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Breaking Windows
The battle being fought here is between the "Windows hawks," led by Microsoft Vice President Jim Allchin, and the "Internet doves," led by another Vice President, Brad Silverberg. Allchin was in charge of Windows NT; Silverberg shipped Windows 95 and early versions of Internet Explorer. The book has some great insight into how this battle proceeded and why the participants acted as they did.
For example, the book discusses Jim Allchin's famous email in early 1997, in which he discussed competing with Netscape and wrote, "I do not feel we are going to win on our current path -- I am convinced we have to use Windows, this is the one thing they don't have -- We need something with more Windows integration." This email was brought up in the Justice trial to show that Microsoft used browser integration to unfairly attack Netscape, but the book shows that Allchin at the time was trying to counteract feelings within Microsoft that the browser was all that mattered, and was therefore concerned not so much that non-integration would hurt the browser as he was concerned that non-integration would hurt Windows.
Or consider the following sentence from the book: "In the same way that Gates began to view Microsoft's Internet team as the internal representation of Netscape, he came to see Microsoft's Java team as the internal agents of Sun Microsystems." This is an extraordinarily perceptive statement, and the fact that a reader can appreciate its meaning 74 pages into the book is a tribute to the explanatory powers of Bank's writing.
What's To Consider If the terms "Internet doves" and "Windows hawks" didn't tip you off, Bank is trying to show that the "fumble" of the subtitle occurred in 1997, when Bill Gates decided against supporting a Microsoft project known as Megaserver. This would have been a platform for Internet development: a set of back-end services, tied in to the browser.Bank also discusses another, more well-known "fumble," the mismanagement of the Justice Department lawsuit. His writing here is still excellent, but this topic has been covered elsewhere so the information is not as surprising.
In the Justice lawsuit, he does a good job of showing how Gates was the main force behind two of Microsoft's poorest showings in the case: Gates'evasive videotaped deposition, and the response to the judge's order to allow computer manufacturer to ship Windows 95 without Internet Explorer (which involved allowing them to either ship a two-year-old version of Windows 95, or one that did not work at all).
In fact Bank spends much more time talking about the legal foibles than talking about his first argument, that Gates blew his role as technical leader of Microsoft by not endorsing Megaserver in 1997. But this really needs to be the core of his argument: saying that Gates' main mistake was made in the legal arena, in which he was a novice, is not nearly as compelling as claiming that Gates, the ultimate geek, botched the kind of technical decision that should have been his strength.
Megaserver was a Brad Silverberg project, and Jim Allchin was the main opposition. In Bank's mythology, Silverberg is the hero, pushing for the Internet. Allchin is the villain, sticking with Windows. But what really went on here?
Consider a story Bank relates from a Microsoft developer named Ben Slivka, one of the most strident of the Internet doves:
Slivka recounted the experience of one Windows developer who presented Allchin with his ideas for a simply, reliable operating system suitable for home users. Instead of saying "Great idea, go do it," Allchin had insisted that the new operating system be based on Windows NT. The developer objected that the huge NT operating system wasn't suitable for the drop-dead simple appliance he had envisioned. Allchin challenged him to list the parts of Windows NT he would strip out.To me this looks like Allchin is doing his job. What would happen if he authorized everyone who so desired to go off and write their own operating system? I/ll tell you what would happen: Windows CE. Enough said.
Allchin also had little patience for Microsoft employees who were advocating a move towards Java and free software:
I don't want to be remembered as the guy who destroyed one of the most amazing business in history. We could have done it [meaning we could have destroyed the business] with engineers who didn't understand and didn't have any responsibility for the financial aspects of the company at all. Who live in this paradise where the stock goes up, revenues keep going up, earnings keep doing up. And all they have to do is crank software. Somehow it gets into packages and makes money. Well, it doesn't work that way.Sounds reasonable to me. The notions of first-mover advantage and trading profits for users have been discredited in the dot-com meltdown. But the quote doesn't fit into Bank's view of Allchin as the bad guy, so he simply throws it out there, with no discussion.
History is often written by the winners, but in some ways the middle of this book is history written by the losers. The path not taken is discussed, but since it exists only as a perfect creation in the minds of its inventors (who obviously had Bank's ear when he was doing his research), it is depicted as flawless. Statements claiming that the new goal "was not to get thousands of developers to adopt your arcane PC programming interfaces but rather to get tens of millions of users to use your services every day=94 are accepted as holy truth.
Bank is convinced that Megaserver would have somehow "expanded the commons" of software development, that any Internet platform would have been an open platform. But consider what the Megaserver would have been as proposed back in 1997: A set of Microsoft servers with Microsoft data, talking to a browser that was customized to talk to those servers.
In short, it would have been a clone of AOL. Furthermore, this would have been architected by the team that brought you Windows 95. Would this have been a good thing? Does integrating your browser with your Web servers produce a more open environment than integrating it with your operating system?
