system that is muh richer in
terms of the graphics and system management.”

Interviewer: “So you don’t fear Linux?”

Bill Gates: “Oh – I – you know – my job is to fear
everything.

The key thing for us is how to redact the innovation in the
direction the customers wanted it [to] be. And moving at the speed
that we’re been able to move in the past.

Now that’s what I’ve gotta make sure – that’s about great people
– that’s about customer feedback groups.

The richness of what people expect in a operating system is
increasing.

The thinks I said like speech and handwriting recognition. Those
will be part of the oprating system.”

You can see the whole event at http://www.dr.dk/gates/.

If you don’t understand Danish then look at the hyperlinks:

“Besvarelse
af spørgsmÃ¥l” = “Answering questions”

is the part where Bill Gates answering the Linux-questions. (Real
Audio link)

Web Webster

Web Webster

Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.

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