Developers As Pawns and One-Night Stands

jcatcw writes "At the Comes vs. Microsoft antitrust case, last Friday's testimony included evidence that James Plamondon, a Microsoft technical evangelist, in a 1996 speech referred to independent software developers as 'pawns' and compared wooing them to trying to win over a one-night stand. Last week's proceedings also included testimony by Ronald Alepin, a former CTO at Fujitsu Software Corp. and currently an adviser to the law firm Morrison Foerster LLP. He said that Lotus 1-2-3 was killed, in part, by Microsoft encouraging Lotus's programmers to use the Windows API even though Microsoft's own developers found it too complicated to use." The plaintiffs have created a site that includes transcripts of testimony presented in the case.

Comments

Re:What's The Big Deal

[a_karbon_devel_005]

ISV's are, in essence, Microsoft's customers. RMS is not a customer of Microsoft. That's the difference, really.

This is Microsoft employees saying their customers, the ones they're supposed to be developing good API's and such for, are pawns and they should never be catered to.

Re:And this is relivant because Anti-competitive.

[Vellmont]

Probbably because tricking developers into using the Windows API, (which Microsoft knew to be problematic) is a part of Microsoft's anti-competitive behaviour. Anti-competitive behaviour isn't illegal unless you're a monopoly like Microsoft is. The article references Microsoft encouraging Lotus to use the Windows API, and claims that contributed to the decline of Lotus 1-2-3.

Re:Woo

[MobyDisk]

Looking at your resume, you haven't done much Windows API work, and in 1996 you hadn't done any. So let me correct a common misconception about Windows API programming:

There is no reason that someone else could not make controls that fade in with graphics and color menus. No secret Windows APIs are or were required to do this, even at that time. Windows has always allowed applications to draw whatever they want in their windows, and that includes transparency and fading. The win32s extensions for Windows 3.11 even offered support for non-rectangular windows. Even easier, Microsoft licensed their Office controls to applications developers who wanted to do it. There are no special undocumented API calls required to do this stuff.

Re:Undocumented APIs

[dwheeler]

There's a standard way to eliminate the rewrite: get the module into the kernel, where others will help maintain it. The kernel _HAS_ a stable API - it's the interface to userland. The kernel also has a standard way for drivers to interface with other drivers - it's submitting source code. In other words, there _IS_ a standard internal API for kernel modules; it's called "C".

Clearly, you want to have a proprietary driver. Thus, you want to do something that the developers have ACTIVELY and CLEARLY stated that they are working against, and give no quarter for. You obviously don't like that, and that's your right. But you didn't write their code, nor pay for it, so they are not responsible for your desires... and that is their right.

This is very different from the Windows situation. Microsoft has kept some APIs quiet, and even the very existance of some APIs. In contrast, this Linux kernel policy has been clear for over a decade. You may not like it, but you have no right to complain; this policy was certainly there before you decided to write a line of code. As long as an organization makes clear what the rules are, then you try to work against them at your peril.

Yes, a stable internal API of the kernel would be a possibility. Windows, for example, has one. But most Windows crashes are from BAD DRIVERS; the drivers cannot be fixed, and the Windows interface can't be fixed either. That's not good evidence that this would be a GOOD thing for users. The reliability of Linux is actually pretty good evidence that their process actually works better for end-users.