Thus, it is hard to fault Gates for not supporting Megaserver in 1997. In fact, Microsoft is now pushing heavily towards .Net, which is the 2001 version of Megaserver. Why support it now? As Bank himself writes, about Microsoft executive Paul Maritz, "He had long known the problem was bigger than Win32, Maritz said. But now he could articulate the message. The difference, he later said, was XML." It was not so much that Microsoft did not recognize the need to move beyond the Win32 API; it was that in 1997 it didn't have the technology to do so.
Bank makes the claim that Gates was forced out as CEO because of his "fumbles." This is arguably the big revelation in the book, but it is hard to prove this conclusively: The trial missteps certainly did happen, Microsoft was drifting from a technology perspective, and Gates stepped down. Did he fall or was he pushed? The timing of events supports either conclusion. In any event, I found the behind-the-scenes descriptions much more interesting than this particular allegation.
Furthermore, Bank points out that Gates allowed an employee to set up a hands-off incubator within Microsoft that eventually led to the company-wide adoption of XML and .NET, and was the only top executive who really understood the .NET protocols. Thus it is hard to fault him for not supporting an Internet platform in 1997, when he planted the seeds for an Internet platform in 2001.
If the middle of the book is imperfect but still fascinating, the last chapter gets really strange. After playing Brad Silverberg up as the hero, Bank suddenly cuts him down. Earlier in the book, the decision to adopt Active Desktop in Windows 98 is mentioned, but with mysterious silence on who made the final call; it merely states that after seeing Netscape demonstrate a similar product called Constellation, "the browser team was given the additional job of creating a shell for all of Windows." That shell was Active Desktop, and this particular decision got Microsoft in antitrust trouble both because it increased the amount of browser integration that Microsoft had to defend in court, and because Microsoft started leaning on computer manufacturers in an effort to freeze out Netscape's product. Furthermore, the battle was basically for naught since Channels, the big Active Desktop feature, went nowhere. Gates himself said later, "That's a case where the browser guys, they had the Internet religion, but they pushed it too far in terms of what was a practical user experience."
So who decided to go with Active Desktop? You figure it had to be Silverberg, but Bank doesn't say that. In the final chapter, however, he slips a bit, pointing out that Silverberg's team was responsible for the tying of the browser, the semi-exclusive contracts with content and access providers, and the war against Java -- the main issues that the Justice department sued over. Furthermore, if the Megaserver strategy had been pursued, Microsoft might have been in even more legal trouble.
Gates, meanwhile, gets rehabilitated in the last chapter. His tactics in 1998 and 1999 are now described as a strategic stall, waiting for the right technology to appear for Microsoft's Internet platform: "The power to control the pace of innovation is a competitive advantage at least as crucial as the ability to innovate itself." Gates is portrayed as a leader once again, planning strategy ten years out, and the book ends with a prediction (for no reason other than the author's gut feeling) that Gates will do the right thing and usher in a new age of innovation, whatever that consists of.
I'm not sure what to make of this flip-flop. I assume this book was originally proposed to a publisher in 1999, written in 2000, and polished up in early 2001. In 1999 a book about the demise of Microsoft seemed a plausible undertaking, but two years later it turned out that the story wasn't over, and Microsoft appeared to be bouncing back. So Bank had time to equivocate, modifying his original thesis and explaining how perhaps Microsoft had a future after all.
Describing this latest turn of events, however, Bank doesn't have reams of email released during a trial, or sympathetic former Microsofties to interpret it for him. As a result, he can fire off sentences like, "The infrastructure for the digital age will be based on competition on the merits and a common code of open interfaces," with apparent complete sincerity. He believes that Microsoft asking AOL to open its Instant Messaging protocol is a harbinger of this golden future, and that Microsoft's Shared Source program shows it is moving towards open source. In short, he is buying the current Microsoft PR story, hook line and sinker.
Well, let this former Microsoftie (and former Windows hawk who worked in Allchin's group) explain a few things. Statements like "Interoperability, not lock-in, has become the winning strategy" are patently false. Right now there are two Internets: The AOL one, with its own client, servers, content, email, messaging, authentication, billing, security, and all the rest; and the plain old Internet. Microsoft wants to create a third Internet, the .NET Internet, with all the stuff that the AOL Internet has. Then it will pursue a lock-in like the world has never seen before.
Summary and Table of Contents But hey, enough quibbling. Bank may be wrong about the future of Microsoft, but he does a fantastic job covering the past. I spent some time discussing what I disagreed with, but there is so much more that I agree with. I knew about a lot of the events that are described in the book, but I still learned an incredible amount. If you want to know what things are like inside Microsoft, buy this book. Table of Contents- Prologue: The E-mail Trail
- Track the Inevitable
- Hawks and Doves.
- The Path Not Taken
- Citizen Gates
- Vicious Cycle
- Monopolist's Dilemma
- Loosely Coupled
- Key Dates
- Notes
- Acknowledgements
- Index
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.
(This will probably get a -1 since I don't post too often but...)
I gotta give Billy a thumbs up. Honetly this is the first time I've heard of this "Megaserver" thing. But to nix it when he did was a bright idea. AOL was doing good, but it wasn't proven bacvk then like it is now.
*BUT* this scares me a bit. M$ is trying to be the next AOL. That's not a good thing. Another band of un-knowing computer users out there?
Scary stuff...
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
Re-read the article (part timothy wrote):
Seems like someone got pissed and modded me offtopic because they interpretted me as bashing open source. Way to go moderators.
Dijkstra Considered Dead
Microsoft really is abusive. Microsoft's abusiveness costs billions of dollars in lost time. For example, Microsoft releases software with poor security. Right now the Code Red II worm and the SirCam virus are causing huge amounts of damage. These both exploit Microsoft security weaknesses.
.sig here - "Frustrated? Don't throw your computers out the window, throw the windows out of your computer!"
This isn't a microsoft abuse. I can go down the street to bob's lawn care and get materials to create a car bomb. Does that mean that Scott's Turf Builder is responsible for my actions? Microsoft creates a product (outlook) that checks email. It checks email, and fairly well, and in a way that is easy to understand and simple to use.
This is simple applied economics, supply and demand. There are more windows users out there than anything else, by alot. And the average windows user does not know as much about how their computer works as the average *nix user, again, by a lot. To bring the supply and demand into it, it is easier to write code for windows, there are far more windows boxen, and the users know less about the inner workings - therefore more time is spent by hackers/scriptkiddies learning exploits and writing viruses. If linux was the world's premier operating system, and my mother used KMail or Pine, i'm sure the k|dd|3z would be writing exploits for that.
Now, i don't pretend to say that Microsoft makes a superior product. It is definately less secure. However, there's a world of difference between a windows user who may, sometime in the lifespan of his computer, go to www.windowsupdate.com and download patches, and Bruce Perens using apt-get update on a daily basis. You can't reasonably hold microsoft responsible for the upkeep and mantinence of literally millions of desktop computers in the united states alone. Nor can you fault them for releasing a product that is not "hack-proof", as, to my knowledge, no such product exists.
To listen to CNN and some of the posts by the slashdot crowd, you would think that Microsoft created Windows solely for the purpose of propagating the Code Red Worm. Let's not forget the simple fact that somewhere, someone wrote that bug, and they wrote it for the platform that would allow it to do the most damage, and that platform is windows.
Now, if you're gonna criticize microsoft, put your money where your mouth is, and write your own operating system, and get it on the desktop of 97% of the computer users in the united states, and have it impervious to viruses. Or be logical, and talk to people about linux. Educate them that there's something better out there, more secure, crashes less. Put debian on your mom's box, teach her Opera. Use the line i saw on someone's
Less bitching, more solutions.
~z
sig?
Of course. rip on conservatives, +1 for the ac. socialist bitches.
Beause the D in FUD is isinformation,
Understanding is the key, not blaming.
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
when you can get the video?
- adam
Why talk about the past (Hitler / Stalin / ...).
Don't you dare to talk about the present?
How about present-day Israel.
Yes I know, there are lots of other 'good' examples. But most of these examples are developing coutries...
Half the arms buildup during the 1980s stemmed from a misconception about Russia's actual military capability. Frankly, they did a great job of marketing their image towards us.
:-)
I sincerely hope Microsoft's "marketing" strategies are a little less extreme than those of Soviet Russia. What Russia was doing was not marketing, but pure propaganda and draconian information control. A lot of people died, many more were constantly brainwashed and basically everyone was subject to censorship in order for the USSR to maintain their precious image. Even the very few ones who somehow managed to escape and take refuge in Western Europe didn't really escape the long hand of Kremlin... Hey, now that I think about it, this *does* sound like something Microsoft would do.
Man did you read a single line more than just the heading of the story before hitting reply? :(, but I could just not resist.
Pascal in the kernel? Wake up! The Linux kernel is written in C.
Why should it make any difference to the code if the programmer is fat or slimm?
Damm I responed to a troll
There's a few things to look at here:
1) There are probably some contract terms that prohibit MS employees from working in the same field for N months/years. While these are occassionally, if not routinely struck down, it does cause some employees to not consider that option.
2) The "Anything you develop while working here is ours" clause. If J. Random Employee starts up some little software company and starts releasing programs, if MS doesn't like it, they definitely have more cash to throw at legal proceedings and can bog down things for the guy trying to prove that he developed whatever on his own time.
3) Dotcom crash. If you were an investor right now would you support a new startup? Especially one that's likely to have legal troubles? (Based on point #2)
Now, I'm not saying that no one has ever left MS and started up their own company. But given the current state of things, it would be a much riskier thing then in the past.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I never knew that there could be such trechery at a company. GASP. Seems like a good read, So we may have to pick it up.
Your pain is funny
I wouldn't ask for a break up if we could enforce a 'chinese wall' between their operations:
Unfortunately, Microsoft would argue for years about what each constituted and would never do it They swore in the early 1990's that they didn't include undocumented functionality in Windows specifically for their Office products (but did -- See "Undocumented Windows").
