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18 Years in Software Tools, an Insider's View

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the learning-from-history dept.

calumtdalek writes "Newsforge (Also owned by VA) has an article on a talk given by Rico Mariani, an eighteen-year veteran at Microsoft, in which he speaks to the University of Waterloo Computer Science Club, sharing his unique take on the history of, and controversies surrounding, Microsoft and the industry in general. Particularly illuminating are his responses to advocates of free/open-source software. The talk can also be download from the csclub's media server"

4 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting talk (and not just about tools) by kjart · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Still in the process of watching it, but he has interesting perspective on Windows 95 and it's role as a bridge from 16bit to 32bit programs. He also points out that though it wasnt the best OS they knew how to make at the time (points at NT) it was the best release of Windows that Microsoft ever did (in his opinion). Whether you agree or disagree, it's an interesting look at Microsoft over (nearly) the past two decades.

  2. Re:18 Years? Wow... by kjart · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Actually, so far he seems to have a relatively objective perspective. Obviously he likes Microsoft (he does work there) but his perspective on OSS is interesting (somewhat paraphrasing):

    I like open source..I'm a great fan of Stallman's....I think open source has definitely a place in the world and that linux has a place in the world and I hope linux continues to do a great job, and do you know why? Because to the extent that Linux does a great job it forces my guys to do a great job.
  3. Re:18 Years? Wow... by zootm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Also, just to give them a little benefit of the doubt, I think Vista has been in development for more than two years. So it's conceivable that they aren't "stealing" Apple's ideas, for example, but that Apple just beat them in releasing those features.

    I think that, in more cases that not, you'd be right here. A lot of the features Vista has been lauded for "stealing" from Apple have been obvious advances for a while (prevalence of search over browsing, 3D-accelerated desktop systems, etc. are all fairly predictable). Vista steals very few design ideas from Apple, in any case (search? that was obvious - it's stolen from Google as much as anyone; desktop widgets? available for Windows and Linux as third-party systems well before Dashboard made people think that Apple "invented" them). As much as I like OSX, I hate the fact that Apple are hailed as so "innovative" to the exclusion of other hard-working companies who do work just as good, simply because they market themselves so well. I feel a lot of companies and organisations doing good work (and I'm gonna controversially include Microsoft here) are being a little hard done-by in this regard.

    More widely, though, I'm not opposed to "idea theft" in the IT field. There's a reason so many people are opposed to software patents.

  4. Re:Unique, huh. by Tony · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The people responsible for the whole IE debacle (he actually uses this as an example) didn't integrate IE that way because they wanted to destroy the competition - they made an engineering decision at the time that they thought made sense and ended up causing a big brouhaha.

    That's why internal memos and emails from the top brass (Ballmer and Gates, for instance) bragged to each other about how the IE integration was going to kill Netscape. Not because they wanted to kill the competition, but because they wanted to kill Netscape.

    I'm not saying the engineers had anything to do with that. I'm just saying, people at Microsoft tend to do what Gates tells 'em.

    --
    Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.