Domain: kickassgear.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to kickassgear.com.
Comments · 30
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Re:Europe
Indeed. In the USA you can hand your stuff to a "standards body", then stab anyone who uses it in the back if your patent gets approved later (see also: Submarine Patents and Rambus's dishonesty a decade ago that drove up DRAM prices for a long while).
People can complain about the European patent system but they do a lot of things better than the USA:
- Stopping submarine patents and patent trolls.
- Actually doing due diligence on first-discovery vs. the nonsensical "first to file"
- Actually doing due diligence to keep the Obvious and Trivial patents out
- Actually doing due diligence to be sure someone isn't trying to patent something already patentedIn fact, overall the US patent office doesn't do "due diligence" on almost anything anymore. I can't blame them since they are far underfunded to handle the glut of patent-slamming from major US corporations, but it does kind of make the US patent system a laughingstock elsewhere in the modern world.
Seriously, what sort of incompetence do you have to have on display to have someone actually manage to patent the peanut butter and jelly sandwich?
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Re:This is why we can't have anything nice
IIRC correctly there was additionally the complaint that Microsoft designed Windows to crash Netscape.
Um, no. But perhaps you're thinking of "Windows ain't done till DR-DOS won't run"?
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Yes, this is a new example of old behavior.
The NYT coverage and their analysis are both news from the Vista capable dissaster. With a jerk around like that, it's no wonder that the whole industry has revolted and it's nice to see the word getting out to a wider audience via papers like the NYT. Their analysis is also interesting, though I'd love to see where "Otter" beat them to the punch. Didn't happen did it?
Here are some older examples of the same kinds of behavior:
- Apple and Lotus 123
- The DRDOS Case, 1991. Court proved malice and PR lies to cover it.
- Backup software. There's a reason it's hard to back up M$ systems.
- OS/2, software they helped make and then killed because it was better than what they owned.
- Netscape, 1995. Court proved malice and lies to cover it. People still claim Mozilla suffers from "memory leaks".
- Word Perfect. Another victim of the DOS/Win3.1
- Audio players, software and hardware
The list goes on and on. On the chopping block today are ODF, Linux distros, AV makers and a host of competitors that just won't die like iPod, Play Station and Mozilla. The only way out is to avoid Windows and stay away from M$ and other non free software vendors. The further away you are, the better off you are.
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That's why Sabotage Sucks.
You can stop trying to imply that this is some sort of sabotage by Microsoft, considering they'd be sabotaging themselves in the process. No different to your dumb claim that they "sabotaged" ACPI.
It's nice of you to concede the destructive effects of this kind of competition. I would never argue that it's anything but self defeating for M$ but that does not keep them from doing it again and again.
A company that's been convicted of anti-competitive practices in several lawsuits has earned reasonable suspicion when things break. It was Bill Gate's dumb idea to sabotage ACPI, and that came out in the Iowa Consumer Case. The DRDOS case, (also see p36 here), is a good early example of the overall behavior. They sabotaged a competitor then filled BBSs with astroturf that blamed the victim. Just for you, dedazo, I've made a nice list of more recent sabotages here. The victims include iPod, Firefox, Google Desktop and anti-virus makers and the FUD hate machine is cranked up to full blast in all of those cases.
The big suck of software sabotage is that it always degrades the user experience. The obvious result is that the user loses their choice of software and is forced to use something second rate. Less obvious results are performance hits in what's left. Sabotage demands extra branching and checks that take time and introduce errors of their own. The legacy of this kind of "competition" is complex file formats, insane APIs, and a system that's feature poor, expensive, unreliable and lacks real choices. Even when M$ wins this game without shooting themselves in the foot, they lose.
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The DRDOS case shows a pattern of behavior.
Obnoxious M$ Fanboy dedazo asks an amusing question:
Why do you keep using the same [link about DRDOS]?
I like that link because it shows a clear pattern of behavior and the author is credible. It was written by a former MicroSoft fan who read now destroyed court records. Those records proved that M$ planned not only a technical sabotage of DRDOS, they also planned a PR attack on it. This is behavior they continue today.
I also like pointing to the case of Steve Barkto, when showing how old M$'s astro turfing efforts are.