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
...strife has not produced more spinoff groups from MS. Is working for MS that good that nobody wants to leave to start a new business? I can't see that from this book. It looks like there are very clearly defined groups. If one of these groups becomes angry/upset/etc.. enough, will they break out to become some competition? Can they?
---------------
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
It's interesting that he casts .NET as an M$ strategy to compete with AOL. I hadn't thought of that before, but it makes sense now. I think the reason I hadn't seen that is because I've never used AOL. Ever. I've seen it being used over the shoulder of a couple different people, but for the past 11 years I've used what he describes as the plain old Internet.
.NET just like I avoid AOL.
I plan to continue that course: I'll avoid
I imagine it's going to be difficult to avoid without completely avoiding XP and future M$ OSes; I currently have 3 machines, a Mac, a Linux x86 box, and a Win98 box (mostly for gaming). I think Apple and the Powers That Be in the Linux world need to get the word out that if you value personal privacy and want to see an Internet in the future that isn't locked up by M$ (and M$'s henchmen), then people should consider using an alternative OS.
read the post. he rips the Dems, too.
http://www.ntk.net/ballmer/dancemonkeyboy.mpg
- WeaselGod
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet turbines
The 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft Management: How to Think and Act Like a Microsoft Manager and Take Your Company to the Top - Dave Thielen - The best book on how Microsoft works.
Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry-And Made Himself the Richest Man in America - Stephen Manes, Paul Andrews - The most accurate history of Microsoft (the only one not based on repeating undocumented industry gossip)
To those more interested in winning than in stroking their ego, turn off your flame throwers and listen:
(1) The world consists of secretaries, suits, and engineers. Suits employ engineers to make their secretaries happy. Secretaries do all the real (read: boring) work. Therefore: engineers are less important than secretaries. Internalize this.
(2) Software is capable of having "sizzle". Sizzle goes beyond mere functionality and correct operation (read: massive uptimes and high scalability). Sizzle is the attribute that makes you go "that's fucking cool." Do not forget to provide sizzle to all groups mentioned in (1).
(3) In mathematics, all constants can be redefined as 1. An algorithm can be O(n) + C. The principle of 4GL software is that we can have what we previously thought of as the god awful biggest C that is unworkable, but in reality as n grows large enough C is effectively equivalent to 1. Read: You can make money with a O(n) + C algorithm, and a large C provides sizzle. Don't sweat the size of C.
That's it.
What Russia was doing was not marketing, but pure propaganda and draconian information control.
Actually, that's a pretty good description of "marketing." Have you yet known a marketing person who didn't produce propaganda and engage in "information control" -- i.e., getting their story out ahead of all others; spin, spin, spin?
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
It's not *exactly* analogous, but your description reminded me of the odd nature of spitball pitchers in baseball. Once a pitcher has a reputation for throwing them, he doesn't have to throw them; the belief that he is throwing them is enough to make batters miss.
It's really not that difficult to understand. The "free source movement", at the grassroots level, is not an organization with well-defined goals, rather it is a cultural phenomenom driven as much by entertainment and education as by economics. There exists "100000 mp3 frontends written in perl" on freshmeat.net because 1)it is more fun to run your own applications than somebody else's, 2)coding as an activity is intrinsically rewarding, 3)writing your own code is the most effective way to acquire programming skills, and 4)many people are inspired by the idealism inherent in the free source philosophy. Any theory that attempts to explain the free source movement purely in terms of economics or contractual frameworks is sadly incomplete.
The problem, though, is that commercial software (like Windows) will always have the option of using open source software to further itself. However, open source software (like Linux) can't compel developers to port commercial apps (like MS Office).
If MS ever gets to a place where they feel that Linux is encroaching on them, what will they do? Simple, hire a team of programmers to start porting Linux apps over to W2K. Or, do a clean room conversion to a proprietary Windows app, but instead of reverse engineering, they'll have the full, documented source code available. Embrace and extend, with Windows-only features.
The way I see it, by the time Linux has the tools, the apps, and the widespread adoption of MS in 2001, it will be 2011 and MS will have moved on to the next big money maker. When it comes to mass-market adoption, the open source movement is horribly slow.
Actually, I think it was our own military/industrial and intelligence establishment that did such a great marketing job on that one. The Soviets couldn't market their way out of a wet paper bag. (which is why their whole propaganda system was such a joke) The target of the marketing in this case was Joe TaxPayer/Voter. Remember Eisenhower's last speech as president?
The D in FUD is Doubt.
Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt
I made an assumption about the reader when I blamed the Code Red worms and the SirCam virus on Microsoft.
I assumed that the reader knew, or thought, that the security weaknesses in Microsoft products are more than just mistakes. They are the result of a widespread lack of caring about making a good product. The lack of caring is possible for a monopoly, but is, over the long term, self-destructive.
