Slashdot Mirror
What If There Was a Microsoft Appreciation Day?
theodp writes "In 2005, Microsoft came under fire after withdrawing support for an anti-gay-discrimination bill. 'I don't want the company to be in the position of appearing to dismiss the deeply-held beliefs of any employee, by picking sides on social policy issues,' explained CEO Steve Ballmer. That was then. Microsoft — like Google and Amazon — has since very publicly declared its support for gay-marriage legislation, which means it — unlike Chick-fil-A — needn't worry about the 'deeply-held beliefs of any employee' causing it to be blocked from doing business by the mayors of Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. I guess we'll never know what Microsoft versions of 'Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day' or 'National Same-Sex Kiss Day' would have looked like."
Other than just trying to rile up commentators? Clickbait much?
Soulskill: This article is bad and you should feel bad.
What If There Was an End to All These Silly Interrogatory Posts at Slashdot?
What if Slashdot just stuck to posting actual news stories instead of speculatory flamebait?
Nope. Most people don't know what the software market was like before MS, and those people are divided between bashers and non-bashers. Some people know what the software market was like before MS, and they are also divided between bashers and non-bashers.
I used QDOS before Microsoft bought it and renamed it MS-DOS. I helped develop software for the IBM PC before it was released to the general public. I used CP/M, Apple II DOS, C64 OS, and Unix before MS was more than an obscure BASIC vendor. I contributed to at least one ISO language standard before the PC was released. I know what the market was like back then, and I unreservedly bash MS.
The best thing they've done is try to implement Gary Kildall's vision--badly. The worst thing they've done is set software development back by years if not decades by deliberately ignoring or undermining open standards, and by destroying competition in the market. Between those two, I think the latter is more significant, so I freely bash them. I think I've earned the right.
You seem to be confusing "personal computers" with Microsoft. Microsoft didn't invent the personal computer, and they weren't the first to come up with the idea of creating a vendor-independent OS. In fact, I come up empty trying to list their actual contributions to the world--aside from not dropping the market IBM handed them on a silver platter.
Well, statistically speaking, since approx. 50% of Americans are opposed to same-sex marriage, you can no longer ever buy anything at all, because at least _someone_ whose salary is paid by the business probably opposes same sex marriage.
Look, I'm gay. Hell, I'm married to someone of the same sex. But I really think some of the pro-marriage activists in the U.S. are going off the freaking deep end. It's a complex issue which deeply divides your country (and many countries). Approaching it like a cartoon in which everyone who supports same-sex marriage is a glorious white knight and anyone who opposes it is evil and eats babies isn't really a mature approach. It's frankly disingenous, disrespectful, rude and counter-productive to imply that anyone who opposes same-sex marriage is necessarily a hate-mongering bigot. A lot of them aren't.
But then, this is America, where major sociopolitical issues are fought out in fast-food chicken restaurants.