It does imply agreement if it's the only viewpoint being presented.
Not at all; the entire rest of the book demonstrates the truth more richly than any sort of immediate-pairing-with-an-alternate-take would. It's not a compact newspaper story or a children's textbook: take it as a whole. Does it demonstrate the truth of Gates' quotes? Clearly not.
Even where Gates says, "let’s be frank, the NeXT OS was never really used", I don't see that as being presented as gospel by Isaacoson. It's just another accurately quoted viewpoint. (The presence of puffery like "let's be frank" and weasel words like "really" are clues to any reader that this assessment is very perspective-dependent.)
Gruber is probably right that Isaacson doesn't quite appreciate software or NeXT's technologies. I think Gruber was also right to refute the Gladwell 'tweaker' label, interpreted from Isaacson's work. But Gruber is wrong that leaving Gates' quotes dangling at the end of "this section of the chapter, with no additional commentary" leaves the average reader "to believe that the above is an accurate description of Apple’s NeXT acquisition." The average reader knows it's just an accurate quote of Gates' opinion, to be interpreted along with all the other info in the book, before and after.
Can you point out to me how the rest of the book demonstrates the truth about the origins of OSX? My impression is that Isaacson just got this wrong. The quote is just part of that. Let a random person read the last few pages of chapter 28, and I'd think that they would draw the same conclusion.
I'd recommend just listening to Siracusas podcast to get all the details on what he got wrong, from small nitpicks to big issues.
Not at all; the entire rest of the book demonstrates the truth more richly than any sort of immediate-pairing-with-an-alternate-take would. It's not a compact newspaper story or a children's textbook: take it as a whole. Does it demonstrate the truth of Gates' quotes? Clearly not.
Even where Gates says, "let’s be frank, the NeXT OS was never really used", I don't see that as being presented as gospel by Isaacoson. It's just another accurately quoted viewpoint. (The presence of puffery like "let's be frank" and weasel words like "really" are clues to any reader that this assessment is very perspective-dependent.)
Gruber is probably right that Isaacson doesn't quite appreciate software or NeXT's technologies. I think Gruber was also right to refute the Gladwell 'tweaker' label, interpreted from Isaacson's work. But Gruber is wrong that leaving Gates' quotes dangling at the end of "this section of the chapter, with no additional commentary" leaves the average reader "to believe that the above is an accurate description of Apple’s NeXT acquisition." The average reader knows it's just an accurate quote of Gates' opinion, to be interpreted along with all the other info in the book, before and after.