I'm surprised the parent was modded up to Insightful.
If you'd like some *real* insight on what it's like to work at Microsoft, then feel free to ask one of us employees.
"That's right. Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing problems such as IE being "integrated" with the OS."
Here's one of your problems: "We" don't see it as a religious/philosophical issue. Integrating IE is tied in to the idea of it being a platform. There are services from IE being used elsewhere throughout the OS. Other applications are taking advantage of the features IE offers.
Whether you like the technical solution or not, that's the point. It was never about trying to Beat Down the Proletariat or any other such nonsense. If it weren't for the fact that there were some legal issues there, *you* wouldn't even have an opinion on it. You wouldn't give a shit at all.
Keep in mind that, no matter how tightly integrated IE is, you can still run Opera/Firefox/whatever.
"That's great. But those marketers and upper-management ones that you haven't met are the ones that tell the techs what to do and how to do it."
You clearly have no personal experience inside the company.
First of all, different teams operate in different ways, and when you have 60,000 employees (that's right - it's 60,000 and not 30,000, a number to which you agreed, again showing you haven't done your homework), you are *not* going to find One True Style of Management and Product Development.
On my team, for example, we, the lowly workers, have been given a *lot* of freedom to drive what we do. We've actually decided to put more responsibility on ourselves so that we can have more control over how we accomplish our goals. Nobody along the way told us we couldn't do that.
Are there teams which have to bow to the whims of "upper management" (how many "upper managers" do you know at MS?)? Probably. I can't speak for them, though, since I'm not on one, and since I haven't encountered anything remotely like what you're talking about.
I could go on, but, frankly, I consider you to have been sufficiently discredited.
I'm not saying you didn't make a few decent points, but your overall message is flawed with half-baked bullshit you pulled out of your ass.
"Microsoft's security model PREFERS for you to run ADDITIONAL 3rd party software because the OS itself does not (without massive amounts of work and testing on the part of the HIGHLY TRAINED administrator) provide any way of stopping viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, etc."
So, you're upset that the OS "does not...provide any way of stopping viruses...etc."
Fine, but a minute ago, you were complaining that IE was integrated too tightly, and now you sound like you want us to embed *more* software.
You have to make up your mind.
Every time we try to add something of value to the OS (what *any* good OS builder would do - whether we're talking about *nix, or anything else), people completely freak out.
And now you want us to go ahead and do it.
Do you have any idea how frustrating that message is?
"So it may be evolutionary for sure, next generation MYST perhaps, but it doesn't sound revolutionary."
Oh, yawn. Another "evolutionary vs. revolutionary" soapbox wankfest.
What does it matter if the game is good? Or at least heading in that direction?
When I was a kid and sat down in front of the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man, I didn't sit around pontificating about whether it was "evolutionary" or "revolutionary" - I just thought, "Dang. This really sucks compared to the arcade version." Because that's what it did - suck.
This thing isn't a business app, so we don't really need to see the kind of chest puffing that usually comes along whenever someone announces a new product and it gets posted to slashdot. There probably aren't any software dev managers reading this particular post, culling the comments for buzzwords they can lift.
Save the "evolutionary vs. revolutionary" debate for trying to impress the typical armchair software philosopher.
Sorry I'm a tad abrasive here, but you:
1) Clearly didn't read TFA
2) Brought a tired and cliched argument to a place where it was entirely inappropriate - give these people a break and let 'em develop their game whether it's revolutionary or evolutionary or whateverwhobloodycares.
By the by, the "new" part is the NLP interface. Sure, it's probably been done before, but it's clearly not a widespread idea. Might as well get these people some google juice with a/. reference.
That's a great attitude. Some moderators of one of the world's most influential tech sites mod an idiotic comment as "Funny," and you're content to sit and watch.
I'd be embarrassed if it were my place, but it isn't.
However, I *can* say something about it.
"Oh yeah, and... quit your job and stop f#@$%ing up peoples computers... you and others will feel better about yourself:)"
Of course. That way my grandmother can boot up to Linux and get started sending those emails......as soon as she figures out how to compile her email app.
"well, you have benen a MS flag waver for years, so your opinion on this matter is really biased and should really even be considered"
Before I was an "MS flag waver," I spent a lot of time with *nix/Java/et al. I was rather anti-Microsoft, actually.
One of the things that got me into Microsoft was C#. That's part of the reason I defend it.