People who are programmers, and understand the issues of program development, often say that the vulnerabilities of Microsoft products go beyond the normal software bugs. If you look at the patterns of bugs, there seems to be a sloppiness that true professionals don't allow.
An instant way for a programmer to make a name for himself or herself would be to find a serious security bug in Open BSD. They have been bragging for four years that there haven't been any serious remote exploits. (http://www.openbsd.org/ "Four years without a remote hole in the default install!") There must be many, many people who would like to find such an exploit, because of the way it would look on a resume. But there hasn't been even one.
During that time, there have been more than 300 serious security bugs in Microsoft products. At some point, it seems reasonable to say that the bugs are more than just the inevitable programmer mistakes, but are indicative of a failure in management that is giving Microsoft billions of dollars of bad publicity. That's self-destruction.
Bush's education improvements were
I really like the title of this book. :)
The anti-salmon
If you are interested in "inside microsoft" type stuff.. some other books you might want to read:
Microserfs, Douglas Coupland -- about the geeks inside microsoft -- funny and light reading.
Renegades of the Empire, Michael Drummond -- a more positive view of the inside of Microsoft.
Hard Drive, James Wallace -- about Bill Gates and the beginning of Microsoft -- a little more impartial.
w o r l d w i d e w e b e r
It's allways good to get the inside scoop like this. Working in IT for a large corp. myself, I can tell you that looking in from the outside you don't allways get the full view. Speaking of life on the inside of MS go here http://www.ntk.net/ballmer/dancemonkeyboy.mpg It's balmer at his finest during a internal MS meeting/pep rally! (Yes I ripped the link from K5). Funny stuff!
------
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Sums it up for me.
I would not mind a three or four way break up of MS:
Office and related; Windows/desktops; Browser/email/related clients; Backend Servers and database apps (includes .NET); Dev tools
okay a five way breakup
;-)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The above does not fit my convenient ./ worldview. Therefore, I return this thread to regular slashdot blather:
MS is Borg / MS is Borg / MS is Borg. Information must be free, so buy t-shirts and stuffed animals to support our site! I listen to ESR for dating advice! Micro$oft, Microshaft, Mickeysoft, Microcrap, Mickeyshank ..zzzz. Some idiot managed to install a Commodore 64 in his hat!
Microsoft wants to control the internet like they control windows. basturds!
I stayed up until 4am one morning finishing the book. Whatever you think of the author's conclusion's (I for the most part agree), it's a good read, and a story worth knowing if you're reading this on a computer screen. You are, aren't you?
I did not intend to say that Microsoft is as bad as Hitler. I only intended to say that the issue is the same: self-destruction. Obviously, Hitler and Germany at the time was a much worse case of self-destruction.
Please remember that my comment, like most comments on Slashdot, was written rapidly and was not reviewed by an editor. Please forgive unintended meanings and try to make the best of what is posted, not the worst.
It doesn't necessarily matter if Microsoft cares about its self-destruction. What matters is that healthy people eventually assert control.
Bush's education improvements were
Paul Boutin | professional journalist, amateur search engine optimization consultant
Paul Boutin | writer for Slate, Wired, etc
The Soviets didn't have to engage in any sort of marketing effort. Every report on Soviet military strength that came out (ever since 1946) vastly overstated Soviet abilities, capabilities, and mythologized things. Kennedy's famed missile gap never existed, and never could have existed.
The GAO (General Accounting Office) has time and again criticized the practices used in estimated Soviet military strength.
The Soviets didn't market shit to the West. It was all the same paranoid, ultra-right-wing "we need space based weapons" ilk that were part of the Reagan cabinet, and are now part of the Mini-Bush cabinet. The very countries space-based weapons are supposed to work against are incapable of getting a missile to fly within 4,000 miles range of the U.S.
However, if you wanted to hide a nuke inside a shipment of a coupla of tons of cocaine, you could get it across the U.S. border in a few minutes, and then pay some trucker a coupla hundred cash to deliver that "shipment" anywhere. Far cheaper than a space program. No defense against it.
- adam
In my proffesional life, I therefore choose to be platform neutral and pragmatic: the right tool for the right job. In my private life I have an absolute preference for Linux.
I must admit that the review states some interesting business strategies, in which I believe it can be a commercial success. RedHat adopts some of these strategies - ie limited suppliance of software in their product. Anyhow, as Microsoft has internal strubbles, I still think it is interesting to read about them. Microsoft really does influence every day life for many people, so it's nice to know that there are vulnerable people working for that company.
I think your criticism is a little unjust, as we're not discussing Linux versus Microsoft here, I gues it is temptation.
Bizar technology?
Replace "marketing" with "propaganda" and your post still makes 100% sense :)
Exactly! But the reason Windows allows it to do most damage is because Windows is full of security holes because of Microsoft's insistence on reinventing everything, badly.
The "path traversal" bug in IIS was one of the most egregious flaws ever: a URL like /scripts/../../winnt/system32/cmd.exe allowed crackers to execute arbitrary commands on a web server. This is basic, web server design 101 - don't allow access outside the published directory tree.