If they are not paying you to be so annoying, you need to find a more productive hobby. This one is getting you nowhere.
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PR, Confusion, Vista Launch, the usual.
Vista is failing in the marketplace because M$ continues to play their stupid monopoly tricks. Vista is the most restrictive and buggy version of Windoze yet. They are currently making life hard for anti-virus makers, Google, Firefox, iPod, Palm and OpenOffice, even Adobe. As usual, the M$ replacements are technically inferior. Between that and all of the MAFIAA friendly digital restrictions Vista is still a disaster that people are avoiding.
To compensate M$ is doing what it usually does, claiming everything good for themselves, sabotaging and lying about everyone else. They have been playing the blame game for a long time now, sabotaging the competition and them blaming them for the problems. In this case, they are desperate to claim all of the goodness of free software for themselves and cause confusion about real free software. OOXML, is that "Open Office XML"? No, it's M$'s confusing term for it's incomplete and patent encumbered new Office format. "Shared Source", is that something new from Debian? No, it's the usual "what's ours is ours and what's yours is ours" way of stealing your work. Free software is their main competitor, so they are going to try to say they are all the good things free software is and that free software has all the problems they do because "complex systems" just act that way.
This kind of thing would be laughable if it were not for the billions of dollars they have to spend pushing it all out. People want a new Office format, a new computer and a new GUI like they want a hole in their head. M$'s shoddy stuff has damaged the entire industry's reputation. It's finally come home to them in poor sales, but the same poor sales are going to hurt everyone else too.
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Re:Windoze is the thing to avoid.
Did you honestly forget this whole thing where you made exactly this point,
No, and I'm still willing to project M$'s behavior towards DRDOS, Lotus, Word Perfect, Palm, Netscape, anti-virus makers and others right into the Google present. There's a clear pattern of behavior there that makes Google's claim all the more believable. Google has competent programmers who know the difference between intentional sabotage and accident, as did each of those other companies. Most of them came forth in anti-trust cases, and M$'s own internal email backed them up.
As usual, M$ has amped up the blame for the victim through Astroturfers like you, who can offer nothing but insults as a reason to think M$ has changed. This whole thread is riddled with highly moderated "Google is Evil" posts and other nonsense proclaiming M$'s "right to improve their platform" as if Google had done anything wrong or impeding a competitor's product by sabotaging the end user's computer could help anyone. M$'s behavior was and is premeditated and ultimately harms the user. Their current blame game and refusal to act on behalf of the user is documented by Ars:
We inspected Microsoft's joint filing and found that Microsoft is not going to allow a complete override of the default search service in all Explorer windows, and that the company also rejects Google's concerns about performance.
At the end of the day, Windoze users are the losers. They get a sabotaged platform that used to have cool programs but is now deserted. It's amazing that anyone still wastes their time programming for Windoze. M$ has demonstrated time and time again that they will steal any profitable market by sabotaging the competition. Who wants to use a platform like that? It entirely negates vendor and hardware advantages M$ still enjoys because you never know when your favorite toy is going to be the next M$ victim that sends your computer into time wasting loops.
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M$ facts are worthless.
Your admissions mostly make my point, thanks.
So Microsoft are in fact saying that there is no issue with GDS
...Really? No argument there. That's what they always do.
Regarding OSX and Spotlight, GDS actually uses extensions of Spotlight to achieve some of it's indexing, so that's a fairly simple reason why they're not complaining. They don't do this with Windows Indexing because they can't
... The fact that Linux's indexing does or does not 'suck life' ... is also completely irrelevant.So, everyone else gets the job done without stepping on each others toes but only M$ can do it on Vista. KDE and Gnome don't interfere with each other in the GNU/Linux world. GDS works great on OSX. Yet, for some reason only M$ works on Vista. This alone gives weight to Google's charges.
Besides common sense, we have reputation and history as a guide. Google knows it's platforms and has a sterling reputation. M$ has been proved guilty of sabotage in the DRDOS case above and Netscape. It's obvious you are on the M$ side, I just wonder why.
