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MS Employees making Fake posts in Forums?
mikey writes "Wired has an article stating that
Microsoft employees are highly suspect of making phony statements
in internet forums. Difficult to prove, but an independnt analyst concures on page 2 of the article." Makes me wish
I logged anonymous coward activity so that I could find out
how much is coming from tide*.microsoft.com.
I can prove it too.
Anyway, the DOJ trial is nothing but a government attempt to take away the right of Microsoft to innovate.
An Anonymous Coward not from the *.microsoft.com domain.
Since they tried something similar by trying to
fake letters to the editor in support of MS last year, I find it hard to believe that Microsoft wouldn't stoop to this level in this case.
These sort of fake rumors are exactly the reason we need to keep the government from interfering with innovation in the computer industry. Only when computer products are allowed to compete on the basis of merit -- not judicial intervention -- will real advancements in information technology be made.
There were an unusally high number of pro-Microsoft responses attacking a Jesse Berst column the other day. Now I wonder...
One of them referred to Linux a "Mickey Mouse" OS.
Imagine that, a Windows user calling another OS "Mickey Mouse"...
This doesn't seem like big news. As the article itself points out, MS has been doing their version of "grass roots" support for some time now. For a company that thinks a browser is part of an operating system, and that a "simulation" is just as good as real evidence in a Federal court, is this any surprise?
These sort of fake rumors are exactly the reason we need to keep the government from interfering with innovation in the computer industry. Only when computer products are allowed to compete on the basis of merit -- not judicial intervention -- will real advancements in information technology be made.
I agree completely! And as soon as Microsoft falsifies enough evidence they will be exonerated completely of any wrong doing!
Well, I really would like to question that merit. Microsoft just came in at the right time with a product idiots could use, it eventually metamorphosed into a large slug, ie piece of crap. I loved DOS myself, it was a bit too simple, nothing really there, but it was a "decent" OS. Microsoft now just has such a hold on the market that no one else can get in, they have the name and new people, not knowing of anything else or just getting it shoved down their throats by vendors who bundle the stuff in order to make an extra buck. The judicial intervention has nothing to do with merit, it has to do with Microsoft being underhanded in preventing Competition, not just competing, but preventing it altogether when possible. This violates Anti-trust laws.
:P
I don't completely hate Microsoft, I did enjoy Motocross Madness
Seron -- who forgot his password.
Microsoft is good for consumers! If microsoft didn't exist linux would never be as big as it is now. Everything microsoft does is done for the consumer.
This article is completely untrue!
-Bill Gates
Prove it then.
Anyway, I will understand if you can't prove it.
forum \Fo"rum\, n.; pl. E. Forums, L. Fora. [L.; akin to foris, foras, out of doors. See Foreign.] 1. A market place or public place in Rome, where causes were judicially tried, and orations delivered to the people.
[...]
Also of interest:
pedant \Ped"ant\, n. [F. p['e]dant, It. pedante, fr. Gr. ? to instruct, from pai^s boy.
See Pedagogue.]
1. A schoolmaster; a pedagogue. [Obs.] --Dryden.
A pedant that keeps a school i'th' church. --Shak.
2. One who puts on an air of learning; one who makes a vain display of learning; a pretender to superior knowledge. --Addison.
(all from www.dictionary.com, using the Webster's definitions)
--
Jason Eric Pierce
Some of us remain Anonymous Cowards because the opinions expressed here on such things as MicroSoft could be dangerous to our continued employment. No, I do not work for MicroSoft.
Ooooh, I didn't even notice the misspelling of "plural" and even "pedant" until a second glance.
pot \Pot\, n. [see kettle, black]
--
Jason Eric Pierce
We never post misleading information to public forums. Ever.
Trust me.
and don't pretend otherwise
Look at all the advancements MS has given us:
The Internet
The Mouse
The Web Browser
GUI
Hypertext
Basic
TCP/IP
DOS
Not to mention GPFs and BSODs
How can you bite the hand that feeds you?
We...I mean, THEY would never do something like that.
Ahh that's better.
Monica Blowinski
http://www.pjprimer.com/jihad.html
Microsoft's Innovations
Presenting the Microsoft Hall of Innovation
===================================
Close Combat
Popular game purchased from Atomic Games
Flight Simulator
Purchased from the Bruce Artwick Organisation
Age of Empires
Collabaration with Ensemble studios(Gopal R S)
FrontPage
Microsoft's HTML editor was purchased from Vermeer Technologies in 1996
FoxPro
This database application came along with Microsoft's purchase of Fox Software in 1986
Internet Explorer
Desperate to play catch-up in the fast-moving Internet world Microsoft licensed code from Spyglass Inc one of the two licensees of the
original Mosaic code base in 1995 and called it MSIE Microsoft then proceeded to distribute MSIE for free denying Spyglass substantial
royalties for their key contribution to the product
MS-DOS
The original Microsoft cash cow this CPM clone then called Q-DOS was purchased from the Seattle Computer Company in 1981 Microsoft then
proceeded to thwart Seattle Computer's license rights to the product The tiny company sued Microsoft and prevailed in court
Object Linking Environment OLE
Microsoft settled a suit with Wang Labs over patent infringement code portions of OLE which is also the heart of Microsoft's ActiveX
PowerPoint
This presentation software package was renamed and re branded after Microsoft's purchase of Forethought Inc in 1987
SQL Server
This important database product is based on code purchased from Sybase in 1988
Visual Basic
Ruby the foundation for Microsoft's highly important Visual Basic product was purchased from Cooper Software in 1991
Visual C
Microsoft purchased the Lattice C code compiler which became Visual C Microsoft's software development environment
Visual SourceSafe
Purchased from OneTree Software Shortly after OneTree's SourceSafe was released Microsoft preannounced a similar application called Microsoft Delta which failed to sell Microsoft then purchased OneTree and renamed SourceSafe as Microsoft Visual SourceSafe
Windows
Technologies used in Windows multitasking came to Microsoft with their purchase of Dynamical Systems in 1986 Portions of the interface were licensed from Apple Computer also in 1986
XENIX
Microsoft's version of Unix was actually written under contract by the Santa Cruz Operation(SCO)
Thank you drive through,
chandler@cs.mtsu.edu
http://www.cs.mtsu.edu/~chandler
And here's the record:
http://www.pjprimer.com/jihad.html
I'm ALSO an employee of Microsoft... And it perturbs me to NO END to see the endless bashing. I really used to enjoy /. - even though playing with KDE is as far as I've ever gotten w/Linux. It really scares me to see the blind religious zealotry and hatred some Linux users (it DOES predominantly come from them) eschew towards Microsoft. Why such venom?
The individual employees at Microsoft hardly make ANY of the key decisions... You speak as if the whole company is made up of toxic waste dumpers, vandals, and pedophiles. Give me a break. The only shame I have is purely psychological - caused by posts such as yours - which make me THINK I should have some degree of shame... But you're wrong...
I have pride in my employer, our products, and my own career here. You're entitled to your own view.
At your current rank, do you believe that you might not know all the secret agenda of your employer? As a techie, I am sure you are well respected. But business is business, their agenda is a lot bigger than you imagine, how much MS stock you have in your pocket? How much MS stock in their pockets? How greedy you are? And how greedy they could be?
We (well, at least I am) are not try to attack individual in MS (I guess except Bill Gates, who made most of those decision). But the Halloween documents are scarly, it is like saying those monk is helping out people without pay and we should kill them all to increase our profit (not even life threatening).
While you're at it, we ought to create an account for "Anonymous Microsoft Employee," for those people who don't recognize irony when it whups them upside the head.
Honestly, software business is screaming for people and you work on Microsoft? Since you have some sense, GET A NEW JOB ASAP!
that's what the communists WANT you to think!!!!!!!!
everything you know is a lie.
trust no one.
This reminds me of my old (and still not entirely gone) days on OS/2. There were several people that appeared nearly continuously on the OS/2 newsgroups bashing OS/2 and praising Windows.
Some of those very same people have turned up again, this time bashing Linux and praising Windows.To be perfectly fair, some of the OS/2 bashers have also turned up in more 'legitimate' venues, with respect-worthy opinions.
Some haven't.
Funny!
btw: there's a name for this.. Astroturf. As in 'artifical grassroots'..
Yes. Micro$oft, on occasion, does invent something new. However, a multi Billion dollar
corp should have more than one or two of these.
But why invent it ourselves when we can wait for
someone else to do it? We can then steal the idea, put it behind our massive amount of engineers, and have our final out before the
orginal company.
My favorate Microsoft invention is the "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down"
By the way, "If the problem persists, contact
http://www.linux.org"
Create something? Like fake videotape, you mean?
:)
um . . . sorry, i can't think of anywhere to go with that subject line.
This is another bit of old news to go in the file. Back when I was hanging out on Compuserve's OS/2 forums, we had two or three troll posters who would show up and make trouble on a regular basis. At least two of them admitted to being a MS Employee (And were posting during work hours) and I believe one of them was actually banned from the forum.
A few months back I tried to get a reasonable discussion going on c.o.l.a of the advantages of Linux to NT. I didn't cross post it to any MS newsgroup.
It was amazing the amount of MS advocates who came out of the woodwork to argue to the death for NT, no matter how lame the argument. These people would almost never appear in any other thread unless it was Linux vs NT related. (and remember, I didn't cross-post it, so if they are so pro-MS, why are they following c.o.l.a?)
I wonder if it's either MS employees or MSCE's who are worried about their job security.
I had quite a few hits in my weblogs from tide**.microsoft.com
Why have I been targetted by the Borg?
Hmm, maybe these addresses are robots gathering links for a MS Search engine??
I wonder how many MS Employees read /....
One of the posters on ZDNet said something like "Would you trust an OS written by a bunch of rogue hackers?"
The presumption, of course, being that it is rational to trust Microsoft?????
Most of the pro-MS responses boil down to something like:
"Linux may be better than Windows, but what Windows really offers is 'support' (meaning someone to blame in case anything gets screwed up). Besides, they can't fire me for buying Microsoft, because everyone buys Microsoft, so then they'd have to fire everyone, so I'm safe buying Windows even if it sucks."
Which was developed by Netscape.
> I'm a program manager in developer tools at Microsoft, ...
> On occasion, I have to take what some of you say personally, and that sucks.
As a candidate for a certain political office once told me: You are known by the company you keep.
Have you ever noted that many of your friends are working in big companies? And that many of them LOVE their companies. All that people LOVING Arthur Anderson, IBM, MS, Intel, Coopers?
I think that MS maybe encouraged their employees to post support to M$ in many forums, but many of them maybe did it by themselves, just because a big corporation makes them feel like a family (even if they pay them cents). It fills many social structures and keeps them from facing real life in some way. They have lost their identity, they love their companies and their companies only knows their ID number.
I feel sorry for those fellas...just a bunch of idiots...
I have never seen anyone successfully "prove" a negative statement. If you can do so, I will be duly impressed.
Nothing personal, but I know that there must be plenty of humans at MS, humans who have a conscience, who clearly must get it subdued by appeasement of their greed (something we all have, after all). Stock options, etc.
After you leave MS one day, how will you make it up to society, that is, the damage done to society and to more legitimate enterprises by the monopoly that you work for?
Why is this looking more and more like Scientology attacking its detractors? Are people taking notes from a.r.s?
Nothing from Microsoft surprises me anymore.
With INTEGRATED BUTT STRAPS.
Ah, integration. An obvious ploy to leverage their existing market position to drive successful independent manufacturers of Butt Straps out of business. Have they no shame?
Nah, go ahead offend...
This has to be a troll, but if its real, hey MS dude go screw yerself with a grenade...
"Kill em all God knows which are his"
MS steals from developers who are trying to work for a living. A huge bite of my taxes goes to the feds to buy this crap software from MS.
jmr
Microsoft distributed a "verbal" memo? As opposed to what other forms of distribution? Mimes? Picture books?
the point:
verbal == they used words
oral == they used spoken words.
Wired News should know better.
You linux guys are all the same. Can't you accept that Microsoft is just a technically superior product compared to free OS's?
Besides, we all know that linux is and Microsoft products are .
So there. Microsoft is not trying to undermine Linux. There is no conspiracy. MS is just a better way to go.
-Steve Ballmer
(D'oh! How'd that get there?)
...this is the same company that tried to sell the court a faked video as the real thing. They may not be stupid, but they are clearly arrogant.
I don't know if the Wired story's legit or not, but it easily *could* be.
The company, the products, the leadership, they are all fakes. Cheap imitations. Thieves. Microsoft does not innovate. They have never invented a single new thing. Every product they ever came up with was bought, stolen, or copied!
They have sufficient power and control now to manipulate the media, and these fake posts and letters to the editor are merely the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft is a serious threat to freedom in the world. They will stop at nothing to take over everything! I would never approve of violence, so DONT GO BLOW UP MICROSOFT and DONT KILL BILL GATES. But he has committed enough crimes that he deserves to at least spend the rest of his life in prison. Where his money will do him no good. (and knowing Bill, he will just become the Girlfriend for the "Bubba" on the cell block. On that day, that glorious day, when the biggest white-collar criminal in history is finally behind bars, we will rejoice, we will celebrate the new freedom and independance of our world from opression and tyrrany. Long live Competition and Free-Market economy. May the BEST product have 51% market share!!
