"DON'T BOTHER WATCHING IT IF YOU KNOW YOU'RE GOING TO HATE IT."
My dear, angry friend...
What I want/believe/etc. is irrelevant here.
Most junkies know that smack isn't good for 'em, and yet they continue to intravenously inject concoctions of questionable purity into their bodies, risking things like Parkinsonian conditions, sickness, and good old fashioned death all for the possibility of feeling That High again.
I know George Lucas isn't good for me, but I keep duping myself into believing that he's finally going to put something out that's as good as Episode V.
For the moment, I have myself convinced that Episode III is the "new" Star Wars that *isn't* going to be a CGI muppet musical, but that George is finally going to put some hair on Anakin's chest and stop all the crappy dialogue about whether or not the Galactic Trade Federation's checkbook is properly balanced.
No... Like a fly attracted to that strange, magnificent blue of the bug zapper, I will continue to hover, transfixed and drooling before whatever comes out of Skywalker Ranch.
Until the credits roll, of course, at which time I'll trash the movie and state in obnoxiously loud tones that it was the worst bit of digital drivel to have ever dribbled down the corpulent blood-stained cheeks of Hollywood.
Then he dug up the corpse and slapped it around a bit for Episode II.
Now it looks like he's preparing to dig it up once more to further defile its memory by fucking it right in the mouth with a god damned water sequence in Episode III.
Somebody should have taken his camera away after the first Ewok adventure was shot.
I mean, anybody could have made that mistake once... But *twice*?
"The difference there is that the entire OSS world isn't some monolithic entity, whereas Microsoft..."
Microsoft only looks like a monolithic entity from far off - get closer - not even Redmond close, but conceptually closer, and you'll see that.
There are far too many people who are part of Microsoft for it to be one group-think organism. The fights that happen in conference rooms over directions and product features are insane.
We definitely don't all agree with each other.
Sometimes I think of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, and particularly the bits where he postulated the existence of the atom from a greater, larger, seemingly monolithic system.
His conclusions were incorrect, but his assumptions were good, and he really gave seeing the human body as a collection of very small particles a shot.
I wish there were an OSS Lucretius to whom everybody would listen who would postulate the existence of small, individual components to the Microsoft monolith.
It sure would clear up a lot of misconceptions.
Anyway, I have to blame *somebody*, and given OSS's inherently disconnected landscapes, I'll just blame the acronym if the need should ever arise.
But now I'm talking out of my ass.
That would be Friday night and the booze.
My girlfriend is going to kill me if I keep typing this.
"This is an error that pops out pretty regularly when using a particular mode of communication with FoxPro"
I can see how that would be irritating.
Before I joined Microsoft, I was an independent, and I cautioned clients against using Access about 95% of the time they brought it up simply because they usually wanted to throw it at problems for which it was never intended.
As with any technology, avoiding errors and doing well with the software requires an understanding of the terrain - I'm not saying that your problem is trivial or insignificant, but I've never seen it before.
Sometimes, it comes down to particular installs.
Anyway, your story reminds me of the frustration I used to feel whenever X would shit itself, drop me to the command line, and refuse to start again.
Trying to get help from the h4x0rz in the user groups was like pounding my head against the wall.
There are problems on both sides of the fence.
"I hate Microsoft"
Wow. That's a bit of a strong sentiment.
I certainly don't hold the entire OSS world for every problem I've ever had with open source software (and the problems have been many).
"I work with microsoft software, and occasionally I am filled with rage rather than that, "hrm.... how do I fix this," feeling. Natural reaction in a way, but when all you get is a little error box and a, 'Please reboot this app'"
Just out of curiosity, what Microsoft software is telling you to "Please reboot this app"?
I work for Microsoft, but I'm a tech-enthusiast, and I love to install bits of everything (Windows CE/XP/etc., I own a Mac, have some Linux boxes, blah blah blah).
I used to be heavily into Linux/OSS, even going so far as to write a textbook on Linux for a local vocational school, but eventually lost interest when I realized that some very vocal members of the "community" were more interested in bashing Microsoft than in furthering Linux. I just didn't get it.
Most recently, I was reading Linux Magazine when I read an inflammatory letter from the editor in which he did *nothing* to promote linux, but spent his entire monthly column talking smack about Microsoft.
Where's the value in that? As an MS stockholder, it doesn't help me out any to say this, but there's enough interesting stuff going on in OSS land that people shouldn't have to resort to MS bashing to get people excited.
Not only that, but if one of the points of something like Linux Magazine is to drive adoption of Linux/OSS, it seems like a stupid move to do anything that will alienate *any* potential customers/users, keeping in mind that softies can play with Linux when they get home, too.
For anybody who's interested, I provided my response to the editor here: "Dear Linux Magazine"
As an employee of Microsoft, I feel that I have some inside knowledge that I can contribute to this conversation...
"Whlie MS is a corporation, it is made up of people, and its direction and attitude are controlled by a handfull of people, the same ones who have been there all along. So when you're looking at how the company responds, the company's response is a reflection of how those at the top feel."
While it might appear that way from the outside, it's really very different from within the b0rg cube.
Although strategy, as in many large companies, is typically handed down from the top, the highest rewards go to the employees who change something about Microsoft - whether that change is financial, cultural, or whatever.
In a sense, this is top management asking *everybody* in the company to contribute to strategy.
The problem is that, with 55,000 of us, it can sometimes be tough to be heard. But, the opportunity is there for anybody who wants to step up and suggest a new way of doing things.
This new Encarta strategy, for example, almost certainly came from someone low down in the hierarchy. The higher-ups are too busy making the decisions that suits make (which is exactly what they should be doing). Someone on the Encarta team probably took a look at Wikipedia and figured out a way to integrate aspects of the system into Encarta to improve Encarta's value. That's not a top-down decision.
"...once they realize they aren't winning, they tip the tables in their favor by whatever tricks they can, and NOT by improving their product."
First of all, you'd be hard pressed to find someone in the company who feels that we aren't "winning." Most MS employees are so consumed with doing their jobs well that they could care less about whether or not a product is succeeding against a competitor - that, fortunately, is a concern for the higher-ups. The people building this stuff absolutely *do* work on improving products. There are exceptions (IE, although we're working on this), but for the most part, in order to make products better and encourage future adoption, we *have* to improve products, and most employees relish the process.
The fact is, your average softie could double or triple his/her salary by going to a competitor like IBM - Microsoft doesn't pay that well in spite of the money in the bank. Most people are at Microsoft because they *want* to be there and because they believe in the company, which actually makes them more akin to OSS developers than, say, developers working for another company.
It's just that we happen to like MS software, and OSS devs happen to like OSS software.
In short, we're all working to change the company from the *bottom* up. Not all direction comes from the top.
"Linux is different for many reasons. It's not about profit."
Linux, like Microsoft, isn't that simple.
There are people who are definitely in it for the dough. Believe me - I live in Portland (my cousin lives a few houses down from Linus, actually), and I encounter my fair share of OSS consultants out here, and I can assure you that my car looks rather shabby next to some of the nice pieces of machinery these people are driving.
I also have friends who could care less about the dough, and for whom the whole reward is understanding something more about the kernel.
Also, where profit is concerned, I think you might find some opposition to your point of view coming from companies like IBM which have simultaneously contributed to, and fed off of OSS.
None of the this stuff is black and white - Linux, MS, IBM, whatever - *none* of it.
"Once thing I've noticed about wikipedia is that articles are updated within hours of new information or breaking news. I don't see that happening with Encarta, due to this reviewing process."
There are pros and cons to both situations, and neither can easily be called the "correct" way to do it.
Take the Wikipedia method: Changes are contributed and quickly reflected in available content. However, does this actually improve Wikipedia's value, and particularly to a researcher? Also, in allowing the content to filter up so quickly without a review, there is a greater risk of inaccuracy in the data.
Take the Encarta method: Changes are contributed and slowly bubbled up through a process meant to filter out the junk. The flow might not be fast enough to, for example, keep up with changes in certain African governments, but it will hopefully be fast enough to continue to provide value to people who aren't looking to an encyclopedic reference as a "hot off the presses" type resource.
If the goal of Wikipedia were to provide the latest breaking news as quickly as possible, then I could see "fresh" information as being valuable, but I don't think that's really the case.
Doesn't make it "wrong" or "incorrect," but where the goals of a reference material are concerned, I don't think that rapidity == necessary feature.
Which isn't to say that this isn't a pleasant aspect of Wikipedia.
"Oh man, that should have garnered you enough -1 Trolls to be modded out of my threshold. When has MS EVER been concerned with getting a quality product out???"
Speaking of trolls...
You might not believe it, but MS employees are constantly, even obsessively concerned with putting out quality products.
Unfortunately, intention isn't everything. We've made plenty of mistakes, but you'd be surprised at the conversations you'd have with people on various product teams.
I certainly was.
We're more concerned with quality than ever now, of course - thanks to OSS we have some real competitors, and it's pushing us to work harder.
Things are certainly far from perfect at Microsoft, but don't think that it has anything to do with intention.
"This is definitely a response to Encarta becoming obsolete in the face of Wikipedia and in typical MS style they don't really get why the competition is better and are implementing the wrong part."
I disagree. I don't even consider Wikipedia and Encarta to be direct competitors.
Sure, there's overlap between the target audiences, but I think of Encarta as being a sort of "World Book" style reference - lots of pictures, movies, and other assorted media, whereas I consider Wikipedia to be just as much about the community and experience as it is about the information.