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new, "tightly integrated" features not the problem
The problem, in all of those cases, was that M$ sabotaged the competitor from the OS. They then blame the competitor for the problem. This is a very old trick that they play again and again. The end result for the user is a platform full of intentional bugs and devoid of real competition or choice.
Your list of driven off competitors is something M$ should be ashamed of. They have never managed to match, let alone better, the program from the competitors they have destroyed this way.
The Google fight is one they are going to lose. It's not just search, which is a tool only M$ Windoze users really need, it's web search, YouTube, Google applications that M$ is unable to compete with. Given the choice between M$ and the world, users are increasingly choosing the world - GNU/Linux, Mac anything but M$.
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More astroturf, but no explaination of OSX/GDS.
Ah, yes more of the same from mactrhope:
Except once again you haven't read a single thing on the thread and have jumped straight to the only conclusion we could have expected from you - 'MS am bad, lol'.
No, I had to wade through all the lame excuses and "I'm with Microsoft Astroturf before I found a remotely reasonable question. If history is any guide, Googles claims are true. If what you are saying is true, tell me why Mac users don't have the same problem with OSX and GDS on the same box and why Linux search utilities also don't suck life. The point of M$'s sabotage is to say that GDS is slow and buggy, but that does not work when there are other implementations that work outside of M$'s reach. As usual, all you have is namecalling and nonsense.
This is a very old and court exposed M$ game. They break a program then flood the lists with bullshit. When you see through it once you never listen to it again.
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Good, but not what they are doing.
In fact, it has been all but ordered that people at the company participate in online communities daily and maintain their own blogs (especially on the Microsoft sites).
That would be good, but I'm afraid their PR machine does not work this way. It would be great if actual M$ employees were here reading what people really think and how quickly their company's propaganda is torn to pieces. They would quickly learn what about the rotten things their company does and M$ would be forced to change or loose people to competitors like Google. As Steve Ballmer brainwashed his own kids to avoid Google and iPod and other best of class things, I imagine Slashdot viewing is forbidden and that people posting for M$ are nothing more than paid PR and harassment droids.
I speculate that M$ has farmed out all of their dirty work. I'm sure M$ wants their people doing the job they pay them for. Second, they don't have enough people there to make a dent on a place like Slashdot. The basics of their techniques were worked out in the Steve Barkto and DRDOS cases: slam the competitor and encourage M$ use. The Apple Switcher and anti-trust astroturfing of legislators are both examples of where they have hired firms for questionable marketing. Questionable stuff like harassment by dorks like:
It does not really work, however. The circle of harassment is growing as fast as interest in other platforms and the two are linked. At some point the pawns get it.
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You left out reality. Nothing new from M$.
It'd be silly if the PR people would ignore Slashdot. They don't. [We are just like you, dear reader
... and we care about you ... sleep.]Oh, that and Slashdot has a larger readership than Wired. Quit bullshitting.
Your PR goal, as is evident to your Wired target, is to make others carry your message. You dedicated 5,000 pages to that little spin how to. Your company's efforts here are just what they were for BBS's where you slammed and FUDed OS/2 and DRDoS. Your company also considers developers as pawns to be lied to, and slashdot gives you both - how convenient. The same tricks and bullshit are in play here today, but on a much larger scale.
It's not working. We know you for what you are and your "products" are things we'd rather avoid. The bottom line is that a billion dollars a month can't replace actual product. Zune, Vista and Office are second or third rate. Try as you might, the industry is liberating itself and the end of your monopoly is near.
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There's a good reason Novel won that lawsuit.
in the real world, no such thing happened. What happened was that Microsoft inserted code into a beta version of Win3.1 that displayed a warning. That's right, not only did the evil code not stop Windows working at all (it just displayed a misleading message and waited for a keypress), it was removed after the beta and never existed in any version of Windows that was sold to the public.
The damage was planned to go along with another fud campaign, and most certainly made it to public release. Even if it was only a "warning" like you say, the damage was enough to destroy DR-DOS and the competition M$ so worried about. The records for that suit were destroyed as part of a deal between the Soft and Novel so the best synopsis by an unbiased observer I know of is here. The most important bits are:
Microsoft's David Cole emailed Phil Barrett on September 30 1991: "It's pretty clear we need to make sure Windows 3.1 only runs on top of MS DOS or an OEM version of it," and "The approach we will take is to detect DR DOS 6 and refuse to load. The error message should be something like 'Invalid device driver interface."
