Bill Gates talks Linux, Longhorn to McNews

[image_library_tag 2904/A-collector-apos-s-item--when-Microsoft-endorsed-OS-2-big-time.jpg' hspace='3' align='left' alt='A collector's item: when Microsoft endorsed OS, ,default] USA TODAY interviewed Microsoft's head Bill Gates who compared Linux to OS/2. And he asks if anyone remembers OS/2. Sorry Bill, but the INQ does. Bill should remember OS/2 clearly enough as well, he was there with IBM right at the start, but comparing Linux to OS/2 is perhaps a trifle tenuous. Perhaps he still drinks his coffee out of the Microsoft/OS2 mug pictured here?

At the famous interoperability Comdex 1987, Microsoft and IBM both claimed that OS/2 would allow customers to integrate all their "heteregeneous environments". The rest is history. We wonder if Bill remembers the GEM operating system, DR-DOS, CP/M, and PC-DOS, the IBM DOS which Big Blue still has all the rights to.

He also chatted to USA Today about Longhorn, the next operating system which he found hard to explain. So if he doesn't find that easy, that means we're going to find it a bit hard to understand too. He seems to say that Longhorn will connect to every device that's going. But he used to say that about OS/2 in the old days, as well.

And Windows 3.0, Windows for Warehouses, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME and the rest.

Longhorn, according to Gates, is years down the road. The photos of Bill don't put him in his best light either - where is that svelte geek we remember from the OS/2 interoperability days of yesteryear?

He's also got an opinion on Mozambique. Maybe he could tell us why the former Portuguese colony is a member of the British Commonwealth. Sure as eggs is eggs, we haven't an earthly about that one. µ

L'INQ
McNews

See Also
Intel endorses OS/2
DR DOS is a scrawny old cow
IBM swamped by OS/2 demand