My opinion *is* biased, though. I'll give you that. After years of watching people mindlessly trash MS, I've lost a lot of the love I had for open source - at least where/. is concerned.
Granted, I work for Microsoft and take some personal offense to the comment, but I'd still think it were stupid had it been about Python, Java, C++, or [insert language here].
If you're going to be anti-MS, you could go the extra mile and at least be a tad bit witty. Comments like the one in question just make the whole/. scene look bad without adding anything useful.
[Note: I've decided to adopt your quoting style because I think it's prettier than mine.]
But there are lots of other companies Microsoft has driven out of business, or nearly so, that Microsoft didn't buy.
OK, but isn't that business?
If Burger King were wiped off the map by McDonald's, would you be worried about it?
I realize that it's not a perfect analogy - none are. Operating systems and mainstream applications are a strange thing when it comes to innovation and competition.
On the one hand, it's Very Good to have both innovation and competition in the space. On the other, users don't want to be constantly bombarded with innovation, and they don't want to have to sit around figuring out which OS to use. They just want something, they want to stick with it, and that's that.
Innovation and choice in operating systems are high on the agenda for geeks like us, but my mom has a hard enough time learning one OS - even if there were another she liked better, I doubt she'd take the time to learn it. And then, thanks to more innovation and choice, when the technology behind the OS she's ditched leapfrogs the competition (what she's currently using), what's she supposed to do? Switch again?
Imagine going to the dealership where "innovative" cars are sold. Someone's decided that it would be a great idea to stick the steering wheel in the back seat. Is that something you want to deal with? Probably not. In this case, of course, choice can be good, but imagine as well that it's hot and humid outside, and that this was only the first dealership of ten that you're planning on visiting before you even begin to decide on which car to buy.
Suddenly choice looks like a royal pain in the ass.
In principle, I love choice, and I'm fascinated by innovation. In my daily life, though, I want to spend much more time on what's important to me than what I need to do just to get my work done.
I call this kind of work "metawork", and I hate it.
The result is that you'll find I'm interested in innovation and choice, but also in trying to make life easy for the people who are going to be using this stuff.
It's hard to find the balance.
Furthermore, even though the purchase of various companies by Microsoft may have been good for the few investors in those companies, it was usually bad for everybody else.
This is a sad thought, but, again, that's business, and if you don't want to have to deal with risks like that, then you should be sticking your own neck out to run your own company.
When I signed on with Microsoft, I did so with the full knowledge that they could drop me at any minute for any reason. Whether I think that reason is valid or not is immaterial - I've agreed to it.
Employees do it all the time, all over the place.
When I was self-employed, I didn't have this sort of thing hanging over my head. Then again, though, I worked seven days a week, took a big hit to my pocketbook at tax time, had a hard time getting loans because strong cash flow just isn't enough for the self-employed, I paid for my own health care (which was quite a bit), and did pretty much everything else under the sun.
Somebody at Microsoft is taking that duty on so that I can have a job. I'm thankful for that, and if I ever find myself in disagreement with the conditions, then I'll strike out on my own again.
Microsoft hasn't been convicted of being a monopoly, it has been convicted of monopolistic business practices.
Ahhh... Subtle distinction (for me, anyway).
The only two competitors with much public visibility in that list, Apple and Sun, are being propped up by Microsoft, probably to make just the argument you are making; commercially and technologically, they are becoming less and less important.
Well, if Apple and Sun are "becoming less and less important [technologically]," then why does it even matter? If they're becom
"It may be earmarked for charity, however very little of it has actually been spent on charity, to date."
Fantastic point, my friend.
Bill should have written a $25,000,000,000 check to the Ronald McDonald House so that he could have spent more of the money faster and enjoyed the tax write-off sooner.
"Most of what has been spent went to corrupt third world countries to ensure that during the next ethnic cleansing there will be plenty of little helpless bodies to hack into pieces."
"If Microsoft had not killed dozens of innovative companies and imposed enormous unnecessary costs on businesses,"
1. It was practically a business model in the late 90's to set your company up for purchase by Microsoft. That's hardly "killing".
2. If the costs weren't worth it, then people wouldn't pay.
"Zimbabwe might well be getting a lot more money than it is now, both from private donations as well as from tax revenues."
Of course!
From the Scott McNealy Foundation...
And the Larry Ellison Trust...
(I have my doubts.)