And most other Microsoft "security holes" aren't much better. It's plain incompetence, the result of throwing a million programming monkeys at the task of reinventing the software that drives the Internet, and shipping it regardless of quality.
Less bitching, more solutions.
Want solutions? Switch your servers to Linux, or Solaris, or anything but Windows. An entire class of Internet-wide worms and viruses will disappear.
The list of abuses of the consumer, their competitors, and their partners is a long one. The fact that MS makes insecure operating systems and applications is just one very minor abuse in a haystack full of criminal and unethical behaviours.
"Now, if you're gonna criticize microsoft, put your money where your mouth is, and write your own operating system"
This is where you are way off base. The proper response to criminality is not to make yourself a better person. The proper response is to hold that criminal responsible for their actions and the remove them from society so that they can not harm others. MS is a criminal organization. They have been tried and found guilty and that guilt has been upheld in the appalate courts. Not only that but several executives who have committed crimes (evidence tampering, witness intimidation, perjury) etc who need to be charged and tried and if found guilty spend some jail time.
Yes we should educate, yes we should write better software but that should not be in response to crimes committed by Bill gates and his cohorts.
War is necrophilia.
Bad things really do happen. Hitler and Stalin really did kill people.
Microsoft really is abusive. Microsoft's abusiveness costs billions of dollars in lost time. For example, Microsoft releases software with poor security. Right now the Code Red II worm and the SirCam virus are causing huge amounts of damage. These both exploit Microsoft security weaknesses.
My opinion: Microsoft is far more abusive than any one Slashdot reader knows. My support for that opinion: Often when people mention a Microsoft abuse that is particularly troublesome to them, they are different ones than have been mentioned before. This suggests that a complete list of abuses would be far larger than any one person imagines.
Talking about Microsoft abuses is not Microsoft-bashing. Discussing the abuses is pro-Microsoft, not anti-Microsoft. The reason? The world is not efficient at responding to abuse by monopolies or dictatorships, but eventually the abuse is eliminated. For example, look what happened to IBM's PC business.
When you discuss Microsoft's abuses, you make it more likely that Microsoft will learn not to be so self-destructive.
You can think of Hitler in terms of the damage he did to the world. But the real story is that another person became self-destructive.
Similarly, the real story of Microsoft is not the enormous aggravation and damage Microsoft causes the world, but the fact that a large organization has become very unhealthy, and is unable to stop destroying itself. The real intellectual challenge is to understand why.
The failure of Slashdot is not that we criticize Microsoft too much. The failure is that we are not systematic enough and comprehensive enough in our criticism.
The U.S. Department of Justice, for example, needs a comprehensive document that shows the enormity and totality of Microsoft abuses.
I think we Slashdot readers could contribute something to the world by writing such a document. We could have a "List Microsoft Abuses" Slashdot story, and everyone could contribute what they know. I could list several that I have never read on Slashdot. Contributors could mention that they contributed their intellectual property rights to the cause. In a week, we could write a book. We could pay an editor to edit the book, and publish it. The proceeds could be donated to Slashdot.
Understanding self-destruction is a subject that should be of interest to every Slashdot reader. If you don't understand it, how do you know it won't happen to you?
Microsoft is not the only self-destructive company. In just one month, Adobe attacked both Dr. Kai-Uwe Sattler and PhD student Dmitry Sklyarov. Adobe went from a company respected for the quality of its software to a company known for the heavy-handedness of its management.
After spending at least 2 billion dollars developing the OS/2 operating system, IBM killed it with poor marketing and poor technical management.
Abusiveness is a global issue that affects us all. When you stand up against abuse, you help make a better world.
We don't criticize Microsoft enough!
Bush's education improvements were
The fact that I'm having trouble logging into my MSN Messenger account through Everybuddy but doing fine with my AIM account makes this seem awfully sinister...
I work in PR (don't throw stones, it's higher education) and I can't help but come to the early conclusion that this book offers an extremely jaded view of what happens at Microsoft. Sure, I bet some of the horror stories are true enough -- people are territorial by nature and it helps to wonder how it would feel if that was your projects/ideas/etc. being scrutinized/killed/etc. But this is the real world folks -- let's not forget that we could all be worrying about other things: food, shelter, mating, etc. Even education and non-profits are run like for-profit megacorps -- organizations can not exist if they fail to balance the books and stay on track (hence the spawn of many nearly worthless mission statements
So, how am I on target here? Here's how: everyone is always debating how money can be made on Linux. What's the difference between some of the Linux business-related horror stories I've read about on
In other news, I'd wet my britches if I could pimp Linux to the popular media. Enquiring minds want to know!
