Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, have surprisingly never met before. That all changed at a recent dinner hosted by Sysinternals creator Mark Russinovich.
The worlds of Linux and Windows finally came together in real life, and Dave Cutler, Microsoft technical fellow and Windows NT lead developer, was also there to witness the moment and meet Torvalds for the first time. “No major kernel decisions were made,” jokes Russinovich in a post on LinkedIn.
[Image: Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds meet for the first time. https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/1750435121315.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]
Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds have apparently never met in person before, despite their pseudo-rivalry.
I’ve said this before here, but techy people vastly overestimate both the ability and the patience of the typical user, and it’s the reason so few people use FOSS products.
Products from big tech aimed at private individuals are designed to be as simple to use as possible, which is why they’re so popular.
Nah, I have worked in IT education and in helpdesk. Average user doesn’t have a better time getting into Microsoft products, it’s not easier for them than FOSS. The reason for Windows domination is Microsoft spending money and lobbying power to put it in front of every user.
When I actually started doing hobby projects, I remembered that feeling with Windows 9x where you learn to avoid “wrong” actions which have a potential of hanging your PC. You don’t even think about it. Just get used that you don’t move the cursor after clicking there, you don’t click here again after a first double click, and other such.
While things like editing config files were … more normal for the average person even, you’d have a paper manual generally. For everything, kitchen appliances and anything technical you could buy too. You wouldn’t expect everything to just work without reading it. Freezes and crashes were worse.
Windows won because most people didn’t know of anything else.
And it is still true today. Windows has the lion share of the market because we were raised with Windows and the vast majority of people don’t want to learn a new OS.
Luckily they learned from it and redesigned the kernel from scratch – hold on, my producer’s telling me that no, it’s still the NT kernel under there. Outstanding.
Fair enough, but Linux was quite difficult for a normal user to install back in the 90’s. And you could literally destroy your monitor if you didn’t know what you were doing. I was responding to the notion that using FOSS was somehow easier to get into in the 90s than Microsoft products.
I don’t think you remember how difficult was to install anything back then.
I mean yeah, installing Linux was more complicated, and you couldn’t just google shit. Still, I was making pretty good money back then on the side specifically because regular user wasn’t able to do shit with their computer.
Linux was harder, both were difficult, both required separate set of skills you couldn’t just get.
You keep saying I don’t remember, which feels a bit dismissive. I do remember. We just have differing opinions on the barriers to entry for Microsoft vs. FOSS in the 90s.
This is also far from my personal experience, you might not even realize what free software you’re depending on?
Your browser is most likely the most complex piece of software you interact with daily and it is most likely FOSS. The Linux kernel is FOSS and is incredibly robust. Most compiler suites, FOSS. Most programming languages, FOSS. These are all incredibly well written and robust tools. AOSP, kinda FOSS, and the forks like Graphene are definitely FOSS. Hell even a lot of macOS programs are actually FOSS. I could go on and on, there is absolutely amazing work being done on FOSS by incredibly talented people.
There is great paid and proprietary software out there, sure, but no it’s not the majority of top quality software in my personal experience and likely a lot of people’s experiences and it is almost guaranteed to rely on a FOSS library somewhere
People don’t have to compile their own kernel to benefit from FOSS. Their phone can run the Linux kernel and the services they use run on FOSS. The more stuff based on FOSS they use the less license fees and RnD they subsidize. Imagine if you had to pay for every FOSS instance you use. Linux kernel, ffmpeg, openssl, docker, WebKit, mySQL and whatever, the same way you pay for GSM or ARM trustzone or console-like-platform-tax
I’ve said this before here, but techy people vastly overestimate both the ability and the patience of the typical user, and it’s the reason so few people use FOSS products.
Products from big tech aimed at private individuals are designed to be as simple to use as possible, which is why they’re so popular.
Nah, I have worked in IT education and in helpdesk. Average user doesn’t have a better time getting into Microsoft products, it’s not easier for them than FOSS. The reason for Windows domination is Microsoft spending money and lobbying power to put it in front of every user.
