Bill Gates gets an honourary knighthood

[Inventive Software]

So Mr Gates gets an honourary knighthood from the Queen. He cannot use the title "Sir" as he is American, but he can put the letters KBE after his name.

Comments, rantings, anything welcome, even if it's not entirely constructive. Do you think he deserves this?

[ppera2]

According to some sources Bill Gates gives really big amounts of money in humanitary purposes, especially to Africa. Hunderts of million $ per year. Don't know about reasons why Queen titled him.

On the other side all about M$ and their software making & selling policy... I think that they aren't worse than average capitalistic firm.

[LordRPI]

My second cousin is only a CBE :( (Commander of the British Empire)

[bond]

yeah, its a good tactic to give 0.1% of the money you took from the people via (half-)illegal methods back to the people to present yourself as "sir nice guy"

[Joe Fenton]

Not to mention that most of the money he gives towards AIDS is actually towards patented American drugs he holds stock in. Give money you stole from people towards buying a product you have stock in, write off the donation on your income tax, and get Knighted to boot. Not a bad scam at all. :devil:

[Orion|69]

If he removes that silly "genuine windows" test, when trying to download the DirectX 9 SDK, he can have the title for all I care for :)

[Sirber]

guiene thing sucks. If only I could boot Yoper install CD :(

[dani82]

why not? Gary Coleman got knighted for some reason

i wonder, if Bill Gate got divorce and married a British citizen, could he uses the title "Sir"

is there a list of who got knighted?

[Cyberman]

I don´t think he deserves it. He´s done nothing that actually helped people, aside from giving money.

He made people believe that a computer is no more than a clickedy-game, which it obviously isn´t.
Now that they´re used to it, they´re almost left alone when something unexpected(like the printer having no paper) happens.

(I hope it´s understandable what I´m trying to say, I found no word to describe what I meant with "clickedy-game".)

[Mug Funky]

cyberman: i get you loud and clear. i call it the less endearing "dumb f*** mode" in windows XP.

anything labelled "professional" should not have animated dog characters showing you how to do something you've been doing for years. there should be 2 versions of windows XP: "professional" and "dumb f***" (minus the stars).

as for a knighthood? why not. they're easier to get than an Arts degree (i did Art+Design Multimedia btw).

i'd like to see Bill use his money to actually buy up those drug patents and make them public domain though. that'd show real balls from a moneymongler.

[Inventive Software]

Reading a news report earlier, it was something to do with his donations to charities, and being such a successful businessman.

On a side note, I'd like to see Bill Gates use the money that Microsoft have accumulated (about $60 Billion) to build a decent, affordable (less than £40) quality operating system, and at that, lower the prices of the many over-priced Microsoft office suites at that.


So you lot feel he don't deserve this KBE then?

[Neo Neko]

Originally posted by Inventive Software
Reading a news report earlier, it was something to do with his donations to charities, and being such a successful businessman.

On a side note, I'd like to see Bill Gates use the money that Microsoft have accumulated (about $60 Billion) to build a decent, affordable (less than �40) quality operating system, and at that, lower the prices of the many over-priced Microsoft office suites at that.


So you lot feel he don't deserve this KBE then?

No not at all. Because if he did then it is almost a double standard that the crown does not knight many of the USs mafia leaders. They are very sucessful business men if you can call what Bill gates has done in large part business. And they have made many more donations to charritable organizations in many ways over the years. Organizations like the catholic church.

You might think it is silly to compare Bill and MS to the Mafia. But if you look at their history. THey use many of the same strong arm "busniess" tactics. Microsoft is more or less the "software mafia".

[dragongodz]

his donations to charities, and being such a successful businessman.
hmm just to add that his successful business has been convicted and fined for unfair and unlawful business practices. so Neo Nekos comparison to the mafia holds more weight than some would at first think. :)

also consider his charity work means throwing a tiny percentage of profits to a few organisations. also consider though that a few years ago a small non-profit organisation here in Aus wanted to give old refurbished pc's(486,pentium 1) to small schools and disadvantaged families with windows 95 on them so those less fortunate would not be completly left behind in this increasingly technology growing world. MS's response was to threaten to sue their rear ends off if they didnt buy the OS for every system at full price. now thats charitable isnt it.

[dani82]

wouldn't that be consider piracy, unless the OS was pre-installed

[Neo Neko]

Yes. But the point was MS was not fealing all that charritable that day. They basically said if you can't afford it you can't use it to a charity. Had they said this was ok in this instance or that they would offer full licenses at substantially reduced costs. That would have been a charritable act. But it did not suit/benefit them so they didn't allow it. It is one thing to invest in other companies/groups you have a stake in. But just giving money away with no real expectations of return on investment is just insane to them.

[dragongodz]

wouldn't that be consider piracy, unless the OS was pre-installed
they were pre-installing the OS. however you need a license(equivilent of buying a copy)for each pc.
is it illegal ? well yes its falls under a breach of copyright NOT piracy, no boats or bucaneers involved. :sly:
is MS's response of threatening a non-profit charity in to oblivion justified or excessive and uncaring ? you decode for yourself.

heres a bit of a read
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s332978.htm
http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/lias/2001-July/msg00000.html

[dani82]

not really sure, but isn't a license just a legimate cd-key; meaning: if they save the cd-key before reformatting the HD, wouldn't they be allow to re-install the same OS on that pc; unfortunalty, they will need the license to show the cd-key is authentic

how could a license cost $600? isn't the sofware itself cheaper?

[dragongodz]

how could a license cost $600? isn't the sofware itself cheaper?
thats Aus dollars remember. also it was 2001 and any version of Windows was damn expensive. even now Windows XP pro(non OEM) is around $479 here.
before saying there is the home version of XP remember that there was no such thing for earlier Windows versions.
also it may have included other MS software, i dont know as they dont say.

[Inventive Software]

So it's fairly biased then. You lot think he doesn't deserve to be knighted. That's fair enough. Incidentally, I didn't think he deserved it either, but I welcome any opportunity to bash Bill Gates and/or Microsoft, and this one was just leaving a gaping hole for me to fill. Thanks for voting everyone.

[unmei]

Well, it's obvious they won't say "ok copy it and we look away", but they could have looked away silently if that was possible - or they could have donated the licenses.


I don't know the exact details, but AFAIK here in switzerland, M$ is involved in some program "bringing schools on the internet". Our largest ISP provides access, some vendor discounted machines (could be dell or hp or..) etc. And i do think microsoft gives them licenses at a special offer if not for free (well probably something like "you get the WS licenses but then you use only _our_ office, ISS etc" .. but still). Maybe they do it here and did not do it in Aus back in the days, because our schools could actually afford to buy no name machines an slam linux on it..


As for Billy honored Knight .. no problem as long as he doesn't get the Lord, sits in in the House of Lords and rules England :)

[cyberVera]

I do not like M$ either, and I do not like that there is no choice for me concerning OS, but it reminds me a tale about a little dog barking on an elephant. I bought a CD with Windows somewhere in the street for 3 bucks some years ago.

[Inventive Software]

As for Billy honored Knight .. no problem as long as he doesn't get the Lord, sits in in the House of Lords and rules England :)

That would be kinda scary. Can you imagine sucking up to Bill Gates?

I can't, thankfully. :D