Even superheroes once were losers
I think IBM's commercial work with open source is a more accurate barometer. They act as a rich uncle to Linux and many open source projects. They share a garden with the independent open source community. Sure, open source can be slow; the proprietary commercial outfits can throw lots of bodies and money in some direction and get (good?) results faster than open source. But commercial outfits can also augment open source, and indeed they do. But is slow bad? Jerry Mander (something of a Luddite) believes technology should have a much longer ramp-up time. Look at Linux. It coatailed on Unix and suffers far less security and stability-wise. It's simply more mature. The real problems I see are outright theft and open source license violations, as well as non-productive version forking. On the first problem, if MS ever truly stoled, say, GPL code and didn't follow its license, all hell would break loose. This first anti-trust lawsuit didn't arouse great open source passions because it was too weird and vague: browser wars, huh? But if MS started stealing, that's a different story. The second problem is actually more serious because it really has no solution. Recently RH decided to jump in with a Postgres version, and promises not to fork the codebase. But they very easily could have, and, thus, cause chaos among Postgresers. Just look at the latest MySQL flare-up. But IMHO this is exactly the future of our entire economy! I look forward to the day when outsiders with better methods can "corporate raid" anybody's enterprise. If auto production was "open source" somebody could put together a more efficient car and demand the reigns of production. Of course this doesn't work today outside of computers because the means of production with computers are cheap and ubiquitous while auto production costs billions of dollars. Still, the basic open source model of anyone being able to make a better product and then either shift the product's existing direction or morph a new version is a fabulous step in the direction of pure supply and demand. Today's so-called free market only approximates pure supply and demand--far better than communism, but still greatly lacking. The proof is MS itself: today's free market with its emphasis on property rights allows impregnable fiefdoms to be set up, and monopolies and lock-in are inevitable. To some extent they're plugged into supply and demand, but its far slower and clankier than pure supply and demand. W. Brian Arthur (http://www.santafe.edu/arthur/) rocked the classical economics world when he suggested that monopolies and lock-in to less-than-best goods and services is far more prevalent than we want to admit. I think the open source model will triumph by purifying supply and demand. So, to me, open source may have a socialistic tinge to it, but if it improves supply and demand, it trumps today's medieval free market.
--- WWSD? What Would Strider Do?
"If you're a regular slashdot reader, he's the father of the girl whose sociology Science Fair project was censored by Mesa Elementary in Boulder, CO."
What if you`re not a regular slashdot reader? Who`s father does be become then?
:)
Wonderful review, but can Timothy please spare us the irrelevant bullshit the next time around?
Damn. There's not a minute of the day someone isn't in these forums posting tripe like this. Insulting the editors of this forum, posting pro-Microsoft propaganda to counter the stories, or simply disrupting the forum with links and/or ascii "art" of offensive material. One would think this is an organized and funded effort to destroy this forum. What I find so striking is the trail of suspect moderation that happens almost instantly after stories get posted. Usually the moderation is evened out after the story grows old, but not before the majority of comments are posted. So forum readers and writers get a skewed look at what the community finds interesting while the story is hot, and only those interested enough to look into a story a day later learn how the forum community might have reacted without these dirty tricks. These are the same games the CIA plays in foreign countries when they want to skew an "election," though I'm not suggesting this is CIA work (it's clearly a corporate game).
/., so us old timers and computer professionals can get our damn forum back.
It really is time for Rob to implement consorship ala K5 here on
Comparing Microsoft to Hitler and / or the Nazis...Godwin's Law invoked, end of thread.
You, sir, are just like every other anti-Microsoft person on here, you're blowing things out of proportion. Tell you what, you stop foaming at the mouth, take a year-long break from Slashdot, and come back.
Honestly, do you think Microsoft, a billion-dollar global company, is going to care if a few anti-Microsoft loonies make a list of Microsoft abuses? It's like Katz's stupid "Free Dimitry!!1!" petition. THEY DON'T FUCKING WORK.
We all know that Microsoft is king of marketing, but even more important than marketing your product to consumers is marketing your image (an image of invincibility) to your competitors.
To pick an inappropriate example, look at the former Soviet Union. They suffered numerous political, economic, and technological setbacks, but how many did we hear about in the west? In 1960, no one in the US knew that almost a hundred people died on the pad of a failed R-16 ICBM launch (the Nedelin Disaster). Half the arms buildup during the 1980s stemmed from a misconception about Russia's actual military capability. Frankly, they did a great job of marketing their image towards us.
If Microsoft appears suitably invincible, then all sorts of things just fall into their laps instead of requiring effort on their part to obtain. Competitors are more likely to get out of their way when a vaporware product is announced. Even lawenforcement is likely to give a good hard second look before diving headfirst into a prolonged legal battle. There is no downside.
Does it surprise me that any of this internal strife has occurred? Hardly. Does it surprise me that it's rarely come toight. Again, hardly. That's just the way these things go.
I don't know about being able to understand open source. I look at sourceforge.net and sometimes wonder why the hell certain programs are even there. Then I look for their source code and wonder where their source code is. Then I look at freshmeat.net and wonder why there is the 100000th mp3 web-frontend written in perl. Maybe it's just me.
