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The gifts Bill Gates gives always come with a little string attached. In recent years his propaganda became strong enough that most people don't see that anymor

The gifts Bill Gates gives always come with a little string attached. In recent years his propaganda became strong enough that most people don't see that anymore.

sleepychu 11y ago
To be fair, until recently Netflix/Amazon etc used Silverlight, Microsoft could hardly elect to use some other video technology while they were pushing SL.
- acqq 11y ago
  No, it's not fair. The purpose of Netflix is to earn money from the viewers. Silverlight was used only for DRM. The claimed purpose of Gates' project was "to make the material freely available" for all learners as a gift (1). He didn't have to use DRM for that if he really bought the rights. As it was executed (Silverlight was never popular, only Netflix users had to install it) it appeared as just an advertising campaign for Silverlight. Note that research.microsoft.com otherwise never had to follow the commercial limitations of the rest of Microsoft, regularly publishing PDFs (duh, research) or using other non-Microsoft technologies at the time they were "verboten" on other Microsoft sites. Apparently, they "enhanced" the lectures with comments. These comments are also to be forever lost, remaining locked in in the limiting technology instead of being published in any common format like HTML or PDF. 1) Microsoft's news release from 2009: https://news.microsoft.com/2009/07/14/microsoft-research-and-bill-gates-bring-historic-physics-lectures-to-web/ https://news.microsoft.com/2009/07/14/microsoft-research-and... "Microsoft Research, in collaboration with Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, today launched a Web site that makes an acclaimed lecture series by the iconic physicist Richard Feynman freely available to the general public for the first time. The lectures, which Feynman originally delivered at Cornell University in 1964, have been hugely influential for many people, including Gates. Gates privately purchased the rights to the seven lectures in the series, called “The Character of Physical Law,” to make them widely available to the public for free with the hope that they will help get kids excited about physics and science."
dwightgunning 11y ago
You can look at as them strings, some business savvy, maybe just good old fashioned dogfooding. Also don't forget that if posted to Youtube, they'd be unavailable in several countries where Youtube is blocked. ... Gift horses.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  You're allowed, I've heard, to post to YouTube and post to another site ... amazing I know. /s
  - sdoering 11y ago
    Arn't these lectures (at least for the most part) available on YT? I just had a very nice lunchbreak watching Feynman on YT.
    - acqq 11y ago
      YT can delete them at any moment if some complaint comes, unless it's published by the legal owner. And Gates, who apparently bought the rights, decided to publish it only on his site and that was the only place for some years.
adventured 11y ago
Name a known public good or act of charity that didn't have any strings attached. I doubt that you can. In the case of all of his gifts coming with strings, which would clearly include his charitable work - if he didn't attach strings to eg the $150+ billion he's going to give away, it'd be a disaster. The same is true for essentially all philanthropy. If you want to make sure charitable efforts are not wasted, strings are inherently necessary. In this case, it would have enabled wider availability if it hadn't been stuck under silverlight, however you're free to reject the gift. At worst it's a very mild inconvenience in exchange for something that's very valuable, and people here are reacting wildly out of proportion to the issue.
- marcosdumay 11y ago
  Putting strings on your gift to ensure it'll be put to good use is one thing. Now, putting strings on it to ensure you'll get more money from people using your "gift", and then insist on calling it a gift, that's an entirely different thing.
  - oaewoaeg 11y ago
    There's no chance that he made an economic profit from the extra Silverlight installs. Stop being a hater; start doing something useful for society.

The gifts Bill Gates gives always come with a little string attached. In recent years his propaganda became strong enough that most people don't see that anymore.

sleepychu 11y ago

To be fair, until recently Netflix/Amazon etc used Silverlight, Microsoft could hardly elect to use some other video technology while they were pushing SL.

acqq 11y ago
No, it's not fair. The purpose of Netflix is to earn money from the viewers. Silverlight was used only for DRM. The claimed purpose of Gates' project was "to make the material freely available" for all learners as a gift (1). He didn't have to use DRM for that if he really bought the rights. As it was executed (Silverlight was never popular, only Netflix users had to install it) it appeared as just an advertising campaign for Silverlight. Note that research.microsoft.com otherwise never had to follow the commercial limitations of the rest of Microsoft, regularly publishing PDFs (duh, research) or using other non-Microsoft technologies at the time they were "verboten" on other Microsoft sites. Apparently, they "enhanced" the lectures with comments. These comments are also to be forever lost, remaining locked in in the limiting technology instead of being published in any common format like HTML or PDF. 1) Microsoft's news release from 2009: https://news.microsoft.com/2009/07/14/microsoft-research-and-bill-gates-bring-historic-physics-lectures-to-web/ https://news.microsoft.com/2009/07/14/microsoft-research-and... "Microsoft Research, in collaboration with Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, today launched a Web site that makes an acclaimed lecture series by the iconic physicist Richard Feynman freely available to the general public for the first time. The lectures, which Feynman originally delivered at Cornell University in 1964, have been hugely influential for many people, including Gates. Gates privately purchased the rights to the seven lectures in the series, called “The Character of Physical Law,” to make them widely available to the public for free with the hope that they will help get kids excited about physics and science."

dwightgunning 11y ago

You can look at as them strings, some business savvy, maybe just good old fashioned dogfooding. Also don't forget that if posted to Youtube, they'd be unavailable in several countries where Youtube is blocked. ... Gift horses.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago
You're allowed, I've heard, to post to YouTube and post to another site ... amazing I know. /s
- sdoering 11y ago
  Arn't these lectures (at least for the most part) available on YT? I just had a very nice lunchbreak watching Feynman on YT.
  - acqq 11y ago
    YT can delete them at any moment if some complaint comes, unless it's published by the legal owner. And Gates, who apparently bought the rights, decided to publish it only on his site and that was the only place for some years.

adventured 11y ago

Name a known public good or act of charity that didn't have any strings attached. I doubt that you can. In the case of all of his gifts coming with strings, which would clearly include his charitable work - if he didn't attach strings to eg the $150+ billion he's going to give away, it'd be a disaster. The same is true for essentially all philanthropy. If you want to make sure charitable efforts are not wasted, strings are inherently necessary. In this case, it would have enabled wider availability if it hadn't been stuck under silverlight, however you're free to reject the gift. At worst it's a very mild inconvenience in exchange for something that's very valuable, and people here are reacting wildly out of proportion to the issue.

marcosdumay 11y ago
Putting strings on your gift to ensure it'll be put to good use is one thing. Now, putting strings on it to ensure you'll get more money from people using your "gift", and then insist on calling it a gift, that's an entirely different thing.
- oaewoaeg 11y ago
  There's no chance that he made an economic profit from the extra Silverlight installs. Stop being a hater; start doing something useful for society.