"Of course, given that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist and doing what it is doing"
What exactly *is* it "doing" right now?
People bring up this monopoly thing all the time, but I can't think of a single product we produce for which there isn't competition.
OS: *nix, OS X, Symbian, SkyOS, the list goes on...
Office apps: OpenOffice, Gnome Office, AbiWord, the list goes on...
Browsers: Mozilla, Opera, Safari, the list goes on...
Etc.
"There are thousands of dedicated volunteers, and billions of dollars of donations and government funds flowing into HIV prevention and care."
Oh, OK. Well, somebody should tell Bill that there's enough, then.
There are African countries in which roughly a third of the population is infected with HIV. Doesn't seem to me like there's enough being done, and I'm guessing that every bit helps.
And that's just HIV. Problems that have all but gone away in the states still exist elsewhere. Tuberculosis, for example, is doing a lot of damage.
And Polio - remember that? Probably not if you were born recently in a developed nation, but it's still out there.
And the list goes on...
"But the only thing that you recognize is when Gates writes a big check in his comfy mansion."
Well, I wanted to stay at least remotely on topic.
If you'd like to discuss my donations to Children International and cancer research, then I'm down with that, but it would stray a bit from the whole "Microsoft Millionaires" conversation.
"Your arrogance and thoughtlessness is disgusting."
I can see why you might think that out here, but if we met in "real life", I have little doubt that we'd get along and not find each other to be quite so odd after all. It's tough to communicate everything you'd like over forums, and a lot is left to the imagination.
"Giving to charity in order to make up for bad business conduct, a bad reputation, and/or illegal conduct has a long, long history."
Wow.
I'd argue that famine and disease also have a long, long history.
Unfortunately, it seems that most of us have somehow gotten so wrapped up in our silly little arguments about which browser is better to be able to care.
I don't want to sound like Mr. Sourpants, but I'm guessing that if you're one out of four people living in Zimbabwe infected with HIV, you probably don't care about AJAX, plug-ins, or standards compliance - you're just glad that somebody's doing something.
"Can someone tell me the tax advantages of 'charitable causes'?"
Yes.
When you're very, very poor - like most of us - it means that you get to save a few hundred dollars at the end of the year by giving to, say, the Salvation Army.
When you're very, very rich - like Gates - it means almost nothing. He has more money than he could ever possibly spend, with or without tax breaks. If he weren't really into this, then he wouldn't be doing it. Period.
Last time I checked,.NET web services made it perfectly easy for me to interface Windows platforms with anything that wasn't sitting back in the stone age.
I could write a Python client to connect to a.NET web service.
I could even use Jython on an AS400 (OK - "iSeries" - but that name will never stick for me) to hook into that same web service.
Or I could write the service in Java, host it under Tomcat, run the thing on Linux, and then write a client using.NET on Windows.
C'mon.
If you have a system that supports the WS-* specs, I could even route the bloody messages through your SMTP server.
And I haven't even *mentioned* Samba yet.
Oops. There. I just did.
Does this mean that I'm going to be able to connect every aspect of every disparate platform? Hell, no!
That's why we say they're *different*.
And, without those difference, we'd only have... you guessed it! *One* OS!
And then we'd be living the nightmare scenario you've described in your comment, dear sir.
Fortunately, though, that isn't the world we live in.
Keep in mind as well that compatability is a two-way street. You might think our stuff doesn't work with your stuff, but has it ever occurred to you that sometimes we feel that your stuff doesn't work with our stuff?
"Then again, the poster is a self-admitted Microsoft employee, so maybe, in some small way, he deserved it.:)"
The poster is also a human being, and doesn't deserve to be treated like shit just because he chooses to work for, and hopefully help improve, Microsoft.
That said, I do appreciate you commenting about the troll mod. I've been treated *very* fairly on Slashdot in spite of my status as an MS employee, and it's nice to see people say something nice even when they might not be so happy about who I work for.
It's not actually broken - it just doesn't render properly. You can still read the words - you're just missing the sidebar with my links.
And, it's not because of some strange conspiracy. I'm just too lazy to fix the CSS so that Firefox knows what to do with it.
I'd like to point out, though, that it renders fine (not perfectly - but fine) in Opera and Safari (and Safari is my favorite browser, so I don't feel any great motivation to go fixing it for anything else).
"What I don't get is why these people still work."
Most of us sign on to Microsoft because we *want* to work for Microsoft.