Microsoft had several methods of detecting and sabotaging DR-DOS with Windows. One was to have Smartdrive detect DR-DOS and refused to load it for Windows 3.1. There was also a version check in XMS in the Windows 3.1 setup program which produced the message: "The XMS driver you have installed is not compatible with Windows. You must remove it before setup can successfully install Windows."
Brad Silverberg, the Microsoft exec who had been responsible for Windows 95, emailed Jim Allchin
... on September 27th 1991: ""after IBM announces support for dr-dos at comdex, ... they will offer dr-dos as the preferred solution for 286, os 2 2.0 for 386. they will also probably continue to offer msdos at $165 (drdos for $99). drdos has problems running windows today, and I assume will have more problems in the future." Jim Allchin replied: "You should make sure it has problems in the future. :-)".The emails then go on to detail how they Fudded Compuserve to blame DR-DOS.
Anyway you look at it, M$ treated their customers with contempt and still does. Your defense of such tactics in defense of "the truth" is disturbing. Do like it when people lie to you so they can take your money?
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AstroTurf is all they have left.The same losers who post flamebait here, have invaded other mailing lists. They were dumb enough to admit it on our list with this declaration of war:
We shall continue to disseminate these pearls of wisdom
... No matter how many fake email address, no matter how many open proxies - we shall prevail!The goal is to make the lists look as described, unfriendly and rude. They do this with their own rude posts and heckling.
They also aim at self censorship. By calling people rude all day long, they hope to keep people from unfavorably describing their crap. Describing Windoze as second rate is not rude, it's an overwhelming statement of fact and it's easy to present in a way that does not insult the user.
These efforts are co-ordinated and they have been from the very beginning. Microsoft knows the power of word of mouth and seeks to influence it:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050313031916/http:
/ /www.kickassgear.com/Articles/Microsoft.htmBullshit floated on those lists is usually echoed by shills in the Wintel press. Their "ambassador" program at universities is another extension of this program. Given their technical inferiority to most competition, hype, deception and insults are all M$ has to work with. They are losing traction.
It does not work on the local lists, of course, because free software is all about sharing and they still don't have enough resources. Rude people are ignored, technical questions are still answered and newbies are directed to anwsers. The LUG has two newbie efforts, it's own list and volunteers at the local computer club where classes are offered once a month. Those classes are filled and growing.
The end result for Microsoft is a loser in any case because lying does not work. Everytime they get caught doing it, they undermine their reputation further. This is why they have one of the worst reputations in world. Everyone knows they are a bunch of dishonest bullies with second and third rate software.
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Re:Build your ownFor the benefit of anybody who is new here (not necessarily the parent poster), "air supply" in this context refers to an incident in 1998 during the anti-trust trial of Microsoft. Paraphrasing roughly, a Microsoft executive said that if Netscape didn't agree to partition the web browser market, Microsoft would "cut off their air supply," presumably by engaging in the same sorts of behavior they were alleged to have perpetrated against Dr. DOS (look for the blue text down a bit) back in the day.
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Grrr... Here's the blown link...
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Re:Blame where it belongs.I think the comment you just made could probably be considered slander unless you can back it up with facts. M$ have used some pretty questionable practices in the past but I somehow doubt even they would be as stupid as to intentionally cripple FF.
Is this proof enough? This in particular sounds like what to expect from a M$ "update": [user installs IE7] Okay, quick check to see if IE6 is still on here...aaaannddd...of course not. Fuckers. Okay, let's check in Firefox, yep, what I thought. IE7 is messing up some of the menu's CSS effects - sometimes putting an underline under some of the items when it shouldn't.
Is this intentional? We won't know till the next anti-trust trial, when they pull up another pile of email with phrases like, "knife the baby" and "cut off their oxygen supply" are published. Their behavior in the DrDOS case was bad enough to never trust them again.
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Mozilla 8:16-19... and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.
