The software trinity explained
The holy ones...Linus Torvalds, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates.
(Credit: Jeff Crouse)Update at 1:25 p.m. PDT May 23: More information on the piece has been added.
Call them a "holy trinity" or the "three wise men of software"--one way or another you will eventually give these guys all your money and continue to worship at their respective altars.
The EyeBeam Gallery in New York's Chelsea neighborhood has been showing a piece of art that captures Linus Torvalds, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates (along with a tiny, cherubic Steve Ballmer) as icons, in the original sense of word.
Jeff Crouse, the artist who conceptualized the piece, said the triptych doesn't have a name. It was part of an installation called Praying@Home. (His intern, Jennifer Jacobs, is the person who actually painted the trio.)
Unfortunately, the piece is no longer on display at EyeBeam. However, you can eternally gaze upon these saints right here.
(Via iPhone Savior)
Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom
Dave Rosenberg dishes up "Software, Interrupted" with nearly 15 years of technology and marketing experience that spans from Bell Labs to multiple start-up IPOs to open-source enterprise software companies. He is co-founder of MuleSource and currently serves as the general manager of Hardy Way. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can contact Dave via e-mail at softwareinterrupted@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @daveofdoom. 
Torvalds - Got the Open Source world going (with some help from Richard Stallman).
Jobs - Co-created the PERSONAL computer (with Steve Wozniak).
Gates - Um... well, he's got a lot of money.
The bad:
Torvalds - Takes credit for Linux, although only 1% of his programming remains in Linux today.
Jobs - Used to make great computers then switched to generic junk.
Gates - Rips off Jobs. Has always made the worst Operating System / software.
Oh no, he can't be connected to the power company!!!
I have never given Jobs a cent and it has been many years since I bought anything from MS.
None of them are gods. Gates is an immoral moron who can't program. Torvalds is a terrific programmer but bad at PR, and Gates is great at PR and design.
I would love to see you program a better OS from the ground up. Comments like this are about as stupid as a middle aged man claiming he's better at football then a NFL player
I ran Linux on the desktop for four years and Torvalds didn't make a dime from me (I stil run Linux on my router, in the form of the Tomato firmware).
Steve Jobs is a marketing genius and has a great eye for design. While the iPod wasn't the first portable media player, nor was the iPhone the first smartphone, both have enjoy tremendous success due to the iTunes and App Stores. Steve Jobs has made lots of money from me.
Contrary to his physical appearance as the quintessential nerd, Bill Gates is a failure as a computer scientist. His parents bought him his first computer company and operating system, and he was lucky that his mommy was pals with someone on IBM's board of directors, giving his OS an opportunity to run on IBM PC. Bill Gates *is* a ruthless businessman, a high-tech version of the robber baron (like Rockefeller, Carnegie, or Vanderbilt).
Yeah, thanks for the correction.
Gates never wrote an OS from the ground up. He did write a few craptastic memory managers though.
There will be many Os's that will be able to run these and the OS itself will be zero cost. Linux will be suited to this future. Android is Linux too.
And a more expensive and less featured service.
Broadband will be so broad at least in the USA, AUS etc, and other countries in the next 2 years that you will be able to stream DVD. That will be fast enough. Even on a slower Broadband, I find Google Docs is faster than MS Office.
- by Aus_Engineer May 25, 2009 8:14 AM PDT
- It takes alot of skill and expertise in software engineering to create an operating system, There are many OS's that are original developments including UNIX, Windows (all versions), VMS, Solaris, AmigaOS and so on.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- by pentest May 26, 2009 7:57 AM PDT
- Torvalds wrote his own OS. MS did not.
- Like this
-
(17 Comments)They all required skill in design, what does not take skill in design, is to take an existing Operating system and re-write each section code block by code block to create your "OWN" operating system.
And thats why Linus Torvalds should not be a part of that group, he simple copied something else he saw as successful and went with it for the ride.
IF he had of written his own OS it would be different, but he's just a copier.