Although I'm not one of these millionaire people, I know a couple, and they come to work every day because they love their jobs.
"Bill can never 'cash out' so he is not really worth that much."
Um.
He's, uh...
Well......not really hurting for cash. There are limits to how much money you can spend in a day, you know?
Plus, he worked his ass off to build the company. Why would he want to "cash out" of that? It's obvious that his interest in the company goes well beyond the dough.
"If I had several million I would not work and live comfortably on some tropical beach for thr rest of my life."
And that, my friend, is probably why you don't have $10 million:)
The few wealthy people I know are all workaholics.
Unless they inherited the stuff. God, those people are annoying.
"Then give us the source for IE, we gave you Mozilla..."
Just out of curiosity, what does this have to do with anything?
I'm not trying to be flippant. I only want to know how this went from "Mozilla specific extensions sounds like an interesting double standard" to "give us the source."
"I also imagine they had to think hard about implementing something that does not work in Safari or Opera..."
Opera? Yes.
Safari?
Not really.
Safari is my favorite browser right now, but if there's one thing I've learned about it, it's that it doesn't do too well with javascript. When I'm on my mac, I do occasionally have to fire up another browser to view certain pages.
It'd be nice if it weren't that way, but I don't blame Google, Microsoft, or Mozilla for Safari's shortcomings.
"If there were going to be a groundswell of these 'marquee' people building sites that don't work in IE, it would have happened years ago"
I see your point.
"What you should really be wondering about is whether people will start using stuff like XForms and SVG to create places where IE can't go."
We *do* have SVG plug-ins for IE.
As for XForms...
Well, I could always rephrase this and say that you ought to be wondering whether people will start using stuff like Avalon and XAML to create places *Mozilla* can't go.
Personally, I'd rather the web just kept on doing its thing, leaving technologies like XForms and XAML to duke it out elsewhere...
It's just that I've had to watch as double-standards are applied to the company for which I work. Happens all the time.
Zealot says: Microsoft sucks because it's a big, huge company.
Zealot also says: I love Apple.
WTF?
Can't blame me for being frustrated. Whatever you might think, I'm a good guy, and it sucks to have to constantly be at the receiving end of these sorts of comments.
"(Yes, parent works for Microsoft -- click on the link to his webpage.)"
You don't need to go to my site to see that I work for Microsoft.
If you look reaaaaaalllly closely, you'll see that it's disclosed in my sig.
I've been careful since the beginning to make sure that there's no confusion at all about where my bias lies (note, however, that though I'm biased, I'm not a zealot - I run OS X and various Linux distros at home alongside my Windows boxes - are you as open minded?).
"I'm also pretty dubious of your (unintended?) implication that the folks at Mozilla are doing things to lure developers to create web sites that will only work with Mozilla the way Microsoft did back when it was leveraging its OS monopoly to kill the browser market."
Sure.
But I was responding to this line from the post:
"Will this speed up the development of AJAX applications and give Moz a leg-up over IE7?"
With this quote in mind, along with the fact that one of the most well known applications of AJAX out there right now was done by Google, I'd have to disagree with you. This stuff *will* be used in general web pages.
Anyway, look at history - many web devs don't think about the impact their choices might have.
Do you think that someone who would have willingly used a "marquee" tag is going to think twice about using some Mozilla specific javascript extensions?
So, people used to get pissed off about Microsoft playing around with scripting features in IE that weren't available on other platforms, but now it's going to be an *advantage* for Mozilla?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm surprised the parent was modded up to Insightful.
If you'd like some *real* insight on what it's like to work at Microsoft, then feel free to ask one of us employees.
"That's right. Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing problems such as IE being "integrated" with the OS."
Here's one of your problems: "We" don't see it as a religious/philosophical issue. Integrating IE is tied in to the idea of it being a platform. There are services from IE being used elsewhere throughout the OS. Other applications are taking advantage of the features IE offers.
Whether you like the technical solution or not, that's the point. It was never about trying to Beat Down the Proletariat or any other such nonsense. If it weren't for the fact that there were some legal issues there, *you* wouldn't even have an opinion on it. You wouldn't give a shit at all.
Keep in mind that, no matter how tightly integrated IE is, you can still run Opera/Firefox/whatever.
"That's great. But those marketers and upper-management ones that you haven't met are the ones that tell the techs what to do and how to do it."
You clearly have no personal experience inside the company.
First of all, different teams operate in different ways, and when you have 60,000 employees (that's right - it's 60,000 and not 30,000, a number to which you agreed, again showing you haven't done your homework), you are *not* going to find One True Style of Management and Product Development.
On my team, for example, we, the lowly workers, have been given a *lot* of freedom to drive what we do. We've actually decided to put more responsibility on ourselves so that we can have more control over how we accomplish our goals. Nobody along the way told us we couldn't do that.
Are there teams which have to bow to the whims of "upper management" (how many "upper managers" do you know at MS?)? Probably. I can't speak for them, though, since I'm not on one, and since I haven't encountered anything remotely like what you're talking about.
I could go on, but, frankly, I consider you to have been sufficiently discredited.
I'm not saying you didn't make a few decent points, but your overall message is flawed with half-baked bullshit you pulled out of your ass.
"Microsoft's security model PREFERS for you to run ADDITIONAL 3rd party software because the OS itself does not (without massive amounts of work and testing on the part of the HIGHLY TRAINED administrator) provide any way of stopping viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, etc."
So, you're upset that the OS "does not...provide any way of stopping viruses...etc."
Fine, but a minute ago, you were complaining that IE was integrated too tightly, and now you sound like you want us to embed *more* software.
You have to make up your mind.
Every time we try to add something of value to the OS (what *any* good OS builder would do - whether we're talking about *nix, or anything else), people completely freak out.
And now you want us to go ahead and do it.
Do you have any idea how frustrating that message is?
"So it may be evolutionary for sure, next generation MYST perhaps, but it doesn't sound revolutionary."
/. reference.
Oh, yawn. Another "evolutionary vs. revolutionary" soapbox wankfest.
What does it matter if the game is good? Or at least heading in that direction?
When I was a kid and sat down in front of the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man, I didn't sit around pontificating about whether it was "evolutionary" or "revolutionary" - I just thought, "Dang. This really sucks compared to the arcade version." Because that's what it did - suck.
This thing isn't a business app, so we don't really need to see the kind of chest puffing that usually comes along whenever someone announces a new product and it gets posted to slashdot. There probably aren't any software dev managers reading this particular post, culling the comments for buzzwords they can lift.
Save the "evolutionary vs. revolutionary" debate for trying to impress the typical armchair software philosopher.
Sorry I'm a tad abrasive here, but you:
1) Clearly didn't read TFA
2) Brought a tired and cliched argument to a place where it was entirely inappropriate - give these people a break and let 'em develop their game whether it's revolutionary or evolutionary or whateverwhobloodycares.
By the by, the "new" part is the NLP interface. Sure, it's probably been done before, but it's clearly not a widespread idea. Might as well get these people some google juice with a
"This is "Slashdot"... Get used to it."
:)"
...as soon as she figures out how to compile her email app.
That's a great attitude. Some moderators of one of the world's most influential tech sites mod an idiotic comment as "Funny," and you're content to sit and watch.
I'd be embarrassed if it were my place, but it isn't.
However, I *can* say something about it.
"Oh yeah, and... quit your job and stop f#@$%ing up peoples computers... you and others will feel better about yourself
Of course. That way my grandmother can boot up to Linux and get started sending those emails...
Brilliant.
"People who take jobs with Microsoft are mostly unscrupulous slimeballs"
Most, eh?
Then I suppose you can name a majority of the 55,000 who are "unscrupulous slimeballs."
I await the list.
"however taking personal offense at comments about your employer moves you to a far higher level of detestability"
Aside from the fact that this is obviously flamebait, I'm curious: Why should that "move [me] to a far higher level of detestability?"
I chose to work for Microsoft because I love the company and the tech. Why shouldn't I defend it?
Are you wasting away your life doing something you don't believe in?
"well, you have benen a MS flag waver for years, so your opinion on this matter is really biased and should really even be considered"
/. is concerned.
Before I was an "MS flag waver," I spent a lot of time with *nix/Java/et al. I was rather anti-Microsoft, actually.
One of the things that got me into Microsoft was C#. That's part of the reason I defend it.
My opinion *is* biased, though. I'll give you that. After years of watching people mindlessly trash MS, I've lost a lot of the love I had for open source - at least where
"Effective C#? How about don't use it."
/. scene look bad without adding anything useful.
How did this get modded to "Funny"?