"Fools!" cried their second in command, who most resembled Uncle Fester. He then made a great commotion with chairs in his office and moaned like a Wildebeast, "I will KILL NETSCAPE! I have done it before and I will do it again."
And he laughed a cruel laugh as he ordered his Developers to craft all manner of Evil for Netscape. "My master says this is His Platform and none can compete therein. HP shall be punished and blamed for their insolence." Before a single unit was shipped the trap was laid.
So the New XP, according to it's master's instructions, reported the offenders who dared challenge the The Browser and there was a great plague on device drivers for the unfortunate users and other dependents.
For Yeah, HP had not learned the Digital Research Lesson, and though they slew their own son, the Beast of Redmond is impossible to satisfy without perfect Obedience.
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news for fanboy.I hate to break it to the Slashdot zealots
... It is not in Microsoft's best interests to restrict development for Windows. It is not in their best interests to break compatibility with older software. Neither of these things will EVER happen at MicrosoftYou must have slept through the anti-trust trails. You know, where everyone and anyone in tech testified how M$ constantly fucked with them. As much as you would like to pretend otherwise, M$ is paranoid and breaks software on their platform all the time. They have been doing it since the days of DOS. Here's a short list of dead competitors:
This news has NO implications for FOSS on Windows.
... - this just standardizes it and provides centralized downloading and key storage.You must also not know about Paladium/NGDRM or whatever they are calling "trusted computing" these days. They have already used "security" to break software. Having a central place where M$ decides if you can trust your software means M$ can stop any piece of software from running. That's what DRM is to M$, they are trying to put it in the BIOS, not that flaky BIOS as an anticompetitive trick is new. M$ is freaky and evil. They will use this against free software because they can.
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Re:Unacceptably RidiculousMS made fake error messages in order to derail DR-DOS. It was documented in the anti-trust trial with MS internal emails. MS is exactly what it apears to be. A ruthless company that only pays homage to public image and profit rather than ethics.
Heres what they did, from here
Microsoft had several methods of detecting and sabotaging DR-DOS with Windows. One was to have Smartdrive detect DR-DOS and refused to load it for Windows 3.1. There was also a version check in XMS in the Windows 3.1 setup program which produced the message: "The XMS driver you have installed is not compatible with Windows. You must remove it before setup can successfully install Windows." This was not true, but rather, was an attempt to undermine the competition.
And heres a taste of the internal emails, from the same source.
Microsoft's David Cole emailed Phil Barrett on September 30 1991: "It's pretty clear we need to make sure Windows 3.1 only runs on top of MS DOS or an OEM version of it," and "The approach we will take is to detect DR DOS 6 and refuse to load. The error message should be something like 'Invalid device driver interface."
They threatend Frontpage with an MS bundled product in order to make them sell out.
They bundled DOS 7 with windows, called it win95 and killed dos competition.
They bundled Explorer with Windows to kill Netscape.
They buy up good software in order to discontinue support of competitive OS's. (sybaria, gecad, etc)
They buy up game companies and tie them to the XBox (halo was originally coming out for the Mac and PC. Not really unethical but damned annoying if you don't have an XBox.)
Tie sales of computers to sales of windows (Microsoft tax)
Astro turf campaigns to artificialy generate an image of public sympathy and support.
Prevented competitors products from being installed by OEMs. (Beos, Netscape, etc)
sigh..
MS's dirty laundry is endless.. With a history as tainted and ethically bankrupt as Microsofts, I just don't see how people can wonder if they intentionally sabotaged Lotus?
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How about creating mod_noie?
Let's stop IE at the webserver. Someone needs to create mod_noie, which returns a page to download FireFox and/or Mozilla if it detects the user is using MSIE. Warn the user they have an insecure browser that's hurting the internet and they need to upgrade.
It worked for Microsoft to squelch DR-DOS, didn't it? Turnabout is fair play. -
Re:I live without Windows
A company has a right to beat the competition by being better. It does not have the right to beat the competition by illegal *and* immoral means.
And if you want to keep giving business to a company that will shaft its customers to consolidate its position, be my guest:
"Perhaps a message in the phone system for Windows. It would say something like 'if you are not using MS-DOS or an OEM version of MS-DOS, then press ##'. Then give them the message." Silverberg replied: "What the guy is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has bugs, suspect that the problem is dr-dos and then go out to buy ms-dos. or decide to not take the risk for the other machines he has to buy for in the office."
