Jobs, Gates and Stallman: Three Different Points of View

These guys are very smart, decided to win and focused in their daily activities and objectives for the life. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are two very old rivals since the genesis of the personal computer industry and also, I have to aggregate the controversial Richard Stallman who is one of the most important icons of the hacking culture of the former MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Whether we talk about software we should mention the first time Richard Stallman defined the Free Software as a result of software operated under the four liberties which are: (“zero”-run it for every purpose you want, “one”- modify it and improve it, “two”- make all the copies I want in order to provide these copies o other users, “three”- improved publicly for the benefit of the community). Gates all the times said it’s just a violation to the copyright laws but Stallman and the Free Software Foundation developed the copy left in order to fight against proprietary software under a legal framework.

The case of Steve Job we can see a man that some friends say he's a very strict boss. Probably he isn't as rich as Buffett or Gates, he is not a SEO expert or owns a data storage corporation but he is the King of the iPhone and the iPod. Macintosh always played in the ground of proprietary software too. This was the first personal computer that could apply the GUI (Graphical User Interface) instead the old console with command line. Today we have a Gates, Jobs and Stallman with big projects in mind despite the difference they could have. But also they have some common things. They are leaders that know what they are following.

Bill Gates: “We've really achieved the ideal of what I wanted Microsoft to become.”

Why is the software magnate focusing on philanthropy just in this moment when Microsoft has a great challenge against the FSF and Open Source Community?

Williams Gates III (Bill Gates) comes from a very interested family and being just a teenager co-founded Microsoft Corporation along one of the most important guys (Paul Allen) behind the emerging operating system market of this epoch. After many years of advanced releases, large investments, billions of software licenses sold and several monopoly accusations William Gates grew to become a great businessman.

In the present days Gates has a fortune of 58 billion dollars, being according to Fortune, the richest man of United States and the third around the World. His priority always has been always work hard as CEO of Microsoft, Why is Gates interested in invest more time in his foundation along with his wife Melinda Gates?

Some analysts say that Bill Gates should have donated more money because of his large fortune. But never did it. Now he is promising share his fortune in charity. Oh please, come on! I personally think that his motivation is currently moved by a Microsoft’s strategy in combat the emerging Open Source Community and the Free Software Foundation.

The word “foundation” is a keyword for the business strategy of Microsoft in the forthcoming years. Why? Just think for a while in all the ground the free software movement is getting around the world. They promote its philosophies in a manner where liberties, social networking, wikis and solidarity are present. But the reputation of Microsoft is so far from a foundation. Through the Bill Gates foundation, Microsoft assumes get what they can not through Microsoft. Not in this moment but in the near future.