Granted, I work for Microsoft and take some personal offense to the comment, but I'd still think it were stupid had it been about Python, Java, C++, or [insert language here].
If you're going to be anti-MS, you could go the extra mile and at least be a tad bit witty. Comments like the one in question just make the whole
[Note: I've decided to adopt your quoting style because I think it's prettier than mine.]
But there are lots of other companies Microsoft has driven out of business, or nearly so, that Microsoft didn't buy.
OK, but isn't that business?
If Burger King were wiped off the map by McDonald's, would you be worried about it?
I realize that it's not a perfect analogy - none are. Operating systems and mainstream applications are a strange thing when it comes to innovation and competition.
On the one hand, it's Very Good to have both innovation and competition in the space. On the other, users don't want to be constantly bombarded with innovation, and they don't want to have to sit around figuring out which OS to use. They just want something, they want to stick with it, and that's that.
Innovation and choice in operating systems are high on the agenda for geeks like us, but my mom has a hard enough time learning one OS - even if there were another she liked better, I doubt she'd take the time to learn it. And then, thanks to more innovation and choice, when the technology behind the OS she's ditched leapfrogs the competition (what she's currently using), what's she supposed to do? Switch again?
Imagine going to the dealership where "innovative" cars are sold. Someone's decided that it would be a great idea to stick the steering wheel in the back seat. Is that something you want to deal with? Probably not. In this case, of course, choice can be good, but imagine as well that it's hot and humid outside, and that this was only the first dealership of ten that you're planning on visiting before you even begin to decide on which car to buy.
Suddenly choice looks like a royal pain in the ass.
In principle, I love choice, and I'm fascinated by innovation. In my daily life, though, I want to spend much more time on what's important to me than what I need to do just to get my work done.
I call this kind of work "metawork", and I hate it.
The result is that you'll find I'm interested in innovation and choice, but also in trying to make life easy for the people who are going to be using this stuff.
It's hard to find the balance.
Furthermore, even though the purchase of various companies by Microsoft may have been good for the few investors in those companies, it was usually bad for everybody else.
This is a sad thought, but, again, that's business, and if you don't want to have to deal with risks like that, then you should be sticking your own neck out to run your own company.
When I signed on with Microsoft, I did so with the full knowledge that they could drop me at any minute for any reason. Whether I think that reason is valid or not is immaterial - I've agreed to it.
Employees do it all the time, all over the place.
When I was self-employed, I didn't have this sort of thing hanging over my head. Then again, though, I worked seven days a week, took a big hit to my pocketbook at tax time, had a hard time getting loans because strong cash flow just isn't enough for the self-employed, I paid for my own health care (which was quite a bit), and did pretty much everything else under the sun.
Somebody at Microsoft is taking that duty on so that I can have a job. I'm thankful for that, and if I ever find myself in disagreement with the conditions, then I'll strike out on my own again.
Microsoft hasn't been convicted of being a monopoly, it has been convicted of monopolistic business practices.
Ahhh... Subtle distinction (for me, anyway).
The only two competitors with much public visibility in that list, Apple and Sun, are being propped up by Microsoft, probably to make just the argument you are making; commercially and technologically, they are becoming less and less important.
Well, if Apple and Sun are "becoming less and less important [technologically]," then why does it even matter? If they're becom
"It may be earmarked for charity, however very little of it has actually been spent on charity, to date."
:)
Fantastic point, my friend.
Bill should have written a $25,000,000,000 check to the Ronald McDonald House so that he could have spent more of the money faster and enjoyed the tax write-off sooner.
"Most of what has been spent went to corrupt third world countries to ensure that during the next ethnic cleansing there will be plenty of little helpless bodies to hack into pieces."
Hm.
Well.
That's a tad cynical
"If Microsoft had not killed dozens of innovative companies and imposed enormous unnecessary costs on businesses,"
1. It was practically a business model in the late 90's to set your company up for purchase by Microsoft. That's hardly "killing".
2. If the costs weren't worth it, then people wouldn't pay.
"Zimbabwe might well be getting a lot more money than it is now, both from private donations as well as from tax revenues."
Of course!
From the Scott McNealy Foundation...
And the Larry Ellison Trust...
(I have my doubts.)
"Of course, given that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist and doing what it is doing"
What exactly *is* it "doing" right now?
People bring up this monopoly thing all the time, but I can't think of a single product we produce for which there isn't competition.