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That would be interestingMicrosoft actually crafts a search engine that is demonstrably better than Google.
They can't, that's why they tried to by it. It's just like everything else Microsoft. They wait for a "market" to mature and buy their way into it. The results are never first rate because they never have the same concerns that creators have. They only care about money, performance is not the goal.
Had they bought Google, it would go the way of Hotmail, full of adverts, slow and used for Microsoft's strange world domination plans.
Having failed to buy Google, they will go down the road of trying to destroy Google. This is generally how Microsoft competes. The case of DrDOS is the best documented, but the Windows world is littered with aps M$ broke. There are two ways to break Google. The first is to set up websites and engage in Google bombing. The second is to incorrectly render or time out on Google searches. I expect Microsoft to do both.
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the tricky partThe tricky part is the usual M$ interoperability problem, Microsoft will break it. As soon as you figure out how to use it, M$ can pull a "system update" that changes everything right under you. They can even make it so that you harm your system or destroy information if you try to use it. They have done this for other sytems as far back as DRDOS. It would not be hard for them to put in a flag that they know about, but you don't. It's Microsoft, they suck, use it at your own risk.
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So, you like funding lies?What this really means is that Microsoft is smart, and has hired someone who will now find much better reasons to poo-poo open source and Linux.
Yeah, that's about the size of it.
Maybe not good reasons or reasons anyone here would agreee with, but reasons that will make sense to the IT departments and executives that make up Microsofts customers.
Oh, like the wierd philosopy that all must pay the Microsoft tax or be branded unAmerican? People here want facts, numbers and real performance. Microsoft is not going to get any of that for their stuff from this lab, all it's going to get is fodder for lies. It will help some executives continue to cover their gross mistake of sticking with Windoze. It won't help their bottom line and their companies will continue to spend good money after bad.
Either rebut, or fix, whatever issues this new lab comes up with. Easy, and good for open source too.
You can't fix what is not broken.
This is all perception management. They need to have more of a clue, but the goals remain the same. They will force the results they want and try to make it look reputable. The insults will continue, it's in their blood. Microsft has not learned and never will. The same things that make their software insecure and buggy today will make it insecure and buggy tomorrow.
They keep saying the same old stuff, Microsoft is secure, Microsoft has a lower cost of ownership, Microsoft is more stable now, Best Windows Ever. All they have done is hire someone to help them lie better. No repeatable test will ever show what Microsoft says is true, because none of it ever is. A linux lab is not going to change anything, but the quality of the lie. They will produce literature filled with half truths and nonsense. As it is today, all they have is nonsense and it shows.
Don't think for an instant the name calling will stop, either. It's just going to be pushed onto "independent" PR firms and study groups. Tools like SCO will rage on under M$ funding. Microsoft understands they screwed up by directly insulting their customers and people who were giving superior software away as free. It won't be long before officials there start spewing about "hippies", "cancers" and all that again. They will continue to say such things off record. These are the same folks who think they have a right to read your files and control what software is on your compter, they might believe they have a right to your money and that saying otherwise is unAmerican. The Astroturf will only get worse. It's a trick M$ has know since Yes, the company that screwed DRDOS with bogus error messages is capable of it. Barkto was not an aboration, it was the norm and it's always worse than you think.
Those are the two changes I predict. More and nastier lies.
God, I LOVE competition.
I don't think you or Microsoft know what competition is.
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Gee fatty, are we being honest?GEEZ man.. READ THE FREAKIN' ARTICLE, not the first line before posting your rant, and especially before you speak ill of Andy and DDJ.
... [blah blah] you concluded from your detailed analysis of the first paragraph.
Uh, no it was the sixth or seventh paragraph. It contained the spirit of the whole article and also admitted to the reader that the author is a paid defendant of Microsoft.