Very good, you got all but one...
Basic was invented in the 1960's. Microsoft BASIC was the product that launched MS in 1975? Interestingly, Gates and Allen wanted a free (Altair?) computer, so they claimed that they had a Basic interpreter for it (they didn't), but they slapped a BASIC interpreter together quickly. So even Microsoft's first product was preannounced vaporware!
Anyway, the inventers of BASIC (I forget their names) released a product called TrueBasic in the 1980's.
You speak as if the whole company is made up of toxic waste dumpers, vandals, and pedophiles.
We would never compare Microsoft employees to toxic waste dumpers, vandals, or pedophiles. That would insult the dumpers, vandals, and pedophiles.
they created 2 billion dollars in profit last q.
um, this isn't businessweek here. we're talking about the worth of their software, not their marketing. I'm sure that you sincerely believe that McDonald's makes the best food on earth (as proven by sales figures), but people who eat know otherwise.
the punchline to all this is that MS claims to be technologially excellent, as well as innovative. what amazes me is the fact that the DOJ hasn't dragged in a troop of serious development people as expert witnesses to point out that, uh, from a development standpoint, modularity is GOOD, and melding a web browser (of all things) into the OS is just plain moronic . . . from a technical standpoint. everybody keeps dragging in all these suits and marketroids who haven't even the most rudimentary grasp of the issues involved.
it might also be fun to drag in some CS profs from MIT etc, really reputable people, and then ask each of 'em: "If a freshman in your CS105 class did [insert microsoft "innovation" here], would you give that student a passing grade, or flunk the dumb bastard for failing utterly to grasp some simple and obvious principle of software design?" . . . and then sit back and watch 'em all say, "flunk, flunk, flunkitty flunk" -- because design decisions at MS are made by marketing droids . . .
Just surf on over to Amazon.com and look at the comments for books on topics about MS products like visual c++. There will be posts like "a read er from nova scotia" and "a reader from israel", giving 5 star reviews, and all the non-anonymous reviews for the same book will be like 1 or 2 stars. How much more obvious can you get?
At least they (M$) USE anti-aliasing with their font subsytem, and PROPER scalable fonts, which is more than can be said for a CERTAIN system which Linux people are forced to use.
Jeez. When are we gonna see a proper GUI on Linux?
p.s. I run Linux, like Linux, but DETEST X-Windows' (please note that I do NOT call it X11 or the X Window System in a vain AC-style attempt to annoy X-Windows' advocates)
Last night there was an article here on /. talking about an MS admission that the evidence videos were "simulations". I was looking forward to reading the reply comments today, but it's gone (just like the GPL vs LGPL article from a few days back).
/.?
Was it retracted by
Microsoft's first spin has yet to be updated and still shows them
trying to pass off the original video as real...
Taken from there web page:
http://www.microsoft.com/press pass/trial/default.htm
as of 11.42 CST Feb 5 98
WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 3, 1999 - Over the past two days, a series of videotaped
demonstrations introduced as evidence to support the testimony of Microsoft Senior
Vice President James Allchin have stirred controversy in the Microsoft antitrust trial.
There were slight variations in small portions of the approximately two-hour
videotape, which occurred as a technical team at Microsoft tried to replicate in the
studio some of Allchin's tests of a software program developed by Government witness
Edward Felten. Allchin's tests, conducted under rigorous laboratory conditions, disprove
Professor Felten's claim that his "prototype removal program" removes Web browsing
functionality from Windows 98 without damaging the operating system.
The government has relied on Professor Felten's testimony to support its allegation
that Windows 98 and Internet Explorer are two separate products, and that Microsoft
has illegally "tied" them together. This, the government alleges, forces consumers to
take both products in order to get either, and is an attempt to harm Netscape
Communications, Microsoft's leading rival for Web browser users. Microsoft contends
that its Internet Explorer technologies are fully integrated as part of the Windows
operating system, and that consumers and software developers reap significant
benefits from that integration.
Allchin conducted extensive tests that disprove Professor Felten's testimony, showing
clearly that his program does not remove Web browsing functionality from Windows 98
but merely hides from users certain methods of accessing that functionality. Allchin's
tests also demonstrate that Professor Felten's "prototype removal program" breaks
certain functions in the operating system and makes it impossible for some
third-party applications to run at all on Windows 98.
During cross-examination of Allchin, government attorney David Boies has pointed to
slight variations in portions the videotaped demonstrations as proof that the tapes are
unreliable as trial evidence. Allchin has testified under oath that the variations shown
in the videotape have no bearing on the integrity of his tests or the accuracy of his
conclusions about the problems inherent in Professor Felten's "prototype removal
program." To resolve the matter, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson agreed
to let Microsoft conduct the tests again and create a new videotape overnight to be
used as evidence in the trial. Government attorneys and technical experts were invited
to monitor the production of the new videotape. Microsoft expects to play the new tape
for the Court on Thursday.
Microsoft's response has generally been of the nature of "academics don't understand how things work in the real world".
heh -- hopefully boies had the wit to mention "impractical" PhD's like kernighan, stroustrup, etc., w/o whom MS wouldn't quite, um, exist.
But only flag them to people who are not coming
from an MS domain, so the Microsoft people have no clue this is going on
Unless you mean something weird by "statement," then any theorem stated in a negative way can be proved. For example, the set encompassing all natural numbers is NOT finite.
Remember the 110V, 350Hz male masturbating machine patent mentioned on Slashdot last week? Well, if MS had filed the patent, their claims would have included the concept of jerking off.
MS gets 10c anytime you spank your monkey!
> The individual employees at Microsoft hardly make ANY of the key decisions
Wrong. Each and every one of them (and you) made a key decision: to work there, and to continue working there despite the corporate culture.
If you have pride in a rapacious company like Microsoft and the defective procducts it produces, well, that says something about you.
Better hurry and renegotiate your temp contract and get those employee benefits while you can. MS is playing nice, now that they are in the spotlight. As soon as the trial boils over it will be too late. Bill will be pissed, and there is not a chance in hell you're going to get out of there with even the shirt on your back.
Resist the tempation of the dark side. Close your eyes and let the force lead the way down the path of opensource.
Nah, there's no AC's from Microsoft.
But, heck, people at least listen a little if I don't instantly admit to my employer. Besides, my hard disk crashed (honest hardware problem for once!) and I lost my password.
--randych@mirosoft.com
Most of them died screaming. The rest took their loot and went to Argentina.
Let us hope that the Microsofties make the same choices.
Rather than banning posters from MSFT or flagging them with "bullshit" signs (because the posters will simply move somewhere else), here's an even better idea:
Don't trust anything you ever read on slashdot.*
Fits right in with the paranoid-Linux-user stereotype. Also works if you believe Red Hat is the antichrist, or ESR, or anyone else!
--
This posting approved by JIHAD!
Do not remove by order of fire marshal
* Including this post.
The individual employees at Microsoft hardly make ANY of the key decisions
The individual employee at Microsoft is most likely not a Microsoft employee. Are you part of the class action against M$ for their practices of using "temporary" employees for years and not giving them the benefits of being a M$ employee? Are you aware of the contract that M$ tried to make those workers sign in order to continue working (renew their "temporary" contract)? It's my understanding that they were reprimanded by the court and forced to withdraw the new clause.
Yah, 'shit nevermind' is right =)
KDE isnt an operating system *wink*
(power cable plugging into a 9v dc transformer).
Uh...just what is this a reference to?
Did they continue with the same spirit..i doubt it ..given the pressure to come out with a product to just beat a competitor..enough to be buggy &^#@(*#(@
I happen to be comming from tide76.microsoft.com.
Reason? Cause I work here. Why? Cause it's great money. Why do I visit slashdot.org daily? Cause half the time I don't get to see the things we do at this company because it's so big and communication internally needs some work. It is VERY funny that I have to go here to see the updates. But there's nothing wrong with that either (I love seeing both perspectives.. one is microsoft is always right, the other is microsoft is always wrong)
Here, microsft is always right.. like the other day when we got caught lieing.. we did what we could to cover it up cause we didn't wanna look like idiot assholes. TOO LATE. We should have just admitted, removed the browser and moved on.. and saved the company millions. But then again that's not the consensus here.
Also, I love to see the advancements in unix also since I run both a linux (redhat) box and an NT box at home (both of which have an uptime of around 9 months now). Yes.. I'm not lieing. (no that wasn't a plug for the OS so all you flamers out there flame on something else please)
I love seeing how people accuse "Microsoft" of being this engine of terror. I personally work with multiple platforms and actually use NETSCAPE as my preferred browser on my desktop. My boss thinks I'm an idiot for doing that, but oh well you can't take that away from me.
I have a redhat box in my office, a BeOS box in my office, and I EVEN HAVE AN AMIGA in my office..
I use everything.
I don't agree with everything the company does either. So just -KNOW- that some of us here work here because we like parts of the company and hate other parts of the company. We don't sit here and insist that microsoft is the ultimate end all of creation. The company also treats us quite well. The benefits are good and that's what keeps us here. I personally hate the fact that MS won't even include a simple gnu compliant telnet server (they had to slap the name all over it and include it with their primative services for unix... which by the way they project will eat around 50 million of suns profits.. yea RIGHT)
Anyways.. Just wanted to clarify that someone comming from tide.microsoft.com dosen't mean they're spying or trying to get demographics on who hates us.. we know it's quite popular to hate us and has been since we released that junk os windows 95/98. Most of us come here to learn and see what's going on in the scene.
Thanks,
Anonymous Coward - Beta Engineer at Micro$oft.
For a random cross-check, there is no Michele Bradley listed in San Francisco, which I would suppose has more population than the 10m radius circle in Redmond.
. . . but the Ayn Randites love MS (even though www.aynrand.org uses linux for a server), so you're not allowed to invoke the free market when bashing MS, sorry.
:)
Sorry, but that "You just aren't high enough on the totem poll" crap doesn't really hold. ..."
Why?
Because our org chart goes sideways.
Everyone has a title.
Once you get past about 10-20 special people, everyone else is on the same level.
Fer god sakes, we have the executive vice-assistant to the vice president of technical marketing.
Technical marketing?
"Well, technically, it's marketing, but
The idea that there are guys sitting in some building kept secret from everyone commissioned by top people to do this shit is a little far out there.
Especially if you've been around MS all that much.
As for me, I work at MS Research. So i could care less what happens to MS's product groups, we are but another building, and we don't sell anything anyway, so i get paid either way.
And if MS came crashing down, i'd just go research elsewhere.
It's just another job, after all.
First one to say i sold my soul gets laughed at. We literally don't have anything to do with any of the products. We just research (and evangelize, if you count the higher education division). I come into work every day with a perfectly clean conscience. After all, i don't work for MS. I'm not even allowed at the company picnic. I work for ComForce. hehe.
You mean no judicial intervention? Like i can
go and 'cut off my competitors air supply', plus his
throat. Then again, we can 'knife the baby' and
maybe the competing manager too. Also, lets just
not forget about the 'Windows franchise', it would
be silly to give it up without a fight.
Then, we can fake videos and lie about them under
oath, maybe we can also kill witnesses, who cares,
let the merits of our private armies decide, not
some silly judicial intervention.
I recently saw a press conference where the amazing innovators at micrisoft explained how they were responsible for inventing life on earth. Their patent was approved last week.
Do not despair, however. They also announced that they would use "liberal licensing terms that would be affordable by all but the most poor of individuals." So, now all living things are forced to use MSLife. If you don't, they'll terminate your license...
Yes, he is a nerd, never been anything else. His problem is that he never advanced beyond that. He's forever locked in adolescence. He doesn't let anyone to come play in his sand box and he's used to having everything his way.
He's never had a life, making money is the only thing he does - and he does it well. I almost pity him.
Want some advice, Bill ? Here's a good one: Grow up.
You guys might be surprised but Microsoft's developers are, in fact, human beings. We haven't all been 'assimilated' :)
Heck I use Linux at home (yes Win98 too, but mostly just for games).
You might also be surprised to know that Microsoft lets its employees use any OS they want on their system at work. Now... whether you can get your job done or not is a different story, but the company itself is more open-minded than you might think.
- An AC from tide*.microsoft.com
Evidently, not many. I never knew trolling was so easy!
p.s. -- I believe the word "sort" in the first sentence should have been "sorts." I've got to start using the "Preview" button more.
MS has already proven to us that they are quite willing to lie, cheat and steal. They've perjured themselves in court (If you or I had pulled that little video stunt at the Monopoly trial, we would have been thrown in the slammer for contempt.) They've defrauded their investors (Do you recall that story recently about their use of illegal "Cookie jar" tactics to smooth out their apparent earnings?) They've used their control of the desktop OS (and I use this term very loosely) to push their competitors out of the market (Only being caught once that I know of, with that DR DOS/Win 3.1 thing.) Their strong arm tactics and arrogance remain consistent whether they're dealing with a single person or a whole government. Their view is that they're above the law. All their actions show it.
Scarface Al Capone would have been proud.
How much further will they go? Will Microsoft kill, if someone gets inconvienent enough? Have they already?
The US Government needs to administer a major slap-down to the company. They should have a decade ago, when the DR DOS/Win 3.1 thing first came to light. Microsoft's main source of power, its OS, should have its source permanently opened to the public. Microsoft should be forced to play on the same playing field that everyone else has to, as a software application company only.
Microsoft is famous for this sort of thing; there have been several embarassingly well-publicized accounts of things like this happening. I seem to remember a news story on MSNBC entitled "Microsoft's Stupid PR Tricks" (or something to that effect) a while back. Alas, a search shows that it has mysteriously vanished.
This is really no different than the time they were planning to buy off several "independent" sources, to get them to send in "spontaneous" support for Microsoft in the forms of letters to the editor and whatnot.
It's the same principle. If you can't get good press, fake it or buy it.
I post from the microsoft.com domain and would prefer that A.C.'s were not logged. I do not post mindless MS advocacy drivel, nor do I post proprietary info that MS does not want out, however I do post opinions that might be offensive to MS at times and do not want my job affected. Using your ability to track down the originators of AC posts will only mean losing me as a loyal reader and poster for fear that posts will be easier to trace to me, and also that my opinions will be judged on my employer rather than their merits.
>You cannot prove there is no God or no Santa >Claus
that's because the asker can't define "God" or "santa Claus" well enough - i.e., the asker don't know what he's asking. nothing to do with lack of info.
>If an empirist sees the sleigh or the Virgin, and >doesn't think he is being defrauded, he tosses >science and becomes a believer.
your understanding of "science" is WRONG. scientists are, by default, empiricists. would a scientist declare the world to be "wrong" because the world doesn't fit her model?!
philosohy (and other fields practising these verbal pseudo-logic) should benefit from some math.
MS isn't the devil. It's a large corporation with at time questionable business practices, that offers it's employees some of the best benefits and salaries in the industry.
If the company fails, they will do so on the merits of what they produce and how consumers react to it. I prefer linux to Win2k personally and I will continue to use linux as my primary platform.... but I will not turn my back on a decent job that provides for my family because "I'm working for the Devil".
I write good software. I don't think anyone sets out to write bad software. If the software goes to press before it's ready, or is rushed into production using bloated 4gl techniques, that is an issue that the company deals with, not the software developer who did the best he can with the requirements given. I don't have a job at MS because I think MS should rule the world... I have a job at MS cuz it pays my bills and it's a pretty cool job. When it ceases to do either, I will do something different.
Perhaps I'm alone here, but...regardless of what your opinion of MS is, regardless of what your stand on Linux is, this whole discussion is out of control. I can't help but think that the most rabid MS-hater in the world could wander over here, skim through the posts, and end up with a sick feeling in the pit of his or her stomach. If anyone thought the Slashdot community was anything more than a bunch of bile-spewing, conspiracy-theory-spouting, clueless gaggle of teenage sheep, well, you just broke their bubble. Holy fucking shit, people. This is appalling. And no, I don't work for MS. Does anyone here capable of so much as an iota of critical thinking? Is *anyone* here over the age of 7? Christ, people. Grow up. Jeez. Wow. Talk about Amiga syndrome all over again. The Linux community has turned into its own worst enemy.
I get a similar feeling over there
I used to work for Oracle, a company that doesn't get bashed nearly as much as Microsoft nor nearly as much as it should be. I personally don't think Oracle's core product or business practices are as bad as MS's (though most of their secondary products stink, and if the market really did select for value, Ingres would have won the DBMS wars of the 80's), though they have done some crooked things. If they were in Microsoft's position, I think they probably would be just as bad, frankly. They try.
When you're inside a company like that, it becomes a big part of your life - you spend a lot of time there, you have a lot of friends there, you want to believe in it because you're putting so much of your energy into it, and you don't want to believe that you're investing so much in something that doesn't merit it. I felt this temptation myself, though I never really became an O-drone. Vaclav Havel wrote a play about being tempted to cave in to the Communists just because that was how the world he lived in was.
I still have good friends at O. But the network computer is pure borg shit. That's what it is intended to be and what it will achieve if it succeeds. In good conscience, I had to leave.
A company you work for has a human face - the face of those who work for and with and hopefully mostly like. You think that this is the *real* face, but that is an optical illusion. A company is a virtual entity that is somewhat more and less than the sum of its employees. The true nature of the company is clearly shown by how it acts in the world, not by all the free goodies and office parties or even the sincere ties that develop between people who work hard together. I'd suggest that you take a break - a sabbatical or something. Get away from campus and see how MS looks from an objective distance.
Instead of revealing ACs from MS, howabout putting a counter under each story listing the number of MS posters that have commented on the story?
Mostly right, but the figures on MS's wealth are based more on stock price than revenue. True, revenue is considerable, but if the stock starts going down, they're likely to spend all their money buying it back. What choice do they have? If they don't keep that price up, they're going to start shedding employees. IBM still generates more revenue off software than MS, not to mention their hardware revenue, so the situation is less vaporous there.
and use the ban (and lack of microsoft.comn posts that are blocked) to bolster their case that the astroturf stuff is all BS.
you sir, are a complete idiot.
1. sun's first product was not java.
2. sun didn't come out of nowhere a few years ago. they have been around since 1982.
3. visual j++ blows trust me, i have to program in it. it's a buggy piece of shit.
4. sun makes a version of solaris (a true system V unix) for intel boxes. the reason it's not widely used is because people usually opt to buy a 64 bit sparc system.
i can't believe the morons who post here sometimes...
you sir, are a complete idiot. i certainly hope you were joking.
by the way, i certainly hope you were joking.
Its a nice place to work. Puts food on the table. Pays the mortgage. I can play with cool hardware and try to make products that won't make people too cranky.
/. posts for 6 months: Arrogant, clannish, immature, geek elitist assholes. By the time you kids grow up and relax a little bit your OS will probably be obsolete and you'll have to find something else to argue about.
I've seen three different product groups now - and I can assure you that none of them had a clue about how to dominate the world, spread the evil, or whatever yucky crimes you think we are capable of. I'm often surprised that we ship anything at all - we certainly don't have time to worry about trivial things like world conquest.
I've run Linux and Be at home. I don't much care for Linux, and I love Be.
I read slashdot for technews and cool links.
My impression of the average Linux user after reading
Read some of these posts and think about how they sound to other people. Very unpleasant and not much worth the time to read. (not that this post was probably worth your time either)
If you'll excuse me I'm going to have another free soda* and get back to world domination, er, I mean work.
-microsoft boy
*free soda - that's the part that really makes you hate us.
Oh and one other thing - filter for people posting from Microsoft and I'll continue to do it from my personal ISP. Its not worth you time to worry about it.
Astroturfing is the creation of false grassroots support for something (like Win98 support among programmers). M$ is notorious for this type of crap, it's hardly surprising they would deploy such tactics here.
Just like their falsified video-tape testomony, M$ invents whatever PR bullshit they need today, and ignores the truth, the law, and reality in general.
M$ is a problem the world is better of without, hopefully DOJ will slice M$ apart into manageable pieces. It's a shame they can't do the same to the M$ principles.
That said, WinNT TSE can run terminal clients
reasonably over a 9600 bps link -- X needs
128kbps to be reasonable (this is due to
TSE being able to load display related stuff
onto the server -- i.e. Button drawing,
window decoration -- X will NEVER be able to
competently do that).
... but this is something I have long suspected, not just in the context of the M$ trial, but also in the irrationally divisive posts that cause dissension in "the ranks", eg the KDE vs. Gnome flame wars. It seems that a few folks get everyone else stirred up - perhaps this is part of the M$ plot to remove the open source threat?
-Andy
Not wishing to get involved too deeply in a technical discussion that neither of us is competent to continue, but this is known in debating circles as talking out of your butt.
Kurt Godel showed that a large class of formal systems, including mathematics, are 'fundamentally incomplete': if you make them powerful enough to prove every true theorem they can describe, then they are also powerful enough to prove some false ones; let's hope Maths isn't that powerful yet.
As a result, it is not true that "all knowledge about the system is obtainable", even in principle; at least, not by derivation from the system's postulates. I was also not aware that anyone had described the methods that would be required for your statement "the points of contradiction or uncertainty are mathematically derivable."
That said, negative proofs are possible both in maths and in the real world, but some problems that 'naturally' take a negative form present problems, as do some that 'naturally' take a positivie form.
John P.
Our support staff have to use WinXX, and a week doesn't go by that one of their computers doesn't crash. It's really nice when they are in the middle of a support call and then have to put the user on hold while they reboot. It doesn't just make them cranky, it pisses them off. The number of "Microsoft Sucks" comments is rapidly rising.
By the time you kids grow up and relax a little bit your OS will probably be obsolete and you'll have to find something else to argue about.
Um, read up on computer history; maybe take a class at the local community college. Most software and hardware becomes obsolete soon after it is released. True, you can try to squeeze some money out of people by introducing better bugfixes every so often, but at some point, something better is going to come along. This applies to MS as well. If it takes a kid 18 years to grow up, then I don't doubt that both Linux and Windows will be displaced by something else by then. Bill Gates won't be hurting financially. I only hope you got one of those temp contracts that give you benefits.
My impression of the average Linux user after reading
Well, seeing as you can post anonymously, and that Slashdot is becoming so popular, it probably is not fair to generalize about the Linux community based on reading Slashdot comments. I understand that the perpetuation of these stereotypes helps keep current Windows users away from Linux. But these don't necessarily play well in the workplace, where competent people are beginning to find a use for Linux in their organization. Just in the past few months, we have used Linux for a few small projects, and are so impressed with it that we are going to use it for our next mail server. In fact, my co-workers are still amazed that the Linux box I set up a few months ago has never been down once, while their NT boxes crash over night when they aren't even using them.
I'm often surprised that we ship anything at all
Well, you're the only one around here caught off guard. I don't think any one here took Win2000 seriously.
From reading your post, my impression of the average MS employee is someone who is gullible, naive and in for a rude awakening. But it wouldn't be fair to make a generalization from your post, since I don't even know if you work for MS.
oh my god I can't believe you acutally said that.
.. the real techies heard of Sun before they heard of Microsoft. Sun has been around since the eighties producing incredibly high end machines. They have had more than 1 version of Unix for both Intel and their Sparc machines (64 bit CPUs).
a) Sun is not an unheard of upstart company
b) Sun's first product was NOT Java
c) Microsoft's Visual J++ is a peice of Shit, as I was forced to work with it for awhile at my job until I finally went behind Managements back and downloaded the Sun JDK and used Windows Edit to write my programs.
d) Microsoft BROKE Java, not Fixed it.
e) MOST IMPORTANT: This post is *EXACTALLY* the same kind of post that the DAMN ARTICLE is talking about. I almost wonder if you're a little Microserf pounding FUD away on your kb hoping that someone who DOESN'T know that sun has been around as long as it has will believe your worthless shit.
I'm sorry I had to resort to profanity but your mindless garbage makes me want to puke. I can't believe that let fucks like you even use the internet?
as an interesting side note to this, about tracking the activities of microsoft people. my machine was hacked a while back, and after i put things back together and looked at the logs I found that there were a good number of connections from tide*.microsoft.com
Dude! Free Beer?
I have seen the light! I am done pimpin for da man. Where do I sign up for some of that free beer?
-microsoft boy who now wants to work for someone with a better selection in the refrigerator case
This was a good post, but I have trouble believing that you have any affection for free software--Gates is the antithesis of that and you work for him. It seems like it could have been written by a friend of mine who joined MS Research recently. What characterized my friend's opinion about MS was "I thought their products kinda sucked, but the job might be interesting."
But what is missing in both this post and in my friend's outlook is akin to amnesia, selective recall, or something. The fact is that MS success has been achieved by dishonest means. I think the judge is seeing a little bit of what characterizes their efforts, be it court case demos, product marketing, profit reporting to the SEC, ..., the list goes on and on.
My friend admits that compensation makes up for the guilt. But he has changed--I think he really believes that somehow MS is not harmful. He rationalizes everything.
I hate what working at MS has done to him, and I hate MS for this and more important reasons.
This post only confirms my opinion that we should Boycott Microsoft and Seek Refunds on Feb. 15th!.
Didn't scientologists do this on the scientology
forums?
Maybe the employees will be encouraged to buy
copies of microsoft products to get them on
the bestseller lists too.
:-)
'Nuff said.
It's too bad you think think that Linux users are arrogant assholes, etc. I think some of them are too, but don't you think it's a bit idiotic to generalize on people who use a certain OS? Seems a bit arbitrary to me.
Anyway, you don't have any guilt, do you--working for a company that has built its monopoly on deception, dishonesty, and exploiting the fear and illiteracy of computer users to the max? I see the effects of your company all around me: users who think that Windows95 is the Internet, businesses who are stuck with software that crash and is unreliable, people who think that MS is the best, but cannot explain why, the list goes on and on and it is a bit ridiculous.
I'm not saying MS SUCKS or any of that junk. I am just saying that you work for an enterprise that has done more harm than good, pal. Your guilt comes out as an distant arrogance, but hey, at least you are looking out for #1, right?
Or that's what they used to tell their people in the 60's.
Look at all MS has given us...
Look at all the advancements MS has given us:
The Internet
The Mouse
The Web Browser
GUI
Hypertext
Basic
TCP/IP
DOS
Does that leave DOS? Well, actually if you look at the commands in DOS, they are bad approximations of CPM and UNIX commands.
I would think that working at Microsoft would create quite an ethical dilemma, knowing that so many poor technical decisions are being made there in the name of locking in the user base. I understand the need to make a profit, but to do so at the expense of one's customers is abhorrent to me.
It's good for folks out of college to get experience, and I'm sure Microsoft provides some goodness along those lines, but I also hope that you folks realize that your employer is sometimes causing some real headaches outside its walls. It's a good thing we're relatively top-heavy when it comes to technical experience, or we'd have more difficulty; as it is, the PHBs have a say, but usually not the final say.
Anyway -- it's good to hear from Microsoft employees here, at least IMhO, but it I were in your shoes I'd have never accepted such a position. I'd rather believe in the company I work for...
IE Unix.
heh. what, you're gonna break that kernel, too? or integrate motif into the filesystem or something? are you all still laboring under the delusion that win32/intel activex thingies are gonna run on a sparc, or has that one been conveniently forgotten . . . ?
most of us here are US Citizens. But we are very against a lot of things the US Government is doing
heh -- it must be terrible to wake up every morning in fear of having to do an honest day's work. terrible, terrible.
on the other hand, i've gotten used to it, and it ain't so bad. maybe you'll get used to it, too. then again, maybe the judge will finally cave and accept the bribes, and you can breathe free again.
I believe MS made a mistake by not paying more attention to the desires of technologically influential folk, but I understand how that decision was made. I also think that the MS-bashing has surpassed all rational bounds, and MS deserves a chance to at least answer charges that are brought against it.
Yes, I think some MS-bashing is unwarranted. But look beyond the "MS SUX" and a few silly outrageous things, and what do you find? A lot of people who are fed up with MS being shoved down their throats. And people like you, who work at MS, somehow feel this is OK. I know there are good people who work at MS and you are probably one of them. These people should organize and put a stop to MS abuse of monopoly power and sleazy practices. Of course, that won't be enought to correct what damage has been done, but hopefully MS will at least have their wrists slapped a little by the DOJ when MS is convicted.
You'd better be joking.
Haha, you mention genuinely horrible things and try to say that "most of the inhabitants of slashdot going around calling people Nazi's." Let's see, if most, or even many, /.ers did that like you say, we'd see quite a few posts with "Nazi" in them, huh? Can you tell me how to find these thousands or even hundreds of posts? It's great that you are able to associate those with all that other stuff. Do you MS people get trained at deception or is that just something that is encouraged by the MS work atmosphere?
I'm sick of idiots like those MS lawyers going around telling people that they are not technically adept enough to try to accuse MS while they think they can pass off a phony video as evidence, do an incompetent job at that, and then go on to say (after a second failed attempt) that their point is proven.
I am embarrassed for you.
I think you are missing the point. The software industry seemed to be a great thing at one point, and MS has dirtied it with its tactics. It has ripped off its customers--I see how much money they spend to have to work around the unreliability caused by their products.
And you point out that you don't work on certain products that are particularly notorious in this regard.
The fact remains that you are working for what many consider to be a bad, bad company. You are helping them to try to ensure that there is only One Microsoft Way. It is very ugly, Randy--and you are encouraging it by helping them.
Oh fer cryin' out loud...GET A LIFE! I mean, after you get out of school and all.
Nazi Germany was a good place to be a soldier and a researcher. They had some of the best technologists and military strategists available during their time. There are tons of good articles written about how well developed Germany was. I doubt MS would want to have a reserach lab that sucked. They are using MSR to try and beat the rest of the world to the next tech breakthrough so they can patent it and proclaim themselves victorious. I just wonder who gets to play the role of the Jews in this saga.
I go to work. I sit in my office. I work with customers supporting their product. I play on the OC12. I work maybe 5 hours realistically out of the day, and for the other 3 research, expand, and study. I have my CCIE (non-ms)and CNA now because of this available time to study.
I love coming here. Not just for the technews, but for the ENTERTAINMENT. It's great to see how many people BITCH about how microsoft has wronged them in some way. Yell about how linux is superior. IT IS... in many ways..however, I think we've tackled the "Dummafying" of the GUI pretty well.. something unix has not done effectively. To discredit that is wrong..
HOWEVER, this reminds me of HIGHSCHOOL. Lets harass someone to make ourselves feel better.
There is a psychological definition for this though.. It's called the "Reverse Fluction Theory". What it means simply is that in order for people to have a larger self-esteem, and to feel "included" whereas they do not have abondanment syndrome, they must find flaws in other people or other things and expose those to bring attention to those things. This relieves focus of attention to flaws in the individual making the claims.(ask your local therapist and they'll concur on this as a valid syndrome)
Microsoft makes crappy products. There are only a SELECT few products that kick ass from Microsoft.. one of them off hand is EXCHANGE server.. and another is Proxy. Other than that, our products SUCK. Why? Cause our marketing team finds things they feel will flood the market and has developers develop for them. Did you see we TRADEMARKED CSS?
Stupid move, I know. But I didn't contribute to it at all.. so don't blame MICROSOFT blame "MARKETING at microsoft" or "Development at microsoft". BillG is a figurehead by the way. He dosen't make most of the decisions regarding the product. The "OFFICE OF BILLG" does. or the product managers do (which sometimes I think are smoking crack)
Instead of telling me I need to leave the company, tell me a place I can become a millionarie in 5 years. Tell me a place where I can change what I do every other month if I want. Tell me where I can have a budget to buy any toy I want, and not have to worry about the finances or if my boss is going to approve it. - Or.. a company that pays for my training.. ALL of it no matter what kind.. or a company that gives me 8 workstations to recreate customer problems on. Or a company that will let me take the rest of the day off just to "chill" cause I have all my work done (yet still get paid for it).. or a company that will fly me around the world so that I can experience life.
Or a company where your managers meet with you monthly to discuss your career path. A company where you get to work with the newest products before anyone sees them. A company where you can insure your wife, husband, domestic partner, or child... a company where you can buy the stock for 15% off the face cost. A company where your insurance is FREE. No copay no deductible. No payments at all. A company where your PRESCRIPTIONS are free... A company where I Can walk into the break room and grab one of 30 types of beverages and not have to deposit 60 cents into the machine. A company where I work on a TEAM. The team that works together. Everything I do is recognized, praised, and shared. so.. TELL ME:
I can find all these things, but not in one place except for Microsoft. I may be able to find these at IBM (however, I'd just be a NUMBER), or at Cisco (my brain can't handle the math for subnetting). NOT IN ONE PLACE.
So please quit harassing the engineers that come here. It's actually quite amusing because your showing your ass. We don't harass linux in any way whatsoever. We claim our product is better just so we can make more money. And even then, it's marketing that's making that claim. That claim helps the bottom line which pads my pocketbook. Similar to a philosophy uncle sam uses when he takes 40% of our paychecks every month.
Truth is that our product is not better. IT won't be until the developers come back to planet earth and realise that not having an identD server is stupid. When this happens, our products get better. Changing standards is stupid. Designing windows 2000 so that microsoft DNS server is required, is stupid.
It's looking like we're gonna lose miserably. I agree with the court and think the company should be broken up. Why? Cause my 5000 stock options become a HELL of a lot more and I can retire at 30.
It's not that I like NT or our products other than the ones listed above. There are a few, but not many.
We make a product.. make it half assed, and try to make it proprietary. We take protocols, and add our "Extensions" to them. In all reality, we claim their RFC compliant. Half the time, the RFC isn't finalized so we sneak shit in there before we release it. Then we flood the market. For example: Windows NT Terminal server.. should have used a non-proprietary protocol. X maybe? That would be cool. Then unix workstations (not using the citrix client) could access the server and run "WORD" or something. Did we do that? Hell no.
We're scared of unix. We're scared of linux. We're scared we'll lose our market share and our stuff will deplete. The reason we're scared is not because of little kiddies who get some movement to find a loophole in our EULA (which by the way, I agree the OS shouldn't be forced to be loaded in the first place.. that's not our problem though and it's the OEMS. It's our problem we lock them into contracts, but not our problem that they get into those contracts. That's like saying that I'm responsible for my roommate borrowing my car and running a redlight in it).
The reason we're scared is because we know this flux won't go on forever.
Microsoft win2k is so highly integrated right now its sickening. IIS requires IE5. The MMC requires ASP from IIS. the MMC is required to operate the damn thing. You can't install a 3rd party WEB server without removing IIS which would remove half the functionality of the server. Same goes for an FTP server cause it's tied to the IIS server. FTP server from microsoft DOSENT EVEN SUPPORT RESUME!!!
Office 2000 outlook requires outlook express.. why? cause it's just another thing to fill up your harddrive that you will never use. And the developers philosophy is that you can throw tons of hardware at a server since the cost is coming down.
Why don't we tune our products and optimize them? Cause we're idiots. No point in arguing there.
Unix has had 20 years to get it's bugs worked out and there's new ones every day (get em in cert or coastwatch or tamu.edu bulletins daily). Our NT product is the most stable of what we have made so far. But it's a baby. Unix isn't. Comparing the two is apples and oregano.
I think we're idiots for pushing another windows 98 kernel out the door.. but I have no input on that issue.. someone else makes those decisions.
I DONT ENJOY THESE DECISIONS AND IF THE OTHER BENEFITS LISTED ABOVE WERE AVAIALBLE SOMEWHERE ELSE, ID WORK THERE . They aren't so I'm not. I love this company and know everyone that works for Microsoft loves it too.. not because of what it stands for but because of how it treats its employees.
You can bitch all you want. We're here to learn and listen too, not to complain on how long it takes to compile a kernel, or how you have to go download an updated patch to patch that finger security hole.. or which X interface to use because I'm not sure which one performs best or gives the most customization.. we don't offer advice on how to configure that unix box to work with more hardware (how many custom drivers do you have to make to get that soundblaster live with environmental extensions to WORK), or go through the nighmare of configuring openGL for an Elsa Gloria card.
So please do us a favor and leave us the fuck alone.
P.S. if you can't keep an NT box up for longer than a week, your an idiot. Just like UNIX, you have to know what you're doing. NT is stable, albeit not as multi-user friendly as unix. Both have their share of security problems and both have their share of issues.
Like I said above.. if you can't keep an NT box up longer than a week.. geez go buy a book. Or.. maybe you tried to compile the NT kernel or something.. or like, maybe you tried to chmod the winnt dir or maybe your machine is not store bought, but something you built in your garage with a screw driver and some baking soda.
I just love this tasty irony. You poke fun at your employer and its products and brag about how you use all those non-MS platforms at work. Yet so much of what you are responding to here at /. is of people who do not have the luxury of using non-MS at work.
That is so cool, man. You use all those great things while so many people are stuck with doze, ill-gotten fruit of a monopoly. Wow. Well, I feel better now knowing that there is some consolation here.
But MS has poisoned a great industry. Overall, I agree with the poster who criticized you. MS must not only be stopped but penalized for the harm they have done to the industry and how they have cheated consumers. And yet you work for them. Yes, there are other companies out there that are also harmful, but MS is especially bad with someone as disturbed as Gates at the top.
Why do MS employees post here, anyway? I'm not saying that I don't like these posts--the concept itself is quite interesting. But do you think posting could possibly change anyone's mind?
So far, they only remind me of Feb. 15th, Windows Refund Day.
Good sir, thy heartfelt eloquence doth mine heart good! :)
HA! you too have been tricked. That poster was in fact from Apple, posting so that you would not think the MS story might be fake. They of course realized if immediate evidence of M$ making fake posts wasnt produced after the Wired article, no one would believe it. In comes this guy, from Apple, pretending to be from M$. But to pretend to be from M$ wasn't enough, he had to contradict the article in order to instill the illusion of an opressive M$ lying. Obviously it worked on you.. I however am much more intelligent.
Get real, MS is bad. Now, guess what? People have to put up with results of their badness, such as their products. Do you think this is the spouting of a 7-year-old?
Queazy? What about MS trying to pull one over on the judge. The protests here--many of them legitimate I might add--are child's play to the potential consequences of what MS tries to pull. What if the government had not spotted that? That would have been yet another MS deception against the public.
You are witnessing angry people, sir. Angry for good reason.
I have to disagree with this statement. He/She makes a valid point in that we shouldn't be pointing fingers because it is quite childish. And I would take security myself over risking leaving a company that offered that much to someone. I don't agree with everything he said, but then again, I don't hate anyone.
I think people feel shorted because microsoft has a super marketing engine. If linux had it, linux would be on more boxes.
I will not say stupid things like what Alex said in: "I know what the company does, is bad, but I'm too spineless to do anything but to work for it"....[eg] but will agree with the Micro$soft guy on the point that if they do offer all those benefits, it's a good deal if you can handle the moral complications of it.
-I think I'll create an account so people can email me their hatred of my sensible testimony.
You pick out all those posts, but remember what you wrote? You refered to "most" /. posts. You also cuss me out. But I won't hold that deception and vulgarity against you.
You do work for Microsoft, however. Have you heard what your company tried to pull in court this week, BTW? Be ashamed, sir.
I went and visited Alex Belits webpage: I found it pretty cool except I visited it using my windows machine and got what's posted at the bottom of the screen. I went with my linux box and it opened some pretty horrible HTML code with rotten graphics that looked like he took crayon and drew on his screen.
Dude - chill. You can't change millions of people running windows or microsoft products. And I doubt anyone wants to see you bitch or complain about windows anyway. You seem like a disgruntled old man. Get some viagra.
EXCERPT FROM PAGE:
You miserable lamer!
You dare to visit this site using your stinking Windoze-based browser! Go to Microsoft and use their software, designed for idiots, who are ready
to pay them money for useless and unreliable programs!
Use FoxPro and Visual Basic - they are really good tools, especially if combined with ODBC. Buy all
products, with "Visual" in their titles - it means "object-oriented" in fact. Never believe anyone, who will
tell you, that object-oriented programming is something different.
Use Microsoft SQL Server - with ODBC and Access you will never recognize, that there are very few
differences between it and old version of Sybase. Don't forget to buy BackOffice. Use their latest
masterpieces of shit - Windows 95 and Windows NT. Don't forget to subscribe to msn - Internet will be
more fun®, if you look at it through so respected access provider. Don't worry about security flaws - no
one knows about them, you're safe. And DON'T even try to use real operating systems (you probably
don't know, what the operating system is) with your poor little brain!
And NEVER, NEVER eat anything but McDonalds food! Everything else is too high-quality to be tolerated by you, if you can use
Windoze!!!
Happy GPFs!
Your sincerity is appreciated. However, its goodness is overwhelmed by the dirty company you work for. Yes, yes, I know they have not been convicted. Yes, I know, MS says that the video stuff was all an honest mistake.
But the discrepancy of such a wildly successful company built on mostly sub-par products is really too much.
I can only continue to boycott them and urge others to do the same as a socially responsible thing to do.
Actually, the awful truth is that there are other workplaces that could cater for your security needs -- however you are probably either simply too unlucky (or not good enough) to work for them.
That doesn't mean you should allow yourself to be deluded into thinking either that a) MS is the only company that can satisfy your needs, or b) you really need all the benefits MS can offer you.
All I'm trying to say is that yes, we all need security, but no, we don't all need to be millionaires either, especially if becoming one requires us to lower our standards (in general, i.e. both ethical and technical etc.)
And your side declared it. I would not leave you the fuck alone if I were the last non-windows user.
As to the "buy a book" comment, I'm a bleeding MCSE, and I *know* that NT is unstable. Its more stable than windows 95, but then so is napalm.
Slashdot is one of our only havens away from the bland world of Bill. Where were all the MS defenders when every other Anti-MS article was posted? Don't we usually have about one a day? Where were they then?
Suddenly, the forum here is filled with what most here think of as their enemy. The folks that are going to target us and try to de-commoditize our standard protocols, remember?
It's on the one hand very unnerving to know that you're being watched, and frightening when it looks like MS has once again rallied the troops and made our beloved Slashdot the target of one of their PR campaigns.
Its really quite natural that this would piss a lot of people off and cause them to post a lot of paranoid vitriolic stuff. Perhaps thats the point, to make us destroy ourselves.
I feel sick to my stomach. In part because of the flamewar, but mostly because I suddenly feel targeted.
You idiots do not understand what's going on inside microsoft. it's good, because if you did you might have a chance of competing with ms. but you don't. you idiots don't understand that most people at ms are trying to meet customers needs. you don't understand that there is a large amount of good technical work going on given the constraints of legacy. you don't understand how important supporting legacy. it short, you are morons.
I don't hate you personally, but you folks have a reputation. You want me to let my guard down just because you use an Amiga?
If I believed for one second that you wouldn't destroy us all if you had half a chance like you did nearly everyone else, that really would kind of make me an idiot, wouldn't it.
That was 4 years ago. Can you please cut me a break?
So I am reading 1984, only on page 40, and I am thinking how it would severely suck to live in Winston's world. Then I think, well that isn't going to happen here, at least nto in my life time. I take a break from reading to catch up on email and /. and see this post and think wow, totaltarianism tactics are already subtly traversing us.
I agree. How dare you /.ers criticize these MS employees. After all, they do make good money, pay taxes, and value security. Sure, their employer has used monopolistic practices to manipulate markets and their CEO, the wealthiest human being in the world, comes off as a disturbed megalomaniac.
But their intentions are good, I assure you. They really did want to show the judge just how much they care about their customers. It was just a few glitches. And how were they supposed to know that a video of a simulation was not good evidence?
MS has great plans for us, and these model employees gracing slashdot with their presence have lots of guts, I'll have you know. :)
What other ways do you appease your guilt? "Customers' needs"? "Constraints of legacy"? This material is rich. Please continue rationalizing.
While I agree that the Pro-MS stuff is motivated by less than honorable intentions, it is a bit of an amusement, especially in light of recent MS manipulations. Plus, I know of some MS employees who are converting. That is good; MS is loaded with talent. Hopefully, the talent will be put to good use one day.
"Instead of telling me I need to leave the company, tell me a place I can become a millionarie in 5 years"
Since ethics don't seem to enter into it, you might consider robbing banks.
I guess I underestimated the number of MS employees that actually read Slashdot. It reminds me of when I was a teenager. My parents told me to stay out of the liquor cabinet, but the temptation was just too much to keep me from swiping a drink every once in a while when they weren't home. Isn't it obvious that these MS employees are just screaming on the inside for a taste of real computing horsepower. But papa Bill rules his nest with an iron fist.
if you can call him a "fag" for learning things that you don't like, i can certainly call you a babbling imbecile, right?
How can you know so little about an industry, yet state how that industry works. Really sad.
Well, it's a general problem with ideologues. He "knows" that his theories about the world are true, so he doesn't have to bother looking at evidence. His theory tells him that the market always chooses the best product, and that the market can't be manipulated. So, therefore, the biggest seller must be the best, Q.E.D. (just as McDonalds can in the same way be proven to sell the finest food available on Earth). He doesn't need to know anything about the details, because his theory predicts the details for him -- and as long as he rejects facts that don't fit the theory, he's fine. Do note that that site runs on Linux and Apache, though
Of course, what I'd really like to do is email them and ask whether they're getting paid to defend Microsoft -- and if they're not, why then, that's rank charity! Barefaced generosity! Oh, the horror!
Talk about manipulation and deceit! How many of those stupid Nazi posts were just phony ammunition for MSHeads to conveniently attack, anyway?
That VideoGates (TM) crap this week was a telling reminder of how that sleaze operates.
As the poster of the root message "More vilification of Microsoft," I must agree that there is a surreality to this thread. The post was sort of a troll / joke. I figured most people would recoginize my post as being total nonsense, a fake resposonse to the article. At first, this seemed to be what happened -- early on there were several posts about "Haha, very funny," mixed in with a couple of posters who weren't swift enough to get the joke. But after that, all posts seemed to assume that I was genuinely pro-Microsoft, regardless of the obvious bullshitocity of my post. It's sort of a "the crowd thinks this guy is serious, so I will take him serious too" kind of thing. There's a sociology thesis in there somewhere . . .
Why? Because we're responding to the bilious posts that the Slashdot kiddies have posted recently?
You guys started this barbecue - we just brought the franks.
See man, your problem is that you made it WAY too realistic. Take a look at some of the more, um, interesting newsgroups and you'll see plenty of SERIOUS posts that look just like yours.
Fact is, people are getting so damn stupid it's almost impossible to figure out whether a post like yours is by a really skilled troll or a really skilled idiot these days.
--
No matter how hard you try to make something idiot-proof, someone will always come along and make a better idiot.
You give MS employees too much credit. Face it: out of all those people, you know there are plenty of (obediant) assholes, just like there are (rebellious) assholes here on /. and everywhere else. No, I certainly would not put it past MS employees to pull Nazi crap, if only for mild amusement.
Let's analyze this shall we?
You block anyone coming from a Windows account.
Result?
They cuss you (fucking lamer! asshole! I didn't want to see his site anyway!), and then go on their merry way.
Reason?
It's their choice what OS they use. If you feel strong enough to not want people who use Windows to come to your site, then fair enough.
If, however, you're trying to make a point and be a Linux advocate, then you're going about it completely backwards. Just let people in - with a note saying "why not use this, it's better than windows".
But of course, calling people a lamer on your site just because they choose a different operating system to the one you like, shows that you don't want to do that.
Hey, guess what? You're an ASSHOLE.
Hey, look who's talking about stupid insults? It's Mr. "YOU MISERABLE LAMER".
You have no room to talk, fuckwit
oh, you want private armies and no government control? Welcome to Russia.
I think that kind of phenomenon is spelled Miscrosoft, not Slashdot.
Don't forget:
Site Server Analysis
Interse Corp Market Focus, bought in 97 (?)
Site Server Content Analysis
(Guh, forgot, but it was about the same time as Interse)
Microsoft Liquid Reality/Chrome
DimensionX Liquid Reality in 97
Windows NT Load Balancing Server
Purchased from Valence Research in 8/98
Thank goodness for my logic classes. Now I know that you're all liars. Heheheheh
the AC MS-shilling I've seen on /. consists usually of "govt don't belong in software industry" anti-DOJ rantings of teenage libertarians who are drunk with their newfound religion.
The government has no business going after Microsoft, or any other corporation, unless they are guilty of interstate criminal activity.
Microsoft is doing a fine job of self-destruction without any help from the federales. There is no way MS can compete against Free Software--even if they pull their usual tricks, they'll eventually lose, it's just a matter of time. You know it, I know it, Bill Gates knows it. If the feds really wanted to "make Gates honest," they would use Linux and/or FreeBSD instead of NT. Government licenses must make up a huge chunk of MS's sales. (Didn't I just read that the USN is going back to UNIX after the NT-based "smart ship" debacle?)
Wouldn't it be great if we could get Traficant to do a "Beam me up Scotty..." one-minute on NT v. Free Software?
slashdot broke my sig
Of course, there are no Microsoft people infiltrating Slashdot.. Rob wouldn't have that. Or would he...
Typical M$ thinking.. "I'm going to have my way, and there's nothing you can do about it.. wah wah.. I don't care if the site is your property, I work for Macrosloth and that gives me the right to post here since M$ invented the InterNet(tm) and I'm Billy's bitch.. wah wah.."
Sorry, I'll aim better next time.
The only two things he is most likely guilty in are increasing number of MCSE by one (so M$ will brag about it more), and probably keeping NT working in situation where it deserves to burn and be thrown away. Pretty bad by my standards, but it's nothing compared to working for M$.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I see you read the article! I wonder how many people got that?
I read the internet for the articles.
The hard working men and women of Microsoft are the best of the best in their fields. They've been working for better than two decades to bring you stable and easy-to-use systems.
If a product gets delayed, say, or promised features aren't delivered, who can say that Microsoft isn't just protecting the consumer? And this nonsense we've all heard lately about how Microsoft isn't lowering their prices and how you must purchase Microsoft products if you want a PC; what's the problem? After all, it's not as if there's any other operating system out there that treats you better.
(Although it should be noted that MacOS and Linux and BeOS and the C64 operating system are all very complete and powerful systems that could strip Microsoft of it's marketshare and leave its employees out on the street with their children starving if Microsoft's right to innovate is taken away by the Evil United States Government).
Now, forget about this silly and obviously overblown side-show and return to the protective cocoon that is Microsoft and its products. Log on to your Windows 98(tm) or Windows NT(tm) machines, fire up MSN(tm), and have a good 'ol time using Hotmail(tm) or "surfin' the web" and checking out Slate(tm) with Microsoft Internet Explorer(tm).
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
first there was the LA Times article where a PR program with spurious letters to the editor for an ersatz grass roots campaign for MS.
Here's another to consider, a MS VP was quoted on how he and his group destroyed the lone official supporter of IBM's OS/2 program with misinformation deposited on internet sites by his group in the fight against that OS prior to the release of Win 95.
This is not a personal attack against you or every Microsoft employee (or even its products), however, there is some documented history of MS playing such a game. Moreover, the above-cited VP noted his win was so easy because it was against IBM's policy to use such tactics.
What I find astounding is the short memory span of both those defending and attacking MS. This should not simply be a matter of opinion when some evidence exists already with high level admissions.
Hey I'm glad you posted here (really!). It takes some guts to admit publicly that you work for Microsoft on /.
I started out my computing life with Microsoft Products. My first Operating System was MS-DOS 2.something. I didn't know any better and it seemed pretty spiffy to me. I remember drooling when MS-DOS 5 and 6 hit the shelves.
I looked up to Microsoft and thought it would be a great thing to be able to work there someday.
But, it was around DOS 6 that I started to question things. I remember seeing stacker on the shelves and then the next thing I know its out of business. DoubleSpace was "integrated" into DOS and Stac went down the toilet.
Things seemed ok, I mean hey MS is saving me money, right? They are innovating for me, right? Windows 3.0 was hitting things big even though anyone who had any knowledge could plainly see how crappy it truly was. It was a MASSIVE hack and didn't run very well.
Well I still looked up to Microsoft and I learned to use it and I learned to love Microsoft Word 2.0. Soon I was happily using all of the Microsoft Office products. I didn't even blink when the once mighty WordPerfect began its death spiral. Hey MS is innovating for me, the customer, right?
More and more Windows/DOS wouldn't do what I needed it to do. So one day I try out IBM OS/2 2.1 and am utterly amazed! Here was something that WAS TRULY innovative compared to Windows. I eventually upgraded to Warp 3 and I began to resent Windows. Microsoft had initially worked with IBM on OS/2, but yet they chose to go with a crap of a hack instead. I couldn't figure out why.
Soon I began to read about this magical new OS from my heroes at MS codenamed Chicago. Eventually the trade rags started hyping up what would become Windows 95. I believed every word of it. I drooled at the thought of Windows 95 (besides my parents were giving me a hard time about not being able to run all their windows apps perfectly under OS/2).
I begged my dad to purchase win95 and we pre-ordered the sucker. I came home that fateful day in August to see it sitting on the front porch. I ran in and wiped Warp and gleefully installed this great new OS. I knew in my heart that my heroes at MS had finally gotten it right and my computer would be running better just like PC Magazine said it would.
Funny thing was after running it about 5 minutes I could tell it couldn't multitask worth beans compared to OS/2. I thought well maybe I just need to tweak it or something. I played with every setting I could get my hands on. I installed Norton Utils, defragged the hard drive, played with RAM, swap space, everything. NO go.
The more programs I installed the more flaky the system got. I began to learn the BSOD dance. I knew that i had been lied to. It felt personal! I had looked up to you guys dammit. I believed the hype. I believed you guys were innovating out there at Redmond. I actually admired you guys and someday wanted to be like you.
It was at that moment I begin to hate Microsoft and everything they stood for. I heard about Linux and found it was hard at first but no harder than mucking with EMM386 and memmaker was in DOS.
IBM had fucked up the marketing of Warp and MS put the final nail in its coffin with Win95. The thing that I liked about Linux was nobody could kill it and it felt good to free myself of Microsoft.
Eventually I graduated HS and now I'm in the third year of a Computer Science degree. Already I have some input at my student job on a major computer purchase. Guess what I'm recommending going with instead of NT? Guess what company I wouldn't consider working for after graduation? Guess what products I'll be recommending to any future employers?
I can't speak for anyone else, but I suspect theres plenty of us out there who feel violated and let down by Microsoft.
There is so much talent at Microsoft and there is so much money you guys could do some truly truly great things for the world, but I guess money also corrupts. Thats why I look up to and admire what Linus did. Its not about the money its about putting something out that does something great and you can be proud of at the end of the day.
As far me I just want to learn enough to start giving back to the OSS community.
--Sincerely former Microsoft Worshiper
The more you know, the less you understand.
Instead of NO competition like Microsoft wants. As proof, read the latest testimony about how Microsoft is afraid of Windows becoming a commodity. Can't have that now can we? It may have to compete based on merit!
As for the allegations of fake posts by Microsoft employees or representatives, I would be truly surprized if it wasn't true.
!TPEEM
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
I've known many Microsofties in my time and I can say that they are all very polite, friendly and likeable people. That fact doesn't get in the way of their singleminded determination that everyone else's software products are merely legacy systems to be migrated from...
Microsoft is a marketing company. They spend more money on advertising, market analysis and manipulation than any company that springs to mind. If Microsoft put as much effort into making reliable software as the money and time they spend marketing, they'd have a wonderful product.
Microsoft is a monopolist. With around 95% of the operating system market, there is no doubt that Microsoft is a monopoly. It is nearly impossible to buy a computer these days without being FORCED to buy Windows. Microsoft has used their monopoly power to deny competitors entry into the market via pricing controls and OEM exclusive contracts.
Microsoft is afraid of Windows becoming a commodity. They fight with every fiber of their being to prevent such an eventuality. As proof, look at their own testimony from the DOJ trial. Microsoft obfuscates er uh... I mean innovates, they destroy competitive markets er uh... I mean integrate, they proprietize standards er uh... I mean extend functionality to provide benefits to their customers...
I know you are not asleep. You are listening aren't you? You know I speak the truth but are afraid to admit it - right? You know that Microsofts controlling of the technology and it's gradual meeting out to users based on Microsoft's agenda is both anti-competitive and anti-innovative and it's hurting the software side of the industry? Deep in your option holding Microsoft heart you know...
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Posted by Phantom of the Operating System:
I work with Microsoft tools at work and I try to do the best damn job I can with them. Some days it seems that the tools fight and twart me at every turn. Some days its not so bad.
I can understand if you want to make neat things for Microsoft. However, I'd bet that appearance wins over elegance and that your ideas have lost out to clumsy cludges, for whatever reason.
As long as Microsoft does not foist its 'standards' and tools on me, I have no beef with it. I'm sorry but that is about as kind as I can be with your company.
-phantom
Posted by Robert Schouwenburg:
Hmmm... maybe we should just ban all posts coming
from Microsoft?
Who really cares what people at Microsoft thinks
anyway?
;)
Posted by patg:
if($handle_name eq "Anonymous Coward") {
if(substr($ENV{REMOTE_ADDR},0,8) eq "131.107.3") {
print "
by Anonymous Coward (Microsoft Poster)
";
} else {
print "
by Anonymous Coward
";
}
}
Posted by Bill "Willing Boy-Toy of the Borg" A.:
That sounds very familiar to me.
I jumped on the Linux bandwagon pretty early, mostly so that I could have a cheap Xterminal in my dorm room for CS assignments, but pretty soon I only booted into DOS/Windows (3.11 at the time) for games and occasionally to play sound files. At the time, the PC-speaker sound driver was the best Linux had to offer me.
On a steady diet of man-pages and usenet, my appetite for OSS grew, but I'm fortunate enough that I did not become what I consider to be a radical/rabid MS basher. I used Linux in school because it "empowered" me as a programer, not to mention the fact that I wasn't about to pay for an alternative to something that I was perfectly happy using. I still use it at home because of lingering admiration for the OSS movement, and because I also like to see how it has developed since then (for one thing, every piece of hardware in my dual-processor machine is finally supported and seems to work well). Besides, having invested the time in college to get past the linux learning curve, it was easier for me to set up a heterogenous home LAN using a linux server than it would have been to use NT, although I'm told that it would have been possible to achieve the same configuration with NT.
Rather than let this turn into a paeon of praise for Linux, let me get back to the point (besides, you'll all probably assume that this is astroturf anyway). I accepted an internship with MS last summer, and while I was here, I tried to keep an open mind. What I saw was that MS has a lot of people they're trying to please, and in order to get the widest customer base, efforts seem to focus on including as many people as possible. MS products are usually not aimed at narrow markets. The scattershot approach to adding features is aimed at putting something in there for everyone, and this often comes at the price of virtues that I held dear as a budding young geek, like speed or efficiency of space and UI. That's not to say that MS doesn't try to please that group of customers, but sometimes the desires of the uber-geeks come behind the needs of the newbies.
I believe MS made a mistake by not paying more attention to the desires of technologically influential folk, but I understand how that decision was made. I also think that the MS-bashing has surpassed all rational bounds, and MS deserves a chance to at least answer charges that are brought against it.
I don't worship MS, but I've warmed up to it a lot more since last summer. Some of the stuff MS produces (I'll leave innovation out of this so that I don't trigger a flame storm) is downright cool, and I do feel like I'm helping customers as well as MS by helping to improve our products.
Anyway, you can't say that I wasn't honest.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
And here we have another microsoft employee
You don't sound like a delighted customer to me!
*THWAPP!*
Astroturf is the last refuge of scoundrels whose hired-mouthpieces have failed them.
--
--
=8^
Anyway... "astroturfing" refers to the creation of fake "grass roots" support, something that many political organizations and corporations do in the US.
Long-winded, yes, but I hope this helps.
NP: Soft Machine 4 :) (r.m.p lurker!)
--
--
=8^
Several people have tried to write comments like yours in response to this article, but I think yours is by far the most realistic.
Did you know that the word "gullible" doesn't appear in the US edition of Websters? It seems they removed "irony" too, a long time ago...
--
Xenu loves you!
> Anyway, the DOJ trial is nothing but a government attempt to take away the right of Microsoft to innovate.
No, the DOJ trial is nothing but a government attempt to make Microsoft contribute its share to the DNC....
Craig
Sorry, is there something wrong with the tobacco and gun lobbies?
And if the RNC is a shining example of "standing up" for both of those groups, then we should all stock up on cigarettes and bricks of .22 right now, because by spring they'll be illegal....
Craig
Sorry, is there something wrong with the tobacco and gun lobbies?
And if the RNC is a shining example of "standing up" for both of those groups, then we should all stock up on cigarettes and bricks of .22 right now, because by spring they'll be illegal (which of course means only that schoolchildren will find it easier to buy them on streetcorners, but the price will be higher)....
Craig
Read up on the Steve Barkto incident (it occurred on Compuserve).
Others have posted the URL elsewhere in this thread. I think it's http://www.pjprimer.com/jihad.html.
Add IIS to your list. That web server was acquired from Progress(?). I don't believe it start out life as buggy web server, but MS turned into one. So not only did they not innovate, but the took innovation and turned it into crappola.
Whether or not this is true, the point is that a lot of folks will or can believe that MS would do such a thing because of its past and present antics. In all seriousness, I don't think Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer are the most recent manifestaions of Satan and Hitler, nor do I think that MS as a company is inherently evil.
BUT, MS has done things in the past that reduce its credibility as an honest company. And the "war mentality" that was mentioned in the article is well documented. That people believe the worst of MS is no one's fault but MS's.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
...the MacCentral forum. Especially Jason. He admitted he worked for MS. (but I wouldn't beleive everything he says).....but, a lot of kids out there may be getting out of line defending MS, that it seems they work for MS. I wouldn't discount that.
Maccentral and click Forum.
It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
The fake MS video isn't a rumor dude.....
in light of recent court happenings, this seems to fit right in...
But the Plaural form of Forum is FORA
--Zachary Kessin
Erlang Developer and podcaster
It's pedant. not pedent
DHTML is just hashed-over JavaScript.
Buzzz!
Wrong, try again.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
. . . thank you Mr. Barkto.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
hey, didn't UNIX rip-off Telnet and FTP from Windows95?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
If Microsoft were up to HALF the shit that some of the emails that have been leaked imply they are, I'd be embarrassed too.
Maybe they've cut off your air-supply, or knifed your baby. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
hm. I'm not a Linux zealot. I'm a Macintosh zealot. and reading some of these leaked eMemos that were sent around by MS's upper managment kind of pisses me off.
."?
". . . Use Office as a club . .
If you have pride in your employer, then why don't you change carreers to something a bit more lucritive like the Mafia - sounds like you'd have little ethical difficulty with that.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
That must be you?
Hehe. Anyway, nice to see you (or whoever you are) on Slashdot. Sometimes it does get out of hand here. You have to remember that this is a completely different side of the fence here. Anyway, feel free to email me.
--
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
If Microsoft keeps playing the part of villain, then really the only one villifying it is itself. If that's what they want to do, I don't see any problem with it. Just don't expect the courts to see things the same way.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Wasn't there a big scandal just a little while ago with MS agents writing letters to the editor of newspapers, similar to an IBM scandal from the 70s? I know this rings a bell, but I just can't place the details. If anyone knows I'm dying to find out the precedent to this.
--
The real Paul Vallee is slashdot userid 2192, and, what do you mean it's not cool to point out your low userid?
All right. Why does everyone think image has sold his soul, just because he works at Microsoft? C'mon! Even if Microsoft does have a policy of posting pro-MS messages to various forums, do you think everyone would be involved?
Microsoft is a huge operation. Its left hand doesn't know what the right is doing; and the FUD-spreading directives don't necessarily come from Mr. Gates himself. My bet: there are a few departments who really push employees to push MS. Other departments (especially development, I'd suspect) probably don't.
There are some great people who work at Microsoft; people who's stock options aren't big enough to buy their souls.
The problem with MS isn't their people, it's their development model. Development is in constant chaos; goals shift regularly, people on the same development team can't share code, and a lot of their testers don't know anything at all about coding. The one thing that can save Microsoft is changing their development model. If they open up their code internally, so even secretaries can download it; if they modularize their code so installation of the kernel is independent of installation of the GUI; if they encourage their developers to mingle, exchange ideas, and party together; if they open up development internally, they could make some kick-ass programs, and still have a closed development model.
But they won't. Microsoft is deeply afraid one person could learn too much about Windows, and move on to another company. Development is more like revolutionary cells, where nobody knows anything about any of the other cells.
But in any case, there are a lot of great, intelligent, open-minded people at Microsoft. And MS is not evil-- just stupid, like any beaurocracy-bound corporation.
Bill Gates is evil.
That's a BIG IF. Remember the quote that went around a few years back that said "If they were selling a computer for $500, with a 1GHz processor, 2GB of ram and a TB of drive space, the first question people would as is, "does it run windows?"." The sad thing is, that this is nothing short of the truth, and the only "merit" that hardware/software products are based on is windows compatibility. If that could be changed, the world would be a better place. Obviously MS wants that changed. If it was that way, we wouldn't have any need for judicial intervention.
--
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
Note, I said I WORK at MS, not I work FOR MS. There's a difference. I'm a Peon, pronounced "pee on." I also post to slashdot. I also don't agree with a lot of the stuff that goes on at MS. OTOH, I'm probably not high enough on the totem pole to hear stuff like this, so it's quite possible.
InThane
This is so consistent with Microsoft's general behavior. They are masters of the art of dissembling.
With MS faking videos in its Anti-Trust trial, is anyone surprised at their use of shills to protest the characterization of MS as less than wonderful?
Sickening, isn't it?
rm -rf microsoft*
One day you will pay for your crimes against the people, and I will be there laughing while I burn your campus and nail you all to trees.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Not with Billy G at the helm, not on your life.
MS shied away from the internet initially precisely because it was free. "Communism" is how I believe he first described it.
Bill is the child of a rich corporate lawyer and founded his fortune on inherited money and high-level connections within IBM. (His mother was well acquainted with several members of IBM's board of directors, and she helped him get the DOS deal) His first claim to fame was porting the freeware Dartmouth U. language BASIC to the Altair, and then demanding that the users of "his" language not share it with others.
Bill is an under-socialized hyper-competitive nine year old. He would sooner off Linus than cooperate in an OSS project. Remember Gary Kildall? (may he rest in peace)
MS may eventually out of necessity take advantage of Linux, but I can about guarantee you that Bill would leave the company if it happened.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
A joke my brother, a joke. Yeesh.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Oooh! Doesn't that sound nice! The government is big and ineffective, so we should hand the reigns of power over to a dangerously unbalanced despot like bill gates!
If too many people end up unproductive and on welfare, our benevolent national CEO could "downsize" them. Every year or so they could "raise the bar" on us and if we can't handle the extra workload, we could go on "work improvement" before we got downsized.
No frills, no waste, a place for everyone and everyone in their place. National dress code, random drug screens and searches, ID worn on the lapel at all times... Free Coke for everyone!
The more I think about it, the better it sounds! Let's let corporations run the country. We'd be a model to the world of national efficiency!
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Your post, paticularly the last paragraph, just made day.....
Do not read this
>My impression of the average Linux user after reading /. posts for 6 months: Arrogant, clannish,
>immature, geek elitist assholes.
>By the time you kids grow up and relax a little bit your OS will probably be obsolete and you'll
>have to find something else to argue about.
My impression of the average Microsoft employee after reading MS FUD for the last 6 years: Arrogant, clannish, immature, monopolist elitist assholes.
By the time you kids grow up and relax a little bit you will realize your OS will be worthless and you'll have to find something to actually innovate.
- I can say that I've experienced absolutely *nothing* like that here.
So... all of the proven cases where Microsoft have done this in the past were also made up like this new allegation? Yeah, right.I'm not saying that you are lying your personal experience, but wake the fuck up.
- that sort of behavior would definitely not be endorsed or even condoned.
ROTFLMAO. That's why it's happened repeatedly in the past. I'm so sure all of the perps from the past occaisions were promptly fired. I'm laughin' so hard it hurts.- I'm an avid Linux user (both here and at home)
Oh, why didn't you say so. Now I can no longer think critically about anything you say no matter how stupid!- if I felt that Microsoft was up to half the shit that is suggested on slashdot, I wouldn't work here.
Well, I've been on the recieving end of a Microsoft dirty tricks campaign. Go drink a big gulp of numbing Micromilk from the Microteat and stay asleep, friend.I posted my opinion about M$ on a ZDnet TalkBack forum. I included my email address in the post. Soon after I started receiving a series of nasty emails for a M$ employee who gave his name as Bob Gaiswinkler. He obviously felt that it was part of his job to spend his time writing emails to people who take exception to the illegal tactics M$ has used for many years.
Naturally they would post there own opinions on Slashdot as Anonymous Coward.
I smell a big fat M$ rat!
After posting my opinion of M$ illegal tactics Bob Gaiswinkler from M$ sent me a series of nasty and harrassing emails. Obviously he felt that it was his duty as a M$ employee to bother people who take exception with M$ criminal activity.
One time I sent him a link to a story that referenced by Slashdot. His response made it clear to me that even though I never mentioned Slashdot to him, he was well aware of Slashdot.
Bob went on another of his rants and said "an org of 29000 people does not mean shit."
M$ employees are definitely organized to distribute FUD, and to harrass people who express negative views of M$. I know this to be true.
Card-caryin' member of Microsoft! Sic 'em! Sic 'em!
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
"Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots." - Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori
Fermet's last theorem, which has now been proven (publicly), states that for integers x,y,z
;-)
.....
x^n + y^n = z^n is unsolvable when n > 2.
The modern proof (no-one knows Fermet's proof) is far beyond my comprehensions, but should be available in some math journal pretty easily.
BTW, the proof also invalidates a Star Trek: TNG episode, which refers to the theorem as unproved by the 23rd (or whatever) century. Maybe they just lost it again?
Besides, since any "positive" proposition can become a "negative" proposition using the law of the double-negative, there is a multitude of provable negative statements. Also, propositions which are mutually exclusive imply an infinate number of negative statements. For instance,
2 + 2 = 4
therefore, 2 + 2 != 5, 2 + 2 != 6,
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
"Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots." - Jonathan Nolan, Memento Mori
"It is against Microsoft policy for any employee to misrepresent him or herself by email or any other means."
Am I the only one who finds this highly ironic, considering they were recently busted for a fake grass-roots campaign in support of microsoft. It's almost the exact same thing, except MS isn't paying any high-priced advertising firm to do it. According to their policies it seems individuals aren't supposed to lie or misrepresent themselves, but the company itself can.
"Eye halve a spelling chequer, It came with my pea sea, It plainly marques four my revue, Miss steaks eye kin knot sea"
Check my back posts for some examples.
I imagine most M$ers don't do this, but it only takes one or two full time anonymous propiganda artists to really disrupt an otherwise sane online forum.
If you work at MS and don't belive there are any such people doing this, think about this... why would Bill G, or the the people who lie like that tell you?
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
We all know about Project Astroturf... the phony grassroots campaign. This is just another part of it. Who cares now? Microsoft is irrelevent...
The reason I use Linux now has LESS to do with Windows generally being inferior as an OS, and more do do with a general boycot of the operating system. I think Linux is great, but I suspect for many of us it is MORE work to stay away from Windows that some would admit, and it's mostly because of things like games, drag and drop, and modem support. Thankfully a good old US Robotics external works great, and now the more progressive game developers have woken up and offering Linux ports.
I wonder is Bill reads Slashdot? Probably not... I wouldn't call him a nerd anyways. Maybe a pirate though.
Most of these guys could take about a week of abuse and then they'd go back to their hole, where they could put ads in magazines and on TV where the victims of propaganda don't get a chance to shoot back.
Then Active X came across the land and a lot of people from microsoft.com told us Java programmers that we were real losers to be programming Java applets -- we could be writing Active X controls that take over people's whole screens, use Windows this and Windows that, and everybody will be able to see it because everybody uses Windows. We bitched them out. Then people started talking about the security problem with Active X and they're saying we're full of sh*t. Next we know, some guy writes an Active X control that shuts off your computer. When I posted about that, they say "That's impossible." I said "Go see it for yourself" and that was the last I heard from them.
I have to hand it to them, those Microsoft PR flaks are hardy -- it took two weeks of abuse for them to run for cover.
Since then I've seen a lot of pro-Microsoft posts from non-Microsoft addresses that look suspicious, both on USENET and web forums such as Slashdot and ZD Net. I think Rob had better record the IP numbers of all the AC posts; maybe we can catch them in the act, or in the very least, publish the IP numbers of "first post" offendors.
Complete with the continuity errors you'd expect of Hollywood....
--- http://foo.ca
On this particular "Mickey Mouse" comment - I don't think it came from an M$ employee. I have been corresponding with Klaas off and on since he posted his comment.
He seemed a little misinformed about Linux, but not unreasoning. He drives his IT management decisions not on things going on today, but what he sees happening in five years.
He has not been rude to my unsolicited e-mails, and has always acknowledged receiving them with a return note of thanks (I have been sending him updates on news articles about corporate growth and support for Linux.)
Been there, Done that, Sold the t-shirt to the next idiot in line
Only when computer products are allowed to compete on the basis of merit -- not judicial intervention -- will real advancements in information technology be made.
That argument would be worth something if a Microsoft operating system ever competed on merit.
I miss Meept.
There aren't a whole lot of companies that are hiring researchers anymore. MSR is one of the few that is growing. They've attracted hundreds
of top, noted researchers from industry and academia to work for them. Not all of the research is targeted -- there are MSR employees that will never produce anything tangible for MS -- they can research things that truly interest them rather than having to research towards a particular goal. (I read this in an MSR article in Fortune.) For the researchers who are working towards a goal, they have the satisfaction of knowing that their work will likely be included in a future product. (Yet another MSR article, this time in Computer.) And then there is the fact that MS fosters an incredibly nice environment for its workers (I know I'm a bit spoiled since my internship)...
Both the Jan 1998 issue of Computer and the Dec 97 (I think) issue of Fortune have very good articles about MSR (as referenced above). They turned alot of my thinking around. I don't agree with a lot of what MS does, but MSR leaves me impressed.
marijane
--
marijane
While faking positive postings is quite clearly wrong, every pro-Microsoft posting can't be dismissed as "astroturf". Some people legitimately believe in Microsoft's position and even their software - which, let's face it, often gets a bum rap just because it's from them. If I worked on software at Microsoft, I'd certainly take to the net to defend it, even if I had to use a pseudonym to avoid looking like a company spokesthing. What, you mean other people are allowed to use pseudonyms but Microsoft advocates aren't?
Hell, if I was Bill Gates, I'd be all over places like this. You don't like my OS, nerd-boy? Spanq me. (Well, maybe not like that, but it would be nice to see him out here with the geeks mixing in.)
The actions of a desperate company? An overly arrogant company?
Or both?
-- Craig Miller Austin, TX
That one still baffles me, because I always ask the question - in what human context is the error that this program has performed illegal?
It might be in Redmond, WA, but it sure wouldn't be in Australia, where we have different laws entirely.
Someone should give the boys and girls a Microsoft a copy of "Tog on Interface".
Well, I run the MacOS on my client machines and Linux on the servers (headless servers, too).
I consider myself a Linux person, but I can't say I'm prone to having to deal with non-scalable fonts of a lack of anti-aliasing. Heck, you Microsoft boys even stole that from Apple...
Dear sir,
The saddest part of your story is when you make the comment that the needs of the newbie are sometimes (always?) placed ahead of the technologically influential.
What is sad about this is that you appear to think producing for both audiences is a mutually exclusive proposition.
The example I cite to prove that it is not is Apple Computer's Mac OS. It endears itself to the beginner yet has enough tweaks in it for the experienced graphic designer or Quark operator to be able to produce just about every ad in mainstream media around the world today.
With a mindset such as that which you appear to have, it's no surprise at all that people who appreciate quality in their software bash Microsoft in public forums such as this any every opportunity that arises, misguided and as hate-filled as the term "bashing" might imply.
Linux may not be a true competitor to your operating systems and products at this time, but with the technologically influential already catered for in Linux, I believe you face a much harder task scaling up your newbie product to suit for the technologically influential than we will have scaling down for the newbie.
I look forward to your response,
Grant Bayley
You're not addressing the technically stupid here. A majority of the readers ala Linux users of Slashdot have not yet been users of MS-Life-For-Dummies 2000 (TM) where all computer users worship the "Magic" that the "wizards" at microsoft must have used to develop such "Awesome" applications and OSs.
Give me a break. M$ innovates nothing. GREAT IDEA GUYS!!! Let's put NT, a single user OS on NETWORKS!! Whoever thought that one up should be a comedian....
Get with it M$ apologists.. you are so pathetically easy to see through...posting on slashdot does not make you a member of the Linux community any more than being a member of MSN makes you a web-geek. Some of us program because we truly enjoy it. It also happens to be a job for many of us. Not the other way around. It's possible to make a damn fine living and still take pride in your work.
M$ is pathetic. Faking videos, arrogantly walking around saying "Linux is a hobbiests OS" But when you need a scapegoat... "Linux is feature rich, developed by a vast army of programmers" Which is it? Again your stuck for words...
M$ is going down....maybe they should just stick to marketing and get out of OSs all together because they are a walking disaster.
It's just amazing how such a brain-dead organization get's publications ala ZD-Net to print their scoop. No one in IT takes ZD Net seriously anymore.... like I said M$...stick to marketing....it's what you do best anyway.
Nick
LSG
Linux companies are usually short of money, but in their unlimited benevolence MS lawyers have taken over the position of the Linux Marketing Department.
Out of their sincere love for technological superiority they actively promote Linux as a better alternative and immense competition to Windows, in court and in the media.
Definitely, they just want the best for the customer...
This is a very common practice for them. Over in comp.lang.java.advocacy, take a look at the pro-MS posters' NNTP-Posting-Host header - it's VERY often msn.net (even though nobody else on the planet uses it) or microsoft.com.
They do the same thing in the OS/2 newsgroups. And the Linux newsgroups. And anywhere else they feel threatened.
Redmond. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
No sir, this is not a joke. We are talking about the most dangerous terrorist organization ever lived. Landscape is littered by people whose careers and businesses have been destroyed and have been reduced to the final acceptance state a la 1984 by George Orwell. If you can't see the parallel, you are either too young or too ignorant, or a Microsoft employee.
Ahahaheheheheh....
eheh...
Tell me another one.
If I may quote the author, "Certainly, Microsoft holds scores of patents and copyrights but we'd like to know which products or basic technologies we use can be credited to the big brains in Redmond. This is a prime opportunity for Microsoft defenders to provide some evidence for the company's original contributions to the industry, because frankly, we're at a loss to think of a single one."
Currently the only nominations that have cleared the debunking process are :
- Microsoft BOB
- The Talking Paper Clip
Rejected nominations are:For more details on why a nomination was rejected, and/or if you can suggest any nominations or rebuttals for TMHOI, please submit them to Hall of Innovation.
Quote Du Jour
"We have increased our prices over the last 10 years [while] other component prices have come down and continue to come down."
JOACHIM KEMPIN, Microsoft Senior Vice President
How do you have time to post? Doesn't M$ keep you busy trying to debug their shit?
The Internet
oh, you mean the ARPA internet created back in the late 1970's, designed around large mainframes? m$ i think not.
The Mouse
the mouse was out before they had them for pc's. again, no m$ here.
The Web Browser
netscape? mosaic? i'd heard of them before i'd heard of explorer (er, exploder).
GUI
there were other gui's before WinDick (tm).
macos, and there was one before that, i don't remember what it was called.
Hypertext
here we go back to the internet.
Basic
perhaps... just perhaps...
TCP/IP
look up at the top. micro$oft's protocol is netbeui.
DOS
disk operating system? blecht. although i know there was something before it... cp/m wasn't it? or something like that...
so all WHAT that m$ has given us? stuff we already had?
Dogma: Dead (mostly because your Karma ran it over)
hahahahahaha.
Call me when MS actually _creates_ anything.
There is a name for people who do for money what is against their ethics--and it's not a pretty name.
I hate MS as much as the next guy, as my Linux box with a near triple digit day uptime can attest to. But this crap is going a little too far. Some person posts a message on a ZDNET forum and they write an article about it? Sheeit. Don't you guys have anything better to do with your lives than attack Microsoft? Wouldn't your energy be better put to use improving or creating free solutions? Do you think Linux would exist if all Linus had done was sit on Solaris and say things like "Anyone who claims to like Windows more than Unix must be a Microsoft employee"?
Jeez, I hope that the Linux community isn't turning into the hype machine that every single thing referred to as a "scene" has.
We're talking about capitalistic innovation here. If you've got a nice cooshy stable job with MS, what motivates you to break any new ground. At the very least, the majority of whatever profits you make go in to MS's coffers. Furthermore, innovation is more than mere invention. It requires a certain commitment of time and resources to fully develop it. Despite popular opinion, large companies main problem is not that lack of invention, but the unwillingness to pursue a good idea to its ends. Take Xerox for example, they broke a great deal of ground in technologies that we take for granted today. The problem was that they were unwilling to divert resources into any of the projects. In the case of MS, what reason do they have to innovate. They are an effective monopoly, and its alot cheaper to just bully the competition when a superior product comes along.
The sad thing is that those idiots have the influence and the cash reserves to hire a bunch of smart people (not too many), shield them from the marketing robots, and have 'em develop an operating system that's genuinely GOOD -- I mean something as new and interesting as BeOS or whatever. They could make the application support happen, they could make the OEM support happen, they could pay off the trade press to kiss the new beast's ass until it developed its own momentum, they could astroturf it to the high heavens.
It's maddening; they're in a position where they could do something really worthwhile, instead of all this bullshit that they keep churning out year after year. Why don't they? There must be absolutely nobody there with any authority at all who has even a trace of integrity or simple decency. They sit on top of an enormous potential to create, and they choose instead to destroy. I'm tempted to start using loaded words like "monstrous", "degraded", "immoral", and whatnot . . . slingin' mud proves nothing, of course, but by my own (admittedly off-center) standards, there's something badly wrong between an awful lot of ears over there in Redmond.
Are they really dumb enough to think they're NOT ripping people off? Now *that* is scary.
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
M$ is not alone in pushing their current product line rather than developing a competitive product, because they are more profitable in the short term that way.
:)
I think you hit it right on the head: These people don't really give a flying fuck about software. They'd be equally happy selling rocks or laundry detergent, just as long as they got to squash competitors and thereby make themselves feel manly (or whatever it is that motivates suits -- i guess money is probably a big part of it, but then again, after a certain point the numbers become meaningless).
I'm thinking, "gee, if I had pockets that deep and a lot of influence in the software industry, what cool things would I do with it?", while they're thinking, "how do we take what we've got and squeeze more dollars out of people this quarter than we did last quarter". They have very different goals and values than I have. (If I sound arrogant, well, fuck it -- they think their mindless animalistic greed and lack of imagination, ethics, and self-respect makes them superior to people like me, so I'm equally (un?)justified in feeling superior to them!
I have worked at other companies that actively suppressed technologically superior products by any means necessary. This includes tactics such as buying the company that developed the new technology just to keep the new product off the market. I have seen this first hand.
Well, sure, they're gonna whack competitors. That's unpleasant, but at least it makes some kind of sense.
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
What we must all remember is that Bill G. calls the shots. The company can become anything, but it's Bill's "vision" that drives them now. So, the founders are getting up there in age now (mid 40's), and with the money they have, they could easily retire in 10 years or so. Since all the founders are the same age, the new people taking over the captains chair might have a new vision--a more open vision. That is the key. Microsoft is an amazing company. It's the leadership that defines it, however. If that changes, Microsoft could turn on it's heals in a day.
:-)
(Of course that all assumes a Bill-wannabe doesn't take over...
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
It must be a spoofed address! I bet this is the same rogue who secretly spliced the video at the trial to thwart MS's defense strategy and make them look bad in the eyes of the judge...the scoundrel!
Hi,
I'm a program manager in developer tools at Microsoft, and while I obviously can't speak for the whole company, I can say that I've experienced absolutely *nothing* like that here.
Some slashdotters have legitimate criticisms of Microsoft -- but that sort of behavior would definitely not be endorsed or even condoned.
I'm an avid Linux user (both here and at home) and I feel that I'm a part of the slashdot community, but sometimes I have to wonder if the anti-Microsoft sentiment is taken a little to far.
On occasion, I have to take what some of you say personally, and that sucks. Those who know me from the slashdot IRC know that I'm an alright guy who loves technology and innovation. And I can tell you that if I felt that Microsoft was up to half the shit that is suggested on slashdot, I wouldn't work here.
Anyway, just felt the need to post.
Oh, really? Couldn't you just do this:
SELECT cid, host_name FROM comments WHERE name="Anonymous Coward"
WHERE sid IN (SELECT sid FROM articles WHERE tid="microsoft");
The actual value of tid may not be microsoft, and MySQL won't do sub-selects, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out from your schemas.- -------
# MySQL dump 4.0
#
# Host: localhost Database: slashdot
#------------------------------------------------
#
# Table structure for table 'comments'
#
CREATE TABLE comments (
sid varchar(30) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
cid int(15) DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL,
pid int(15) DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL,
date datetime,
name varchar(50) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
email varchar(50),
host_name varchar(50),
url varchar(50),
rank int(1),
subject varchar(50) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
comment text DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
pending int(1) DEFAULT '0',
PRIMARY KEY (sid,cid)
);
Then, for the lazy, grep for microsoft, if that's all you're really interested in.
-- Blame any errors on your own stupidity. All wrongs reserved.
it's obvious from the Slashdot code and the schemas that he can do this with little effort. He could this retroactively for several months if he wanted to. So why is he saying otherwise?
I'm certainly NOT saying he SHOULD do anything like this. Far from it. I'm saying, his source tarball makes it obvious that he COULD do this, so what's with the "I wish..." baloney?
No need to trust me, just click that little code link on the left side of your screen.
-- Blame any errors on your own stupidity. All wrongs reserved.
Well-written, informative, and genuine. Thanks
for posting. We don't get much of a glimpse into the guts of Microsoft.
=-ddt->
At least you know microsoft is predictable. A predictable enemy is a dead enemy.
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
insmod -fkv humor.o
Chris
So Buddha walks into a pizza parlor and says: "Hey, make me one with everything."
Anyone else find it amusing that it seems that there are more "ordinary" people pretending to be Microsoft employees in their posts here than vice-versa?
All unfair meta-mods are now being meta-meta-modded as retarded.
I wouldn't at all be surprised if MS tried a trick like this. We've already seen AstroTurf and the fadese with the faked video in court, this is no different.
They probably wouldn't risk it just now though, the chanse of something like this leaking would be large.
Still, I found it hard to believe they'd actually go fake a video and show it to the courts too... They're silly enough that it _may_ actually be true.
These sort of fake rumors are exactly the reason we need to keep the government from interfering with innovation in the computer industry.
The government interfering with Microsoft will do nothing to interfere with innovation in the computer industry. Microsoft has done almost no innovation. They copies and takes credit for other companies innovations. They don't even steal from the original innovators in a lot of cases, they clone clones. Even if this instance is fake, it is widely known that Microsoft has used, and likely will continue to use the practice of Astroturf.
Only when computer products are allowed to compete on the basis of merit -- not judicial intervention -- will real advancements in information technology be made.
Microsoft's products compete based on advertising, name recognition, exclusionary contracts and bundling practices more than technical merits.
Yes, Microsoft is guilty of buying companies and rights to products.
But many of the people who built the products joined Microsoft. They did not drop their "innovator" title when they joined Microsoft.
The question is did they keep innovating after they joined Microsoft, if not, then their title changed to former innovator.
And let's look at the innovative aspects of IE like DHTML. Does Spyglass of DHTML? I don't think so. I think Microsoft invented that one.
Except that most of the concept of CSS is taken from prior art such as SGML and the other main aspect of DHTML is JavaScript, which was innovated by Netscape and cloned (JScript) by Microsoft. Cloning is another non-innovative Microsoft technique.
The last MS product that I actually liked was XENIX,
Yikes. XENIX was a buggy port of Version 7 UNIX saddled with the crappy Lattice compiler. Not even really a Microsoft product.
Yikes. XENIX was a buggy port of Version 7 UNIX saddled with the crappy Lattice compiler. Not even really a Microsoft product.
Yeah, yeah. But XENIX (on a crappy 286) and SCO XENIX (on a less-crappy 386) were my first Unixen; I have a soft spot for it. Plus I was trying (hard) to say something nice about MS; it's "Be Kind to Ruthless Monopolies" Day - didn't you get the memo?
My first UN*X was 4.2 BSD on a VAX-11/780. When I saw XENIX on a 286 a little later than that, I was less than impressed, particularly when I was trying to port code written for BSD to the crappy Lattice supplied compiler on XENIX.
I suppose if it was the first thing you ever saw it might not seem so bad, but compared to BSD, it was pretty wretched.
Few have ever accused me of being nice.
Boy I'd like to kick your ass.
Unfortunately, the C-64 BASIC interpreter (which was essentially the OS) *was* published by Micro$oft. That it fit into 16k of ROM makes evident the sad state of M$ software now.
Wow! What goes around, just keeps going around!
Back when OS/2 was still going strong, somebody started comparing the times that messages from ms.com were being posted, and found that they were during business hours. They stopped soon afterwards, but started again from other ISPs. It took some doing, but the story broke that many of those messages were from blocks of accounts that MS had bought.
The jist of this is that MS & its employees will stop at nothing to destroy anything and anyone they deem to be a threat to their plans.
They've done it before, and their morals are still in the same gutter, you may presume that they'll do it again.
You forgot the new Intellimouse, which Goldtouch is now suing for patent violations over. Seems Goldtouch had a meeting with M$ and tried to sell them their ergonomic mouse technology. M$ didn't buy, but 6 months later released a mouse which looked remarkably simular...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I _don't_ work for Microsoft; never have. However, I have to agress with image, the anti-microsoft sentiment does get out of hand. Sure, M$ is a prominent and convenient target for jokes; I make jokes about them all the time. But OSS can not and should not allow itself to be defined as the "anti-microsoft".
In the real world that we live in, Windows and Linux systems exist side by side and need to interoperate. Computer users are best served if the designers of both Windows and Linux make design decisions based on enhancing interoperability, not on screwing users of the "enemy" OS.
From a historical perspective, IBM was once viewed much as M$ is now; as the 800 pound gorilla of the computer industry, more concerned with profits than with serving it's customers. IBM has recently redefined itself as one of the leading Linux advocates! Microsoft has also displayed an amazing ability to change direction and redefine itself. Implausible as it seems, M$ may someday become on open source stalwart. Two things do seems relatively certain: 1) The computer industry is changing, fragmenting, adopting new paradigms enabled by the internet. Microsoft itself must inevitably change as well. 2) Microsoft isn't going to go away. Like IBM, they can afford to lose a billion dollars a year and still stay in business for the next 20 years. Like it or not, they will be around in some way, shape, or form for the long haul. Better get used to it.
Oh, and keep those Bill Gates jokes coming...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
i'm always getting connections from *.microsoft.com computers listening to my ice/shoutcast streams (http://rosspages.ml.org:8000) and checking out my webpage. =P
hehe....that must be what that tide*.microsoft.com's are!
Hey,
Next time you're at some untrustworthy site that asks for your email for the purpose of spamming you later (like any porn site), put in one (or all) of the following emails:
msdn@microsoft.com
drgui@microsoft.com
WRHELP@microsoft.com
Or any other valid microsoft email. I doubt we'll flood their twin OC3 connections, but if enough spam gets their way to cause some headaches, that'll be worth it.