OS: *nix, OS X, Symbian, SkyOS, the list goes on...
Office apps: OpenOffice, Gnome Office, AbiWord, the list goes on...
Browsers: Mozilla, Opera, Safari, the list goes on...
Etc.
"There are thousands of dedicated volunteers, and billions of dollars of donations and government funds flowing into HIV prevention and care."
Oh, OK. Well, somebody should tell Bill that there's enough, then.
There are African countries in which roughly a third of the population is infected with HIV. Doesn't seem to me like there's enough being done, and I'm guessing that every bit helps.
And that's just HIV. Problems that have all but gone away in the states still exist elsewhere. Tuberculosis, for example, is doing a lot of damage.
And Polio - remember that? Probably not if you were born recently in a developed nation, but it's still out there.
And the list goes on...
"But the only thing that you recognize is when Gates writes a big check in his comfy mansion."
Well, I wanted to stay at least remotely on topic.
If you'd like to discuss my donations to Children International and cancer research, then I'm down with that, but it would stray a bit from the whole "Microsoft Millionaires" conversation.
"Your arrogance and thoughtlessness is disgusting."
I can see why you might think that out here, but if we met in "real life", I have little doubt that we'd get along and not find each other to be quite so odd after all. It's tough to communicate everything you'd like over forums, and a lot is left to the imagination.
"gecko-based browsers far outnumber khtml-based browsers."
Woo-hoo!
If it isn't MS vs. OSS, then it's OSS vs. OSS, isn't it?
Just not happy unless there's some kind of petty conflict, are you?
"Giving to charity in order to make up for bad business conduct, a bad reputation, and/or illegal conduct has a long, long history."
Wow.
I'd argue that famine and disease also have a long, long history.
Unfortunately, it seems that most of us have somehow gotten so wrapped up in our silly little arguments about which browser is better to be able to care.
I don't want to sound like Mr. Sourpants, but I'm guessing that if you're one out of four people living in Zimbabwe infected with HIV, you probably don't care about AJAX, plug-ins, or standards compliance - you're just glad that somebody's doing something.
"Can someone tell me the tax advantages of 'charitable causes'?"
Yes.
When you're very, very poor - like most of us - it means that you get to save a few hundred dollars at the end of the year by giving to, say, the Salvation Army.
When you're very, very rich - like Gates - it means almost nothing. He has more money than he could ever possibly spend, with or without tax breaks. If he weren't really into this, then he wouldn't be doing it. Period.
"Hello. :)"
:)
Hi
[Top Secret MS Handshake]
What does this even *mean*?
.NET web services made it perfectly easy for me to interface Windows platforms with anything that wasn't sitting back in the stone age.
.NET web service.
.NET on Windows.
"incompatible with everyone else"
Last time I checked,
I could write a Python client to connect to a
I could even use Jython on an AS400 (OK - "iSeries" - but that name will never stick for me) to hook into that same web service.
Or I could write the service in Java, host it under Tomcat, run the thing on Linux, and then write a client using
C'mon.
If you have a system that supports the WS-* specs, I could even route the bloody messages through your SMTP server.
And I haven't even *mentioned* Samba yet.
Oops. There. I just did.
Does this mean that I'm going to be able to connect every aspect of every disparate platform? Hell, no!
That's why we say they're *different*.
And, without those difference, we'd only have... you guessed it! *One* OS!
And then we'd be living the nightmare scenario you've described in your comment, dear sir.
Fortunately, though, that isn't the world we live in.
Keep in mind as well that compatability is a two-way street. You might think our stuff doesn't work with your stuff, but has it ever occurred to you that sometimes we feel that your stuff doesn't work with our stuff?
"Then again, the poster is a self-admitted Microsoft employee, so maybe, in some small way, he deserved it. :)"
:)
The poster is also a human being, and doesn't deserve to be treated like shit just because he chooses to work for, and hopefully help improve, Microsoft.
That said, I do appreciate you commenting about the troll mod. I've been treated *very* fairly on Slashdot in spite of my status as an MS employee, and it's nice to see people say something nice even when they might not be so happy about who I work for.
Zealotry sucks on both sides of the fence
"Your website is broken in Firefox"
It's not actually broken - it just doesn't render properly. You can still read the words - you're just missing the sidebar with my links.
And, it's not because of some strange conspiracy. I'm just too lazy to fix the CSS so that Firefox knows what to do with it.