Dijkstra Considered Dead
"Ballmer's easy bonhomie and meat-and-potatoes approach to the business seemed to be just what Microsoft needed, the perfect antidote to Gates's enigmatic aloofness."
So I'm sure Bank would say (and I say), "Go Steve!" He does get the employees fired up...and it's nice to see a guy worth $25 billion (or whatever) who is running a $30 billion company but still doesn't take himself all that seriously.
- adam
Who told you I got fired?
- adam
(ie. link to "file:///D|/c:\con\con" or nul\nul or clock$\clock$ or aux\aux or config$\config$). It's way funnier if you just have an img src because then the computer crashes when you enter the site. Not recommended for most sites of course, but if you want to have a bit of a gag on your homepage...
When comes right down to it, the reason I left Microsoft was because of rise of Jim Allchin. Now I generally don't agree with the "evil MS" view of the world I do all attribute all the evils at MS to Allchin. This guy is the epitome of the Evil Corporate Executive bent on World Domination. His methods are unethical, his goals nefarious. Bill Gates, at heart, wants to do good. Brad Silverberg and Ben Slivka were the souls of MS, warts and all. Now all MS has at its core are..well...Evil People.
Some of the Allchin insights where he's chastising the MS geeks "money doesn't grow on trees yadayadayada" is the very heart of the difference between corporate and open software. The open software allows much more freedom of exploration. Something that's cool and good will first pick up a small cult following, then get bigger based solely on its merits. Look at Python. I don't really know if using Python alone will revolutionize computing, but not having to worry about profit, instead technology, has given a great language solid legs. Profit is a harsh, blind master. Somebody has to lay down the cash in exchange for something that will in turn do them right on their own profit hunt. But the greater reality is different. I download/investigate a lot of stuff that looks cool, eventually I sort through it and get going in maybe one or two directions. For example, right now I'm looking at Lisp and Python and wondering if doing functional programming in Python offers any advantages. What got me on this path was a /. link to Paul Graham and a series of articles at IBM by David Mertz. This is a much more natural way to handle the evolution of computing and IT. No stampedes, no hype, no sweat. The open source world will progress in a far more natural way, while the corporate world will lurch from one lock-in/safe-bet monopoly technology-for-dummies to the next. The more I hear about super-big IT firms, the more obvious it is that their precarious "skunkworks" nooks and crannies are pale shadows of the greater open source world. Why worry about secretive, proprietary nervous skunkworks-ware just days from the accountants' axes? Microsoft and their ilk will always be a murky world for good technology to ever thrive in. Open source will triumph because their proponents are free people.
--- WWSD? What Would Strider Do?
Using Jabber, I have always been able to get on MSN Messenger, but for weeks now, I haven't been able to get on AIM or ICQ.
He gets REALLY fired up in this video -- http://www.ntk.net/ballmer/dancemonkeyboy.mpg
Geez!! Throw some pixie-dust in there and fly away to Never-Never-Microsoft-Land!!
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This is one amazing reply to a post. Python may be a cool language with some real dev-time features, but how quickly is it going to be as widely adopted as C++? Name one *major* software house developing real-world applications using Python - you can't, and probably won't for at least 10 years.
<p>
We also get to see the standard battle-cry of the pinko-leftist "socialistas" about "free people". So now, we have "Communist/Socialis Software" - "software for the good of the People". Why did Communism fail? Because the only people who could make decent money were at the TOP of the social structure. Yeah, you may have lived in Government housing, but could you ever move, or buy a car on your own? From someone who's been in the trenches Yeah, that's "freedom" for ya!
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Who here has made any money from Open Source development besides all the Dev-$$$ going into Linus's pocket? "What? Linus getting PAID for Linux???" YOU BETCHA, BABY!!!!!
Open Source software is great - for Academia, hobbyists and haqrs, and it will always be at that level until Applications Developers like Adobe, AutoDesk, Kinetic, and (gasp) Microsoft start developing and porting their MAJOR applications for Open Source OS's like Linux and FreeBSD. Of course, if they develop Open Source applications they'll loose money, fire 95% of their staff and end-up in the DOT-COM trash-heap.
Wake up and smell the coffee before "Open Souce" goes the way of Communism. Closed Source/Compiled Code is the heartbeat of the Democratic/Captialist system - where you can actually get PAID for writing software!
'nuff said!
ScottKin
I don't give a rat's behind about "karma" here or anywhere else. Don't like what I have to say here? Deal with it!
Meanwhile if some Linux people want to do something unusual, they are free to do it, then present it to the rest of the community when they see fit. No need to justify it ahead of time or battle out with other projects needing resources. Of course their work may still be rejected but they can get a much better shot. In a sense this can lead to more work "waste" but also more avenues are explored.
- adam
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this yet, but a while back there was a Slashdot Review of a book called Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters by a fella named Adam Barr. He talks about his 10 or so years at MS and a small start-up that was bought by MS. If you look through the comments you can find a link to a page that has the entire contents of the book online.