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Why Does Everyone Hate Microsoft?
MrSplog asks: "I'm doing a short project on Microsoft and its impact on society. A considerable part of this project has been looking into people's perceptions of Microsoft and the heavily negative bias of that perception. Since Slashdot is one of the world's forefront leaders on Microsoft hatred, I wanted to know: just why do you hate Microsoft? Please be as descriptive and as thorough as you like. Counter arguments and positive comments are also appreciated."
Microsoft's goal is to own and control everything on my computer, in the server room, eventually perhaps in my lounge room and anywhere else they can imagine. And they try to keep it that way by deliberately avoiding existing open standards and interoperability with existing applications. They adopt new standards with reluctance, and even then they break them.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Perfect example... I had a friend at a little company called Bungie. Bungie was developing this really cool little application called Halo that they were planning on releasing for MacOS, Linux and Windows. Microsoft came along, made them an offer they could not refuse and they bought the company so Halo could be a "halo" game for the Xbox platform. This of course meant that all development of Halo for the Macintosh and Linux were cancelled and Windows development was significantly delayed. It was almost a couple of years before I was asked to help with the development of the Macintosh port of Halo. So, I and many, many other users of the Macintosh and Linux (and Windows for that matter) were negatively impacted by this very common business practice of Microsoft.
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Why do people hate Microsoft? In a word: Greed. Microsoft is consumed by a rampant, unrepentant, no-holds-barred corporate ravenousness for consumer dollars. At least this is how it looks to individual consumers, small businesses, and even most other large enterprises.
Some examples:
- Microsoft was among the first major, mainstream software publishers to charge paying customers for technical support on legally-owned Microsoft products.
- Microsoft was one of the first major, mainstream software companies to increase upgrade fees from what was a standard 20% of the original software price to what is now 50%, if you are allowed to upgrade at all.
- Microsoft was the first major, mainstream software company to deny upgrades to customers who don't pre-pay the 50% upgrade fee up-front when the original software purchase is made, with no refund if an upgrade isn't released within two years.
- Microsoft bemoans the cost of software piracy, but each time Microsoft has implemented technology to reduce piracy, it has doubled the price of the better protected software.
- Microsoft adds features to its software that puts competitors out of business, then removes those features and sells them as add-ons or upgraded versions.
- Microsoft talks reduced enterprise TCO benefits on the one hand while making each new release significantly more difficult to deploy, maintain and support.
- Microsoft claims that it's not predatory or monopolistic, while using its overwhelmingly dominant position in the OS market to drive out competitors to its application and development tools marketplaces.
- And yes, Embrace, Extend and Exterminate.
I could give more specifics, but I'm under non-disclosure.--- A man with a briefcase can steal more money, than any man with a gun. [Don Henley]
The reason Paintbrush is the best application they've ever written is because Microsoft didn't write it.
I've got installation media for Windows 2.03 kicking around somewhere which came with my first Microsoft mouse and it's actually ZSoft PC Paintbrush which was bundled with the mouse.
The mention of ZSoft was dropped in Windows 3.0 and apart from support for things like GIF and JPG now, the application has changed very little since Windows 2 (Well if it ain't broke...)
For people who like peace and quiet. A phoneless cord!
I guess you've never heard of DOSEMU, a program that uses the Linux kernel call "vm86" to run 16-bit DOS programs in the vm86 mode of 386-compatible processors ? Most 16-bit DOS applications I've tried on it have worked just fine.
Or you could use DOSBox, which is a complete emulator (meaning it emulates the processor too, unlike DOSEMU). The odd DOS app that didn't work under DOSEMU works fine under DOSBox.
It's the support for Windows applications (via Wine) that is less than perfect under Linux, but it is improving. Then again, it could hardly be getting worse ;).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I am a live dinosaur. I have owned and used every MS OS version since MS-DOS 2.1. I beta tested Windows 1.0.
Ok, granted it is not doubling every time, but this IS Slashdot, and I am allowed poetic license.
How about Microsoft Windows Antivirus: Included free in 3.0/3.1 versions, removed from 3.11. Now sold as Microsoft OneCare. How about a calendar application, which later was integrated with an Email application and became the first version of MS-Outlook in Windows 3.11, removed from Windows 98, and now sold separately? How about backup, which has been in and out in so many different ways that I lost track?
Well, it's a really old and broad non-disclosure.--- A man with a briefcase can steal more money, than any man with a gun. [Don Henley]
Windows does use emulation for legacy apps. It uses the NTVDM (NT Virtual DOS Machine) for DOS apps and WoWExec (Windows-on-Windows) for 16-bit Windows apps. Their 64-bit OSs have WoW64, which emulates a 32-bit machine.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Just a Few:
1. As a college student I paid under $20 for my copy of WinXP, but would have had to pay ~$45 for MacOS X. Although this doesn't tend to defeat your argument, it sure does lower one of the reasons not to use Windows and makes OS X the one which needs to prove itself.
2. I know how to use Windows. These were skills I built up before ever owning my own PC, mostly when I was living at home using my parents PC, and my Dad used Windows because it was built on DOS, the earliest OS he knew. What you say above is right once you get to know how to use Windows you don't want to anymore, but alas I've already paid for it and have a box which does pretty much everything I call on it to do, so there isn't any reason to need another PC or to switch.
3. I have very rarely been called on to know/learn a piece of software that doesn't run on Windows. I have on the other hand been called on to know/learn Power Point, Word, Excel, InDesign, and many others. This is excluding text editors run on Linux machines for my CS classes, but then they haven't cared which one I use so on WinXP at home I use Notepad++, and in lab on Linux I use nedit.
4. If I want a Linux box I'll build one and will be able to do it on the cheap. So I'm not worried about getting one right now, when I'm college style poor, I'd rather have steak once in a while.
5. My friends/relatives/co-workers/group-members know how to use Windows and thus I don't have to try and explain Linux everytime they want to do something on my computer; this happens quite frequently I might add.
6. The games, I know you tried to blow this off with consoles but thats not a valid argument, because as a cheap/poor college student I can't afford to buy an XBox 360 or a PS3 or a Wii or whatever. And I don't enjoy console gaming as much either so atleast let me have my own preferences in that realm, without just telling me that my preference doesn't matter. I don't own any consoles and don't really plan on buying one for a good while.
As a note I would not consider myself a Windows "fanboi" but I do feel Windows is right for me, right now, and I feel anyone telling me I'm wrong is really in no place to say so. Your choice of OS really boils down to circumstances and that is all there really is to it.