I'd like to point out, though, that it renders fine (not perfectly - but fine) in Opera and Safari (and Safari is my favorite browser, so I don't feel any great motivation to go fixing it for anything else).
"What I don't get is why these people still work."
...not really hurting for cash. There are limits to how much money you can spend in a day, you know?
:)
Most of us sign on to Microsoft because we *want* to work for Microsoft.
Although I'm not one of these millionaire people, I know a couple, and they come to work every day because they love their jobs.
"Bill can never 'cash out' so he is not really worth that much."
Um.
He's, uh...
Well...
Plus, he worked his ass off to build the company. Why would he want to "cash out" of that? It's obvious that his interest in the company goes well beyond the dough.
"If I had several million I would not work and live comfortably on some tropical beach for thr rest of my life."
And that, my friend, is probably why you don't have $10 million
The few wealthy people I know are all workaholics.
Unless they inherited the stuff. God, those people are annoying.
"And one William Gates put $53 million back into the economy the old fashioned way by building a house."
Along with over $25 billion to charitable causes.
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm
He deserves the house, I say.
"Then give us the source for IE, we gave you Mozilla..."
Just out of curiosity, what does this have to do with anything?
I'm not trying to be flippant. I only want to know how this went from "Mozilla specific extensions sounds like an interesting double standard" to "give us the source."
"I also imagine they had to think hard about implementing something that does not work in Safari or Opera..."
Opera? Yes.
Safari?
Not really.
Safari is my favorite browser right now, but if there's one thing I've learned about it, it's that it doesn't do too well with javascript. When I'm on my mac, I do occasionally have to fire up another browser to view certain pages.
It'd be nice if it weren't that way, but I don't blame Google, Microsoft, or Mozilla for Safari's shortcomings.
"If there were going to be a groundswell of these 'marquee' people building sites that don't work in IE, it would have happened years ago"
I see your point.
"What you should really be wondering about is whether people will start using stuff like XForms and SVG to create places where IE can't go."
We *do* have SVG plug-ins for IE.
As for XForms...
Well, I could always rephrase this and say that you ought to be wondering whether people will start using stuff like Avalon and XAML to create places *Mozilla* can't go.
Personally, I'd rather the web just kept on doing its thing, leaving technologies like XForms and XAML to duke it out elsewhere...
"counterpoint: we're not necessarily on microsoft's side."
:)
Your honesty is refreshing
Anyway, regardless of whose side you take, it's just browsers in the end. It's not like any of us is curing cancer or anything.
"Please ignore the Microsoft troll."
Um.
I'm not trolling.
It's just that I've had to watch as double-standards are applied to the company for which I work. Happens all the time.
Zealot says: Microsoft sucks because it's a big, huge company.
Zealot also says: I love Apple.
WTF?
Can't blame me for being frustrated. Whatever you might think, I'm a good guy, and it sucks to have to constantly be at the receiving end of these sorts of comments.
"(Yes, parent works for Microsoft -- click on the link to his webpage.)"
You don't need to go to my site to see that I work for Microsoft.
If you look reaaaaaalllly closely, you'll see that it's disclosed in my sig.
I've been careful since the beginning to make sure that there's no confusion at all about where my bias lies (note, however, that though I'm biased, I'm not a zealot - I run OS X and various Linux distros at home alongside my Windows boxes - are you as open minded?).
"I'm also pretty dubious of your (unintended?) implication that the folks at Mozilla are doing things to lure developers to create web sites that will only work with Mozilla the way Microsoft did back when it was leveraging its OS monopoly to kill the browser market."
Sure.
But I was responding to this line from the post:
"Will this speed up the development of AJAX applications and give Moz a leg-up over IE7?"
With this quote in mind, along with the fact that one of the most well known applications of AJAX out there right now was done by Google, I'd have to disagree with you. This stuff *will* be used in general web pages.
Anyway, look at history - many web devs don't think about the impact their choices might have.
Do you think that someone who would have willingly used a "marquee" tag is going to think twice about using some Mozilla specific javascript extensions?
Great.
So, people used to get pissed off about Microsoft playing around with scripting features in IE that weren't available on other platforms, but now it's going to be an *advantage* for Mozilla?
Hello-o-oo-oooo-o-ooooo...
Swamii -
Just wanted to thank you for writing something clear and accurate on the subject.
Anybody who's been following Longhorn over the past couple years knows damn well that this isn't news.