Maybe true today, but less true in earlier times (90s and early 2000s) when Microsoft was really gaining dominance.
I don’t think you remember how insanely terrible Windows was in the 90s.
When I actually started doing hobby projects, I remembered that feeling with Windows 9x where you learn to avoid “wrong” actions which have a potential of hanging your PC. You don’t even think about it. Just get used that you don’t move the cursor after clicking there, you don’t click here again after a first double click, and other such.
While things like editing config files were … more normal for the average person even, you’d have a paper manual generally. For everything, kitchen appliances and anything technical you could buy too. You wouldn’t expect everything to just work without reading it. Freezes and crashes were worse.
Windows won because most people didn’t know of anything else.
And it is still true today. Windows has the lion share of the market because we were raised with Windows and the vast majority of people don’t want to learn a new OS.
I’m not sure that the alternatives were any better, everything was terrible back then.
Yeah, probably not. But the idea that Windows won because of how great it was just doesn’t hold up
Luckily they learned from it and redesigned the kernel from scratch – hold on, my producer’s telling me that no, it’s still the NT kernel under there. Outstanding.
Most users neither know nor care what that is.
good talk
They might care when their os showing the same problems it did 30 years ago
Fair enough, but Linux was quite difficult for a normal user to install back in the 90’s. And you could literally destroy your monitor if you didn’t know what you were doing. I was responding to the notion that using FOSS was somehow easier to get into in the 90s than Microsoft products.
I don’t think you remember how difficult was to install anything back then.
I mean yeah, installing Linux was more complicated, and you couldn’t just google shit. Still, I was making pretty good money back then on the side specifically because regular user wasn’t able to do shit with their computer.
Linux was harder, both were difficult, both required separate set of skills you couldn’t just get.
You keep saying I don’t remember, which feels a bit dismissive. I do remember. We just have differing opinions on the barriers to entry for Microsoft vs. FOSS in the 90s.
Sorry, wasn’t my intention
What about the boat loads of marketing - ads - aimed at making you believe those proprietary programs are the best? Clearly you fell for it.
There are shit proprietary software and good proprietary software. There are shit FLOSS and good FLOSS
I’ve used my share of free software. Some of it worked well, but it always felt clunky, and just never as straightforward to use as a paid product.
But sure, I couldn’t possibly have reached that conclusion on my own, it’s obviously the marketing.
Sounds like you’re cherry picking both; I’ve seen plenty of garbage that costs money as well.
Sure, but if you look at the top quality softwares, the majority of them are paid.
Because money is a big encouragement to make them as flawless as possible. Something FOSS just doesn’t have.
They are used due to support not quality. Companies need to be able to purchase service and support agreements and very often FOSS has none of that.
This is also far from my personal experience, you might not even realize what free software you’re depending on?
Your browser is most likely the most complex piece of software you interact with daily and it is most likely FOSS. The Linux kernel is FOSS and is incredibly robust. Most compiler suites, FOSS. Most programming languages, FOSS. These are all incredibly well written and robust tools. AOSP, kinda FOSS, and the forks like Graphene are definitely FOSS. Hell even a lot of macOS programs are actually FOSS. I could go on and on, there is absolutely amazing work being done on FOSS by incredibly talented people.
There is great paid and proprietary software out there, sure, but no it’s not the majority of top quality software in my personal experience and likely a lot of people’s experiences and it is almost guaranteed to rely on a FOSS library somewhere
And this in turn led to the younger generations being less tech-literate.
Is that why Outlook is so intuitive and easy to use?
I did say private individuals, Outlook is more of a corporate product.
People don’t have to compile their own kernel to benefit from FOSS. Their phone can run the Linux kernel and the services they use run on FOSS. The more stuff based on FOSS they use the less license fees and RnD they subsidize. Imagine if you had to pay for every FOSS instance you use. Linux kernel, ffmpeg, openssl, docker, WebKit, mySQL and whatever, the same way you pay for GSM or ARM trustzone or console-like-platform-tax
It’s a reason. Another reason is all the stuff that Microsoft was found guilty of doing during their conviction for abusing their monopoly.