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MS: Use the Source, Luke!
McSpew writes: "The WSJ (via MSNBC) has an article about Microsoft's upcoming push to get universities to use .NET code in programming courses. Their code-sharing initiative is all about winning hearts-and-minds at the university level, where Linux and open-source rule the day. The article does a good job of explaining the issues and why MS may yet fail in spite of their push. I wish the article had discussed the reverse-engineering issues of needing 'virgins' who have never seen the product being reverse-engineered and how MS's newly broad distribution of its code makes finding virgins much more difficult."
I will not support, learn, tolerate, or any way enable or support either Windows XP or this ".NET" crap. We're a Microsoft shop, using NT and 2000 for servers, and 98 for workstations. We will NOT "upgrade", EVER.
It does what we want, albeit imperfectly. The new bugs and security holes (and hardware requirements) are more trouble then they are worth.
--Mike--
MS will likely do well with this initiative of theirs. Universities all over the nation are hurting for budget money.
A little bit of help from MS will go a long way in the political world to get things done. Even if it's not the smartest academic move, you'll see several universities fall for the extra money they think they can save over supporting costly Sun Solaris labs and HPUX systems (Many programs that schools like to use are in these environments, but more are moving to Linux. I know our school's at least got 10 or so severs running Linux now..)
But, since politics pay for everything at school.. Just watch. It's not the students MS has to win, they'll come if the teachers teach it. The professors (who some are staunchly Unix), are the ones who have to be won over. Saving a few dollars in the budget and getting some research money are their goals to keep their jobs, and MS is giving them that illusion here.
MS really could win, or flop, big time here.. it's gonna be interesting to the future either way.
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
1. What the heck is it? Every time you turn around, it's something different. I suspect it's just another dressed up version of OLE/ActiveX in a pretty new wrapper. .NET, you'll be stuck with it, and it's not going to be portable to anything else. There are plenty of ways to write software that don't require you to give your first born male child to Micro$oft, and I'm going to use those instead.
2. It's a way to trap everyone into their code. If you start using
3. "It's Microsoft, so it's Evil" (TM). They want everyone to use it, so it must be bad. Look at their history of embrace, extend, extinguish. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out it's a Faustian deal, no matter how you do it.
--Mike--
Yeah... because the "coders" at Microsoft have absolutely no experience with this strange thing we call "the source." .
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Would I be correct that any homework that a student would want to publish after being exposed to the MS source code would be a violation of DMCA?
No.
But don't let a little thing like the truth stand in your way. Linux advocacy needs more FUD.
NO CARRIER