Slashdot Mirror
"Microsoft Killed My Pappy"
theodp writes "A conversation with an angry young developer prompts Microsoft Program Manager Scott Hanselman to blog about 'Microsoft Haters: The Next Generation.' 'The ones I find the most interesting,' says Hanselman, are the 'Microsoft killed my Pappy' people, angry with generational anger. My elders hated Microsoft so I hate them. Why? Because, you wronged me.' The U.S. and Japan managed to get over the whole World War II thing, Hanselman notes, so why can't people manage to get past the Microsoft antitrust thing, which was initiated in 1998 for actions in 1994? 'At some point you let go,' he suggests, 'and you start again with fresh eyes.' Despite the overall good-humored, why-can't-we-get-along tone of his post, Hanselman can't resist one dig that seems aimed at putting things into perspective for those who would still Slashdot like it's 1999: 'I wonder if I can swap out Chrome from Chrome OS or Mobile Safari in iOS.'"
Reading comprehension WTF - he was talking about Mobile Safari/iOS. While it is true that you can have alternativish-browsers on iOS, they must use the underlying Webkit component and a markedly inferior JS engine. So there's an element of truth in the statement.
I will admit that Microsoft's security is no longer the joke it was back in the 9x era, when they had only ineptly bolted multi-user support onto a single-user OS and suffered from their devotion to software backwards compatibility. But their business approach seems to have hardly altered. They still make heavy use of deliberate incompatibility, backroom deals and promotion via bundling. They are reluctant to support any technology they don't have the patents for (witness the h264 debacle, or the continued lack of native Vorbis support, or their pushing of the patent-encumbered exFAT filesystem, or IE's inability to handle animated PNG) and will support open standards only when they are so dominant as to leave no other option. The company is just very aggressive and underhanded in their approach to business.
You don't know the definition of what a monopoly is. Perhaps YOU should read the letter of the law. The fact is Microsoft forced manufacturers in Asia to drop BeOS and Linux desktops and laptops because if they did not do that their Windows licensing costs would increase. In fact that is the reason some people think Sony dropped their laptop business altogether. They just don't want to bother dealing with Microsoft anymore if they can avoid it.
People understand that corporations are amoral. The rational position towards a large, powerful corporation is distrust. That's the baseline from which a corporation has to work up from.
On top of that most people don't get a *choice* of Microsoft or something else; Microsoft is chosen *for them* by the corporate IT department or by the IT departments of people they have to work with. That's raises the bar for user experience, somethign MS is not particularly good at. It's like the food you get on a college meal plan. The fact you're forced to eat it means that if you're assigning it a letter grade you automatically deduct two letter grades: an A becomes a C and a B becomes a D.
Now consider Apple. There's a lot to dislike in their trying to position themselves as content gate keepers especially. But there are offsetting virtues: innovation, design, and build quality. On top of that most people who use Apple products choose to do so, which means they get a better evaluation.
Unfair? Maybe; but that's reality.
Now this is not to say that Microsoft has no virtues as a corporation, it's just that those virtues aren't experienced by *users*. Microsoft has consistently provided a mediocre user experience in its core products, and undermined the main value of their products to the user -- familiarity -- by pointless fiddling with user interfaces.
Microsoft's big sin was abusing its market position to achieve a monopoly with a mediocre product. To be forgiven of that sin, they've got to start producing products people love and look forward to, and don't feel let down by.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Better analogy. We've got them pushed back behind a DMZ and there hasn't been any shooting for three years now. But with every change in illustrious leaders, we all wonder what sort of belligerent crap they'll pull next.
There is a lot of software talent and good ideas at Microsoft. And like North Korea, they can't get out and will probably starve to death inside.
Have gnu, will travel.
Well, lets see how Microsoft insists on treating me:
-You are a dirty pirate, let us ransack your system and install our rootkits, hope all your software is legal
-Want that update? Let us check if you are 'genuine'
-Not genuine? it's probably our mistake, but lets disable your system anyway.
-I trusted Microsoft in the DOS days, and my trust was not broken. My system did not tattle on me, me software could not be revoked at any time.
-I trusted Microsoft in the early Windows days. Most of my software did not tattle on me. I had to type in keys and stuff, it was a small inconvenience.
-Come Windows XP, my software tattled on me, Microsoft decided not to trust me, Microsoft thought it knew what was best. Microsoft wanted control of my machine, and wanted me to pay for it.
-Its getting worse, not better, so I upgraded to Linux.
Trust can not be bought, it is earned. Break that trust, and it is very hard to get it back again.
Okay, I'll burn what's left of my karma and point out the reason why we can't get along...because Microsoft HAS NOT CHANGED. They are still the price-gouging, competition stifling, astro-turfing, anti open standards, monopolizing enterprise that they have always been. What HAS changed is the rise of Mac OS X, iPad, Google Chrome, etc. that have created some real alternatives to Microsoft.
Antitrust case not even on my list
1. artificial price tiers for various levels of crippling the code
2. bug ridden bloated code with poor source control
3. malware friendly due to constantly repeating the same basic amateur coding mistakes
4. malware and spyware friendly due to design to accommodate marketers rather than end users, the large corporations and marketers are considered the true customers
5. lack of basic functionality that other operating systems have built, money must be spent
6. ignoring user needs while flying off on weird tangents and working in vacuum to produe rubbish UI (e.g. ribbon, metro)
7. ignoring industry standard API, protocols and inventing inferior incompatible alternatives
8. monopolistic and lock-in practices continue in the present
You aren't Google's product. You are the value in Google's product. It's a subtle, yet vital, distinction.
Google's products are, from a general perspective, business intelligence services. They sell search appliances to help companies manage their documents. They sell mapping and location services to help manage logistics. They also sell ad-placement services to put ads in places where they're most likely to result in a sale.
All of those products rely on understanding human behavior, to varying degrees. Of course, since humans love to lie so much, the best way to get that understanding is by direct observation. Google watches what you search for, what roads you prefer, and what your purchasing interests are. You are not the product. Google doesn't give a damn about you personally. Google only cares about your behavior patterns, at a statistical level, to improve its real products.
Personally, I prefer this to Microsoft's usual extortion tactics, and I also prefer it to the competitive ideal of many small companies, where each one provides only a small part of a viable solution. I'll start to worry when Google starts buying competitors just to shut them down, but until then I must admit I like what I see.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.