The article is an extremely incriminating analysis of Microsoft and alludes to some vicious monopolistic strategies by the Evil One. He NOT condoning MS or their actions
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No it's not incriminating. Much doubt is cast on others, the harm done is downplayed and intent on Microsoft's part is dennied. His little write up stands as a wonderful example of M$ double talk. Microsoft's emails, on the other hand, were incriminating in exactly the way Andy said could not be proved. His caution, in hindsight, looks like a paid oppinion from Microsoft.
I would suggest that ALL Microsoft supporters read this article to really see what a monopoly can get away with.
Yes, people who "support" M$ should be indoctrinated this way. People who want to know what Microsoft is really thinking and planning for them should read Microsoft's email.
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get a grip.mdielmann has these words of praise for Anrew, "The way I see it, he has nothing good to say about what MS was doing in that article, but he doesn't condone attacking MS every time something goes wrong."
What are you talking about? The whole point of Andy's appology was that the bugs are elswhere and what a great company M$ is to get along with anyone. It was pure appology and bullshit. If you follow the link I provided, you will see that Microsoft intentionally broke their competitor's code to eliminate them. This is a direct refutation of much Microsoft bullshit, from Microsoft own mouth.
Let's quote a few chunks for you:
Microsoft's David Cole emailed Phil Barrett on September 30 1991: "It's pretty clear we need to make sure Windows 3.1 only runs on top of MS DOS or an OEM version of it," and "The approach we will take is to detect DR DOS 6 and refuse to load. The error message should be something like 'Invalid device driver interface."
Brad Silverberg, the Microsoft exec who had been responsible for Windows 95, emailed Jim Allchin (now Senior Vice President of MS) on September 27th 1991: "after IBM announces support for dr-dos at comdex, it's a small step for them to also announce they will be selling netware lite, maybe sometime soon thereafter. but count on it. We don't know precisely what ibm is going to announce. my best hunch is that they will offer dr-dos as the preferred solution for 286, os 2 2.0 for 386. they will also probably continue to offer msdos at $165 (drdos for $99). drdos has problems running windows today, and I assume will have more problems in the future."
Jim Allchin replied: "You should make sure it has problems in the future.
:-)".
Andy Hill emailed David Cole, Windows group manager: "Janine has brought up some good questions on how we handle the error messages that the users will get if they aren't using MS-DOS. The beta testers will ask questions. How should the techs respond: Ignorance, the truth, other? This will no doubt raise a stir on Compuserve. We should either be proactive and post something up there now, or have a response already constructed so we can flash it up there as soon as the issue arises so we can nip it in the bud before we have a typical CIS snow-ball mutiny."
The point of all this is not to blame M$ for things that go wrong, it's that you can't ever rule it out. Microsoft is a dishonest company and you are better off having nothing to do with them at all. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. One such incident was good enough for me.
Even still, the moitves, depth of malice and planning is shocking. You have to wonder what goodies Caldera dug up are now going into toilet paper. It's apparent that Microsoft not only lied about what they were doing, they got others to lie on their behalf. The findings of fact on the Netscape trials showed that nothing at Microsoft had changed since they disposed of OS/2, DRDOS and other competing OS. Only a fool would countinue to trust them or their software for their business recoords.
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Andrew is a shill.Qouth the nonsense you linked too:
I've often had to publicly defend Microsoft against what I felt were acts of scapegoating from whining competitors (including Novell, Borland, Lotus, and Wordperfect), complaints which remind me of the way some Americans like to blame Japan for what are ultimately our own domestic problems.
Funny how the US Government later decided that M$ did indeed engage is such practices. Andy and DDJ should be ashamed of that article.
Let's see how the US government saw things. The jucky bits about DRDOS have been dug up by others. Have a look at M$ email for yourself. It was orchestrated from the start to crush an admitedly superior technology, included abouse of Microsoft's own custormers and malicious PR. Anyone who says differently has been proven a fool.
The destruction of court records is evil because it burries evidence of wrongdoing by a convicted monopolist that has yet to be punished and is proceeding as if nothing at all had happened. These letters may be published elsewhere, but they need to be preserved in context if an objective history is to be written. There's no telling what goodies the Caldera folks dug up before they became M$'s next shill. Evidence of Microsoft's concerted effort to eliminate free software is going to be lost.
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Re:Nope!
yeeeaahhhh
-Gnight -
Celeron 300A discontinued