Who will be most honoured & remembered 50 years out

MacDoc · Sep 28th, 2007, 09:31 PM

When the historians of the digital revolution look back 5 decades hence......which of these three might YOU think will be the dominant star in history as having the greatest impact.

Bill Gates

Steve Jobs

Linus Torvalds.

Just been watching the documentary on The Revolution about the growth of open source.

After seeing it ....one wonders what the answer to this question might actually be.

Revolution OS (history of Linux/Open Source documentary,86m) • videosift.com

Reasons for your choice appreciated.

norwscaper · Sep 28th, 2007, 09:51 PM

as much as I'd love to say Jobso, i'd have to go with Gates. I mean, he did quite ruthlessly position himself almost perfectly during the computer revolution. I think steve and bill are two sides of the same coin, cold practicality and idealism. I think the film Pirates of Silicon Valley gave us a pretty good sense of the dynamic and the personalities at play.

So as much as steve is behind the PC revolution and so many creative and conceptual leaps forward, I think Gates will be remembered most reverently in fifty years for a strong position in the marketplace, having the vision to understand the future importance of software, as well as his charity work.

...that is, unless Jobs is still alive in 50 years a la walt disney lol

Kazak · Sep 29th, 2007, 03:13 AM

I chose Gates because of his philanthropy. This is probably not the intent of the poll, but his influence will be felt in more domains of human activity.

More to the point, we will be using devices in 50 years that we are only starting to imagine. Jobs only has to miss the innovation boat once for someone none of us has heard of yet to swoop in and supplant both him and Gates.

MacDoc · Sep 29th, 2007, 03:41 AM

I think you are viewing it too close the current time frame and computing paradigm.

It's Linux and Open Source that I think will have the lasting impact on civilization and Linus Torvald will forever be associated with that.

Jobs and Gates were last century.......innovator and money accumulator and they ushered in the era.

Personally looking at the growing community of Open Source and Linux, including the XO project which is based out of it, will be the 21st century impactor. My 2¢

Pelao · Sep 29th, 2007, 10:51 AM

Depends on who is doing the remembering. Perhaps geekier people will focus on the Open Source originators. But there is every likelihood that many more will remember those who create opportunities to use technology to improve the things people do.

50 years from now is not so long. I suspect Jobs will have a good chance because of the focus on making things for the user, not for the engineer.

MACSPECTRUM · Sep 29th, 2007, 10:53 AM

50 years from now M$ will still be regretting the Vista release and probably still releasing patches for it

iPhone hacks will still be coming out

Vandave · Sep 29th, 2007, 11:02 AM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by MacDoc
	It's Linux and Open Source that I think will have the lasting impact on civilization and Linus Torvald will forever be associated with that.

Then why didn't you vote for him? He is sitting at zero votes right now. You'd think he was running for the NDP.

I think they will all be remembered. So that leaves who will be most honoured. I am not sure you can differentiate between them all.

The Bill Gates foundation is a very MASSIVE endeavor. Warren Buffett gave most of his money to support it. This will have a lasting impact on our world and our civilization so positive points to Bill here.

Bill Gates deserved props for understanding that software was the reason for having hardware.

Linus represents the opposite business model to Microsoft and it has very egalitarian ideals behind it. However, I don't believe that that necessarily makes it a good product. I am not convinced that Open Source software is going to win out. It hasn't done so yet and Linux has been marginal at best.

Steve Jobs represents cohesion. No other company has been able to fuse software, hardware and the human element into a single product like Apple has. I think Job's design philosophy will very common in the future, much like Henry Ford's Mass Production. Everybody will use it.

Lawrence · Sep 29th, 2007, 11:06 AM

I had hoped to see Tesla in that list, But since he isn't...
I suppose it'd have to be Steve Jobs since the Woz isn't listed either.

Heh

Dave

Lichen Software · Sep 29th, 2007, 11:08 AM

You put up tough questions MacDoc. You make me type a lot :-)

I voted Gates for philanthropy card. If he can put his business smarts into the philanthropy venue, he will accomplish great things.

I read an article somewhere where he was putting out his and other peoples money for some form of research, but to receive the money, all of the research had to be open source. So some discoveries get done - Who do we credit? - Gates or Torvald. The answer is both obviously as one had a very large part in setting up the open source concept in the first place and the other used it to benefit mankind. But I am betting Gates gets the headlines.

If one restricts to impact venue to different specific items, one will have to select different people.

Jobs - An inspiring leader in industrial design.

Gates - Took personal operating sytems and put them in the corporate world but at the same time managed to have them trickle down to the every day user.

Though Jobs was the evangelist, Gates was the populist.

I have to look at both of these people in light of the original Xerox research facility that had it all - Mouse, GUI, email, ethernet.... All there. However, the executives of the company could not do the paradigm switch from Server/Workstation to Personal Computer. They lost it all.

Gates and Jobs both understood - They "Got It". Jobs after touring the source and Gates after seeing Job's work.

Torvald - A radically new method of design. This is a method that lets individuals challange the corporate elite through cooperation. I truly believe that this story and his legacy is yet to fully unfold. They are making an open source car in Europe right now. Where else and how else will this concept spread? This paradigm is not computer specific. It directly addresses some of the fundamental problems I have been watching -

a.) Big business is getting bigger

b.) There are fewer of them as they buy each other up

c.) The cost of entry in all business is escalating

d.) The ability to remain in business is requiring larger pockets as the very large corporations generate economies of scale.

e.) Leading to "Corporate Approved" inovation only in many fields.

f.) This is all going on on an international front.

Open Source represents a method of playing in the same playing field without becoming a drone or having half a billion dollars to spend.

Hmmm... I think I put in more than 2 cents worth - at least in typing volume.

MacDoc · Sep 29th, 2007, 11:49 AM

All good points except VD jumping to unwarranted conclusions again.

Why I think Linus will be "remembered" more is the name association with Linux and that as the planetary noosphere burgeons Linux /Open source will endure as a meme.
Without his name association he'd be perhaps a another Armstrong tho not so bedeviled. It was fun to watch the wonder as the first IP bid came in on a Red Hat share they thought MIGHT get to $34 - was actually $299

I don't think Gates quite cuts it with the likes of Edison and Marconi and those early electrification/electronics founders.
Gates might be paired with Rockefeller and Carnegie - somewhat reviled somewhat admired by historians in the enduring foundations. Jobs has nothing like that.

Jobs maybe comes a bit closer to the founder level of innovation given both Pixar and Apple and he truly did create an new media in the iPod. I think there is little argument his is the vision driving Apple''s current success.
His tale will certainly be embedded for business and vision reasons in the annals of corporate myth making.
To make a billion dollars in two different industries - to a large degree founding them both is unprecedented.