Bizarre Interview With Bill Gates on Vista

Steven Levy interviews Bill Gates in Newsweek. Gate's answers are bizarre at times as Levy asks some questions with how Vista compares with the Mac. Matt Asay writes about some of these things in InfoWorld.

I agree with Asay. Gates' answer for why someone should use Vista is really weak. Better security, ease of use, compatibility with more devices, are all better reasons. And what he listed is clearly catchup to the mac. And he (understandably) avoids the topic of the features (WinFS) that were removed in 2004 when the whole development process changed. The search stuff is also catchup to the release of Spotlight on the mac and even Google Desktop on the PC. I was surprised to see so many questions on the mac commercials, but Gates answers are confusing on those too. In one he says he hasn't seen it, in another he says there isn't slightest shred of truth to it.

Gates security comments seem very wrong. Windows is clearly behind the Mac and Linux and BSD systems. The mac is certainly not invulnerable but it's also clearly more secure. Sure the Month of Apple Bugs found some holes, though not all of them were in the OS and not all of them were in Apple code. Nevertheless, they pale in comparison to the number of Windows exploits that have been found (and probably to the number of IE exploits that have been found). The mac is more secure because the underlying unix code base is more secure, file permissions are set appropriately out of the box, and the root account is disabled by default. These things were not true with XP and MS had to do a lot of work for Vista to catch up.

Gates talks about adding layers, that's certainly vague and there were obviously API layers, but many of Windows security issues have come from putting things like Active X controls into the browser and putting browser support into Email, without any security features. Yes they added more power, but often not for good cause, and until recently MS added such things without any thought to the security consequences. This is what needed to change at MS.

Vista looks interesting, and it seems the long beta program worked for Vista, I've seen very few reports of issues with installation. My next PC (whenever that is) will certainly have it, though I'm in no rush to run out and upgrade my current PC. On the other hand, Leopard (the next Mac OS) will be out this spring, and I'm sure I'll get it quickly.