Slashdot Mirror
Is It Wrong to Love Microsoft?
vd writes "Given most comments on Slashdot, it would appear that anyone with even a slight knowledge of computers hates Microsoft. An article on CoolTechZone, though, argues that not everyone should dismiss Microsoft outright. According to Varun Dubey, Linux is over-rated, Macs aren't worthy and Windows deserves respect and some love. From the article: 'What has Microsoft given us? It has given us Windows, sure, it was buggy earlier and a lot of things didn't work like they were supposed to (plug and play springs to mind) but it was a pioneering effort. No one was even close to the ease of use that Windows offered. Sure, Mac OS was a lot prettier but then it cost the moon and the stars along with both your arms and legs.'"
What a worthless article. If it were a Slashdot comment, it'd be moderated to -1, Overrated.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
It's in the Apple section because Zonk is trying to get a knee jerk response from "Apple Zealots", either for commercial purposes, scientific research, or to settle a bar bet.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Plug and play was by no means a pioneering effort by Microsoft, the Macintosh has had it forever, so long in-fact that it had no name on Mac OS, not until it was a new feature in Windows did Microsoft give it a name. We Mac users just knew it as "stuff working when I plug it in just like it should"
Also I would argue (and I know there are many on both sides) that the Mac OS was prettier, cost more, and was easier to use as well.
To say that Windows was a "Pioneering" effort is like saying Columbus "Discovered" America, when there were already people living here.
Give me a break. Why do people insist on re-writing history?
kulakovich
Is this just me? I really think he's missing what Linux is all about. It's not supposed to be the most user-friendly environment. There are people that WANT to have to "recompile the kernel if [they] want to so much as change your modem" because they're looking for that kind of option and flexibility.
I'm not even a hardcore Linux user (I've had Fedora Core for only a few months now) and even I can see this. Am I entirely wrong?
The cat's in the bag and the bag's in the river.
The real problem is I want a GREAT car but some company is out there trying to change the gas pumps so they only work with the cheap cars.
Certainly. Also keep in mind that Bill Gates et al. never intended to make good software. They saw an emerging market with a lot of potential and wanted to make mony fast. It just so happened that they were extremely good at it. The rest is history.
-- Cheers!
Erm, perhaps because he'd prefer to be able to use MacOSX and Ubuntu (and even Windows) at the same time? Perhaps because he preloads Ubuntu on VPC and then doesn't have to arse around whilst waiting for his machine to reboot every time he wishes to change environments? Perhaps because he's really proud of having a machine with 28 days uptime?
Point is, who cares why he does it? It's his bloody decision and it obviously works best for him.
Microsoft Vista - It Just (Barely) Works!
To revisit the car analogy, I think anyone that's ever been in a wreck in a Pinto or a Corvair will tell you the negative implications to such a philosophy.
And the PC revolution was here without Microsoft. The IBM PC was not made possible by Microsoft, Microsoft only got a deal on OS licensing. If MS hadn't been around, the PC would still have hit the market with a different OS (CP/M perhaps, which by all accounts was the most successful OS of the day and of which QDOS - to be usurped and called MS-DOS - was a rough implementation), or perhaps ATARI would have stepped up in its place. Most probably Apple would have retained the PC throne. In any case, Microsoft did not make the PC possible, it only latched on to a market for profit. There was nothing noble about it, Bill Gates and his cronies made a deal with IBM to distribute exclusively a fictional OS that MS didn't have, bought QDOS from SCP, and gave it to IBM as their own. They used a cheap and dirty gamble to get their position and fortune, not a noble move on behalf of home computer users everywhere as you would pretend.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
That's not really true. They were barely adequate at creating software in the early days.
They started out with a bought copy of the base for both their OS and for BASIC. These weren't even the most advanced things going in the day, but they managed to acquire them.
What they were exceedingly good at is signing a contract with IBM that said all PCs would have their operating system on it. As the PC marketplace grew, it gave them a pretty much locked in revenue stream.
Once they had made a butt-load of money, they had the resources the hire a bunch of developers and actually start doing more.
But make no mistake about it, they didn't get where they are due to the (initial) quality of their product offerings. They got there by locking everybody in to Microsoft as early in the PC industry as you could get, and growing with an emerging market.
That's why we had to have court cases saying we're allowed to buy a PC which doesn't include a Microsoft OS on it and requiring they get paid for every single PC sold. Because people decided having to pay Microsoft for a PC which would run Linux was just plain wrong.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I'd say this guy is merely a pro-MS zealot, exactly like the anti-MS zealots here on Slashdot that he bashes.
Let's look at the article piece by piece:
Recap on alternative/joke names for MS.
States explicitely that "I love Microsoft. Absolutely adore it and what's more, I hate Linux. I think it's the most over rated piece of software ever built and survives simply out of spite and not because it is terribly good at doing something because it is not!". He's clearly already marked out his opinion as essentially content-less uninformed flaming, exactly what he complains about when it happen to MS.
Calls Windows a "pioneering effort". Now, I'm no Linux or Mac fanboy, but I was under the distinct impression that Windows had very little innovation compared to the Mac. IIRC various Microsofties have even admitted as much before, albeit off the record.
Regurgitates the long-disproven "popularity => more successful breakins" argument. More popularity equals more cracking attempts, I'll grant you, but that's not the same as successful security breaches. And anyway, haven't we already disproven this whole argument?
"Considering the fact that everyone who knows how to write two bits of code dreams of hitting windows with a virus, the guys at the "Redmond Giant" are doing a spectacular job."
Bwaaaaahahahahahaaaaaa! As everyone knows, the two main groups who write viruses are security professionals offering a "proof of concept", and script kiddies. The overwhelming majority of coders/developers have never written (or certainly released) a virus in their lives.
In addition, given it's mostly VBScript kiddies - who are almost universally poor programmers - the runaway success of most Windows viruses is even more damning.
"XP is such a joy when it comes to simply connecting a device and watching the pretty little bubble detecting it and saying "its installed and ready for use" makes the slightly high price absolutely worth it."
Dunno what version of windows he's using, and not to deny Windows has got better over the years, but I still have plenty of issues even these days with unrecognised hardware, pieces of hardware detected twice, crashes due to dodgy device drivers, etc.
"In Linux, you have to recompile a kernel if you want to so much as change your modem!"
Now, I'm not that au fait with the low-level Windows or Linux processes, but I understood that they both used monolithic kernels (ie, drivers not in userland). Surely this means that Windows also has to "recompile" the kernel when the device drivers change? If so it might be hidden behind a pretty user-interface, but it's the same damn architecture and the same design problem.
Tackles the anti-trust cases. Totally ignores Microsoft's documented illegal behaviour and instead blames it on jealousy from competitors. Riiiiiight...
Suggests Sun and Oracle's business models are based around sueing Microsoft. Is he confusing "Sun" with (the Microsoft-backed) SCO, and "Microsoft" with Linux?
He's actually suggesting these companies sue Microsoft because they see it as an easy revenue-earner, rather than a highly risky attempt at redress against the richest organisation (with the most expensive and persuasive legal team) in the world. Mind-boggling.
"Microsoft made some products which it would like to ship together with its OS, no where in the EULA does it say that "you are not authorized to install other software" If Mr. John Doe thinks media player is the worst piece of software he has ever used, he is free to go and download Winamp or Musicmatch Jukebox (neither of these offer free full versions)."
Yeah, they don't write it into the EULA where anyone could see it, but you don't need to do that when you've got the CEO of Dell's balls in your office drawer. It's harder to prove, and leaves less obvious marks for the next lawsuit.
Oh, and the key thi
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself