The nice thing about the court findings is that it's actually redudant to debate over what Microsoft did.
What it did was illegal and monopolistic.
And if OS/2 had won, we probably would have a lot fewer crashes now.
If IBM hadn't resorted to the same practices as MS, then we might also have a choice of OS's when we go to the store.
Where did Be mess up bad? By trying to create innovative hardware (Apple)?? By then trying to make an OS which would run on several operating systems? (Unix) or then give it away? (Linux) Seems like they're following soom good ideas actually.
Marketplace != fair. And Be had lots of apps and tons of development support. Heck, they even had DOOM - which is my first test to consider something a real OS;).
"I agree with the other poster that said Be should have made and sold it's own systems. Maybe with some hardware specially designed for musicians. They may have even gotten some school contracts with that, but I guess lawsuits are the only remaining option."
I havent seen that other post, and maybe I'm just smoking crack - but wasn't that the BeBox? Be started out making not just hardware, but sweet little boxes designed for artists, musicians and general geeks. It was supposed to be a kind of new-age Amiga.
Look, gang - we have on the Desktop/Consumer market 3 basic OS's. Windows, Mac, Linux. Linux is free, and it's still struggling for marketshare (did I mention it's FREE). Mac survives through the grace of artists and desktop publishers who haven't figured out that Adobe makes things for Windows as well, and they can spend $1000 less for their boxes (or refuse to out of a pride I can only help but respect). Windows is here through illegal practices.
A new OS could the Corvette of OS's... it could do everything right and run and superior hardware and ya know what - it will fail. The party's full, nobody else is allowed in.
How were the PC makers in "collusion"? More often, they were the victims as well, many of MS's "contractual" agreements involved unjust demands on the OEMs just so they could keep putting MS on their box.
Ask yourself how many OEMs could survive without the ability to put MS Windows on their boxes? Apple? Sun? Amiga? Exactly.
inky
(although the argument could be made that Commodore's desire to enter the PC market was exactly what killed the 'miga... different rant...)
1)You can't blame Microsoft for running a business for profits 2)You can't blame vendors for wanting to sell to largest majority 3)MS is simply giving the consumers what they want
etc. etc.
LISTEN: It doesn't matter if you are anti-MS, a VB Developer or Linus himself - Microsoft is a monopoly. It "earned" it's position in the marketplace through illegal practices.
It broke the law. It didn't do this yesterday, or a couple days ago, it's been doing it for years, ever since it came to be. All of the above arguments for "get off Microsoft's back" are invalid by means of history. The current industry landscape wasn't anyone's choice - it's the result of a crime.
"vendors install MS because they know people will buy it"
No, vendors install MS because MS has a monopoly on the OS market, giving them LITTLE CHOICE. This isn't conspiracy theory, it's fact.
Let Be sue Microsoft. We all should be suing Microsoft. How many hours of productivity have we lost to operating system which stole the industry? How much money have we given Microsoft without having a choice of where to spend it?
This isn't a "Microsoft sucks" thing - it's a "Microsoft broke the law" thing. Just because the Bush administration asked the DOJ to back down doesn't mean it wasn't illegal. They were still found guilty.
Thanks to this, we have Windows. We have an OS based on business, not technology. We the government buying it droves, which not only makes our national security at risk, but has actually caused battleships to "crash" (Anyone else remember the "smartship" that had to be dragged back to dock thanks to NT?)
Nobody should be letting Microsoft off early, especially Windows users. Imagine how much better Windows would be if they had a little competition to keep them busy?
inky
Re:I feel like I need a shower
on
.NETly News
·
· Score: 1
You and other VB programmers should write Salon. I recieved an email from Andrew L of Salon saying:
...
So I personally chose a software developer who had
written on completely unrelated topics for us to give his, obviously
pro-Microsoft, opinion. Does that one opposing view, (which, to be fair, is
I think probably shared by many thousands of developers who work in the
Windows world)
...
And I greatly doubt that this author represents the mindset of MS Developers around the globe. One thing we can all agree on is that the work we do and people who lead it are not performing the next wonder for humanity.
inky
Re:Hahaha... The author bio on the Salon piece say
on
.NETly News
·
· Score: 1
saw that. I wonder if his books go through the MS PR department or if they just come directly from there.
Actually, I would hope this is not MS approved. If someone replaced words with "Torvalds" and "Ximian", I'd still be having this reaction (possibly more so).
There is enough bad writing on the net for free, I really don't appreciate subscribing to it.
inky
Re:Letter I sent to Salon.com editor
on
.NETly News
·
· Score: 1
Excellent. I hope more people write in. The article borders, if not falls directly into, misinformation.
If they don't retract or edit it, I'm considering cancelling my subscription. I don't really feel like paying for advertisments. In fact, that's why I subscribed - to remove the ads.
I reported the Salon piece because I didn't notice it linked with all of these others. It REALLY should be on it's own story - I am simply amazed Salon let this through.
This isn't an anti-MS thing. That piece is some of the worst writing I've seen on a professional site in years, if not ever, on the web. It overly glorifies hyped up marketing concepts without going into any real details. It makes outlandshish claims about bringing about nirvana, a Star Trekkian society, and the "third age of computing".
Microsoft should be beggin Salon to pull this piece - it's horrible advertising. Comparing Bill Gates to Henry Ford is not exactly going to help their current PR angle. Plus, the over-glorification only reinforces common myths about.Net when it comes it's current overly marketed and under explained status.
I urge everyone to write Salon and ask them to do a better job editing. If someone is going to write a piece explaining why.Net is great, fine. ArsTechnica did a great job of explaining it's strengths, I thought. This is nothing but fluff, and poorly written fluff as well.
inky
(apologies to/. for absent mindly submitting already posted news:( )
...then why did my Win98 box die without me touching it? It got that virus from somewhere
...why am I finding ways to filter out all the Win virus spiders from the apache logs
...was Outlook the cause of millions of dollars in damages for corporate IT security?
ALL of the major viruses that came out this year, and this was a stellar year for security and virus growth, were Windows. We all know that Linux isn't fundamentally virus-proof, but the big security blunders of 2001 were Windows.
This is the real danger of internet reporting. No need for subscribers. At least when/. gets something wrong, or puts it's foot in it's mouth, it's just a bunch of geeks pointing at each other.
This is just outright FUD, but if people had to pay for the FUD, it wouldn't be around. Ah well, good and the bad I guess. Hopefully the real press has done it's job in reporting Windows' security flaws to make this kind of brochure-ware journalism ineffective.
The next time someone asks "Why do you have to point out EVERY Microsoft flaw"... THIS IS WHY.
Wait wait, I have to append myself here. I'm STILL laughing. Clearly you haven't delved too far into IE's love of "standards"
Did you know it has difficulty handling both redirects and SSL under certain situations? Do you know why? Because it's HTTP implentation is non-standard. Not HTML, the whole darn protocol.
Or, one of my favorite EVER MS Bugs:
128-bit Encryption May Not Be 128-Bit
Oh yeah. STANDARDS. That's what they're about. Wooohooo. ahh.....ok. Done laughing at your expense now. Carry on.
My god. In one month they might be able to find all the bugs in a single component on one of the brands of Windows. Or maybe the spellchecker in MS Word. Perhaps something to do with Excel.
One Month? To make up for how many years? Read this press release as "A bunch of engineers drink for 28 days"
Sounds about as sensible as the Mayan prophecy that says when the apocalypse comes, our domesticated animals and machines will rise up against us, animals will be able to think and talk like humans. Not sure what the blender is supposed to be up to (it *is* Mayan, so I guess the till or crystal skull was going to go nutty on em)
I can't wait. I've been meaning to ask my cats a couple of questions as to the whereabouts of certain items...
"other media is that they never correct themselves, no matter how inaccurate, so readers are left with a false picture of accuracy"
That statement was so boldly false, incredibly overreaching and utterly arrogant that you should have been picking out t-shirt sizes the moment you hit the submit button.
And once again Slashdot puts it's foot in it's mouth and then acts like it can walk away without removing it.
Yes! Thank you. And using Slashdot as an example of journalistic greatness is outrageously funny.
Past Slashdot Journalism achievements:
1) Reposting old stories as new
2) Falsely accusing companies of wrongs, and then instead of apologizing, just continue bashing them
3) Hey, how about that false XBox emulator they wanted us all to download and try out for them?
This site is fun, but the Wall Street Journal it ain't.
"Slashdot is occasionally criticized for getting a story wrong, even though we diligently correct ourselves when necessary. My theory is that the difference between Slashdot and other media is that they never correct themselves, no matter how inaccurate"
oh please./. has the journalistic integrity of a high school newsletter. The ones published without an editor. Get over yourself.
Unless the story has been seriously edited since first published, it's full of doubts itself. Just because they don't offer any scientific analysis of it doesn't mean they were duped.
1) It wasn't the practice of integrating IE into the Windows that was illegal. It was the fact they were doingit in a way to effectively block other browsers from being used on the operating system. IE has been shipped with Windows since it was pretty much first concieved. That wasn't the problem, the problem was
2) MS poured millions into a product that they gave away for free, exploiting their already illegally gained market share to usurp what was at the time a commercial product (Netscape)
3) MS used their valuable "desktop space" with OEMs to push IE, MSN over NS, AOL.
4) MS used their so-called "necessary" OS integration to wrangle file association control from potential competitors.
5) MS has taken the integration to a point where it is actually harmful to the OS. The IE/Windows Explorer combination has made the filesystem less stable, more confusing and slower.
I don't hate Microsoft. But I'm also not going to turn a blind eye to one of the largest criminal acts in history simply because "they're here and we have to deal with it."
Slashdot Mirror
" The antitrust decision was about BUNDLING, not about exclusive agreements..."
:)
and the Lewinsky scandal was about accounting practices...what's your point?
inkly
The nice thing about the court findings is that it's actually redudant to debate over what Microsoft did.
... :) )
What it did was illegal and monopolistic.
And if OS/2 had won, we probably would have a lot fewer crashes now.
If IBM hadn't resorted to the same practices as MS, then we might also have a choice of OS's when we go to the store.
Where did Be mess up bad? By trying to create innovative hardware (Apple)?? By then trying to make an OS which would run on several operating systems? (Unix) or then give it away? (Linux) Seems like they're following soom good ideas actually.
inky
(hope that didnt come out as a flame
or through a certain monopoly?
;).
Marketplace != fair. And Be had lots of apps and tons of development support. Heck, they even had DOOM - which is my first test to consider something a real OS
inky
"I agree with the other poster that said Be should have made and sold it's own systems. Maybe with some hardware specially designed for musicians. They may have even gotten some school contracts with that, but I guess lawsuits are the only remaining option."
... it could do everything right and run and superior hardware and ya know what - it will fail. The party's full, nobody else is allowed in.
I havent seen that other post, and maybe I'm just smoking crack - but wasn't that the BeBox? Be started out making not just hardware, but sweet little boxes designed for artists, musicians and general geeks. It was supposed to be a kind of new-age Amiga.
Look, gang - we have on the Desktop/Consumer market 3 basic OS's. Windows, Mac, Linux. Linux is free, and it's still struggling for marketshare (did I mention it's FREE). Mac survives through the grace of artists and desktop publishers who haven't figured out that Adobe makes things for Windows as well, and they can spend $1000 less for their boxes (or refuse to out of a pride I can only help but respect). Windows is here through illegal practices.
A new OS could the Corvette of OS's
inky
Be won't be entering the market in the same format for sometime, if ever again. And to a large extent, they have MS to thank.
So I guess people will just have blame MS for what they've already done wrong...
inky
How were the PC makers in "collusion"? More often, they were the victims as well, many of MS's "contractual" agreements involved unjust demands on the OEMs just so they could keep putting MS on their box.
... different rant...)
Ask yourself how many OEMs could survive without the ability to put MS Windows on their boxes? Apple? Sun? Amiga? Exactly.
inky
(although the argument could be made that Commodore's desire to enter the PC market was exactly what killed the 'miga
I am so tired of the following arguments:
1)You can't blame Microsoft for running a business for profits
2)You can't blame vendors for wanting to sell to largest majority
3)MS is simply giving the consumers what they want
etc. etc.
LISTEN: It doesn't matter if you are anti-MS, a VB Developer or Linus himself - Microsoft is a monopoly. It "earned" it's position in the marketplace through illegal practices.
It broke the law. It didn't do this yesterday, or a couple days ago, it's been doing it for years, ever since it came to be. All of the above arguments for "get off Microsoft's back" are invalid by means of history. The current industry landscape wasn't anyone's choice - it's the result of a crime.
"vendors install MS because they know people will buy it"
No, vendors install MS because MS has a monopoly on the OS market, giving them LITTLE CHOICE. This isn't conspiracy theory, it's fact.
Let Be sue Microsoft. We all should be suing Microsoft. How many hours of productivity have we lost to operating system which stole the industry? How much money have we given Microsoft without having a choice of where to spend it?
This isn't a "Microsoft sucks" thing - it's a "Microsoft broke the law" thing. Just because the Bush administration asked the DOJ to back down doesn't mean it wasn't illegal. They were still found guilty.
Thanks to this, we have Windows. We have an OS based on business, not technology. We the government buying it droves, which not only makes our national security at risk, but has actually caused battleships to "crash" (Anyone else remember the "smartship" that had to be dragged back to dock thanks to NT?)
Nobody should be letting Microsoft off early, especially Windows users. Imagine how much better Windows would be if they had a little competition to keep them busy?
inky
You and other VB programmers should write Salon. I recieved an email from Andrew L of Salon saying:
...
So I personally chose a software developer who had
written on completely unrelated topics for us to give his, obviously
pro-Microsoft, opinion. Does that one opposing view, (which, to be fair, is
I think probably shared by many thousands of developers who work in the
Windows world)
...
And I greatly doubt that this author represents the mindset of MS Developers around the globe. One thing we can all agree on is that the work we do and people who lead it are not performing the next wonder for humanity.
inky
saw that. I wonder if his books go through the MS PR department or if they just come directly from there.
Actually, I would hope this is not MS approved. If someone replaced words with "Torvalds" and "Ximian", I'd still be having this reaction (possibly more so).
There is enough bad writing on the net for free, I really don't appreciate subscribing to it.
inky
Excellent. I hope more people write in. The article borders, if not falls directly into, misinformation.
If they don't retract or edit it, I'm considering cancelling my subscription. I don't really feel like paying for advertisments. In fact, that's why I subscribed - to remove the ads.
inky
after reading that drek, I would imagine all of his books, no matter the subject, are crap.
inky
I reported the Salon piece because I didn't notice it linked with all of these others. It REALLY should be on it's own story - I am simply amazed Salon let this through.
.Net when it comes it's current overly marketed and under explained status.
.Net is great, fine. ArsTechnica did a great job of explaining it's strengths, I thought. This is nothing but fluff, and poorly written fluff as well.
/. for absent mindly submitting already posted news :( )
This isn't an anti-MS thing. That piece is some of the worst writing I've seen on a professional site in years, if not ever, on the web. It overly glorifies hyped up marketing concepts without going into any real details. It makes outlandshish claims about bringing about nirvana, a Star Trekkian society, and the "third age of computing".
Microsoft should be beggin Salon to pull this piece - it's horrible advertising. Comparing Bill Gates to Henry Ford is not exactly going to help their current PR angle. Plus, the over-glorification only reinforces common myths about
I urge everyone to write Salon and ask them to do a better job editing. If someone is going to write a piece explaining why
inky
(apologies to
...then why did my Win98 box die without me touching it? It got that virus from somewhere
/. gets something wrong, or puts it's foot in it's mouth, it's just a bunch of geeks pointing at each other.
... THIS IS WHY.
...why am I finding ways to filter out all the Win virus spiders from the apache logs
...was Outlook the cause of millions of dollars in damages for corporate IT security?
ALL of the major viruses that came out this year, and this was a stellar year for security and virus growth, were Windows. We all know that Linux isn't fundamentally virus-proof, but the big security blunders of 2001 were Windows.
This is the real danger of internet reporting. No need for subscribers. At least when
This is just outright FUD, but if people had to pay for the FUD, it wouldn't be around. Ah well, good and the bad I guess. Hopefully the real press has done it's job in reporting Windows' security flaws to make this kind of brochure-ware journalism ineffective.
The next time someone asks "Why do you have to point out EVERY Microsoft flaw"
inky
Wait wait, I have to append myself here. I'm STILL laughing. Clearly you haven't delved too far into IE's love of "standards"
Did you know it has difficulty handling both redirects and SSL under certain situations? Do you know why? Because it's HTTP implentation is non-standard. Not HTML, the whole darn protocol.
Or, one of my favorite EVER MS Bugs:
128-bit Encryption May Not Be 128-Bit
Oh yeah. STANDARDS. That's what they're about. Wooohooo. ahh.....ok. Done laughing at your expense now. Carry on.
inky
"Nothing, and I mean nothing, approaches the stability and conformance to standards of IE on Windows in the Linux mix."
Say that one that one again...it's tooo funny.
inky
Q:What I fail to grasp is what the Linux community would gain if, in some bizzare act, Microsoft fell off the face of the planet.
A: A free and viable marketplace?
Just a guess.
inky
My god. In one month they might be able to find all the bugs in a single component on one of the brands of Windows. Or maybe the spellchecker in MS Word. Perhaps something to do with Excel.
One Month? To make up for how many years? Read this press release as "A bunch of engineers drink for 28 days"
inky
Sounds about as sensible as the Mayan prophecy that says when the apocalypse comes, our domesticated animals and machines will rise up against us, animals will be able to think and talk like humans. Not sure what the blender is supposed to be up to (it *is* Mayan, so I guess the till or crystal skull was going to go nutty on em)
I can't wait. I've been meaning to ask my cats a couple of questions as to the whereabouts of certain items...
inky
No kidding. I've used Linux. I've coded. I've compiled. I'm familiar with X, etc. etc.
I have no idea what the hell they're talking about, why it means anything to anybody or why they are pimping some couple hours worth of work.
Once again, brilliant reporting!
inky
Never say stuff like:
"other media is that they never correct themselves, no matter how inaccurate, so readers are left with a false picture of accuracy"
That statement was so boldly false, incredibly overreaching and utterly arrogant that you should have been picking out t-shirt sizes the moment you hit the submit button.
And once again Slashdot puts it's foot in it's mouth and then acts like it can walk away without removing it.
inky
Michael is probably too busy glowing over his "journalistic integrity" to notice that his entire "challenge" is bunk.
inky
wish I could mod you up, but I've been replying on the same thing. Headline should have just been "Slashdot is smartypants, read on"
inkly
Yes! Thank you. And using Slashdot as an example of journalistic greatness is outrageously funny.
Past Slashdot Journalism achievements:
1) Reposting old stories as new
2) Falsely accusing companies of wrongs, and then instead of apologizing, just continue bashing them
3) Hey, how about that false XBox emulator they wanted us all to download and try out for them?
This site is fun, but the Wall Street Journal it ain't.
inky
"Slashdot is occasionally criticized for getting a story wrong, even though we diligently correct ourselves when necessary. My theory is that the difference between Slashdot and other media is that they never correct themselves, no matter how inaccurate"
/. has the journalistic integrity of a high school newsletter. The ones published without an editor. Get over yourself.
oh please.
Unless the story has been seriously edited since first published, it's full of doubts itself. Just because they don't offer any scientific analysis of it doesn't mean they were duped.
inky
1) It wasn't the practice of integrating IE into the Windows that was illegal. It was the fact they were doingit in a way to effectively block other browsers from being used on the operating system. IE has been shipped with Windows since it was pretty much first concieved. That wasn't the problem, the problem was
2) MS poured millions into a product that they gave away for free, exploiting their already illegally gained market share to usurp what was at the time a commercial product (Netscape)
3) MS used their valuable "desktop space" with OEMs to push IE, MSN over NS, AOL.
4) MS used their so-called "necessary" OS integration to wrangle file association control from potential competitors.
5) MS has taken the integration to a point where it is actually harmful to the OS. The IE/Windows Explorer combination has made the filesystem less stable, more confusing and slower.
I don't hate Microsoft. But I'm also not going to turn a blind eye to one of the largest criminal acts in history simply because "they're here and we have to deal with it."