Your average Encarta user *doesn't* want to contribute back, but at least we've given them a way.
Hey - it's not open source, and it's not Creative Commons, but it's a step in the right direction.
That's a great attitude. Thanks for the vote of confidence.
"It will be impossible for Microsoft's small (in comparison) payed staff to sift through hundreds, even thousands of changes, even if they use an automated filter to reduce the number of poor submissions."
Impossible?
So you've tried it?
We couldn't possibly know the chances of success without having more information. I work for the company, and *I* don't even have any idea how many people we've hired to handle this.
There are also assumptions being made here about the volume of changes. It could be that the type of person who is an Encarta customer isn't the type of person who likes to submit corrections/additions, and that the overall traffic might be very *low*.
I say give it a chance. At worst, it will quietly fail, and nobody gets hurt.
At best, Encarta becomes a community effort.
Sounds like it's worth the risk to me.
"this just seems like Microsoft saying, hey look 'me too!'"
It's actually very difficult to find *anything* in the tech world that doesn't somehow fall under the category of "me too!"
Frankly, I'm glad that Microsoft is more concerned with getting a quality product out than with its image as an innovator.
The fact is, people seem to like Wikipedia, and we're giving it a shot ourselves, not because of the "Hey - we need to be like Wikipedia" factor, but because it seems like a good idea.
Not only that, but I actually rather like the idea here (and this post is the first I've heard of it). Adding a panel to review submissions for accuracy seems like a good move. If it works, then I think it will greatly enhance the value of the product.
But, then, I'm biased. I *do* own stock in the company:)
Slashdot Mirror
"lucas did not write Empire. only the story that actual screenwriters wrote from." Well, that explains why it wasn't a total piece of shit.
"> George murdered my childhood with Episode I.
Maybe you shouldnt invest your identity on a movie."
Thanks for the advice.
I'll try to remember that the next time I have a childhood.
"DON'T BOTHER WATCHING IT IF YOU KNOW YOU'RE GOING TO HATE IT."
My dear, angry friend...
What I want/believe/etc. is irrelevant here.
Most junkies know that smack isn't good for 'em, and yet they continue to intravenously inject concoctions of questionable purity into their bodies, risking things like Parkinsonian conditions, sickness, and good old fashioned death all for the possibility of feeling That High again.
I know George Lucas isn't good for me, but I keep duping myself into believing that he's finally going to put something out that's as good as Episode V.
For the moment, I have myself convinced that Episode III is the "new" Star Wars that *isn't* going to be a CGI muppet musical, but that George is finally going to put some hair on Anakin's chest and stop all the crappy dialogue about whether or not the Galactic Trade Federation's checkbook is properly balanced.
No... Like a fly attracted to that strange, magnificent blue of the bug zapper, I will continue to hover, transfixed and drooling before whatever comes out of Skywalker Ranch.
Until the credits roll, of course, at which time I'll trash the movie and state in obnoxiously loud tones that it was the worst bit of digital drivel to have ever dribbled down the corpulent blood-stained cheeks of Hollywood.
George murdered my childhood with Episode I.
Then he dug up the corpse and slapped it around a bit for Episode II.
Now it looks like he's preparing to dig it up once more to further defile its memory by fucking it right in the mouth with a god damned water sequence in Episode III.
Somebody should have taken his camera away after the first Ewok adventure was shot.
I mean, anybody could have made that mistake once... But *twice*?
There is no excuse.
"The difference there is that the entire OSS world isn't some monolithic entity, whereas Microsoft..."
Microsoft only looks like a monolithic entity from far off - get closer - not even Redmond close, but conceptually closer, and you'll see that.
There are far too many people who are part of Microsoft for it to be one group-think organism. The fights that happen in conference rooms over directions and product features are insane.
We definitely don't all agree with each other.
Sometimes I think of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, and particularly the bits where he postulated the existence of the atom from a greater, larger, seemingly monolithic system.
His conclusions were incorrect, but his assumptions were good, and he really gave seeing the human body as a collection of very small particles a shot.
I wish there were an OSS Lucretius to whom everybody would listen who would postulate the existence of small, individual components to the Microsoft monolith.
It sure would clear up a lot of misconceptions.
Anyway, I have to blame *somebody*, and given OSS's inherently disconnected landscapes, I'll just blame the acronym if the need should ever arise.
But now I'm talking out of my ass.
That would be Friday night and the booze.
My girlfriend is going to kill me if I keep typing this.
"This is an error that pops out pretty regularly when using a particular mode of communication with FoxPro"
I can see how that would be irritating.
Before I joined Microsoft, I was an independent, and I cautioned clients against using Access about 95% of the time they brought it up simply because they usually wanted to throw it at problems for which it was never intended.
As with any technology, avoiding errors and doing well with the software requires an understanding of the terrain - I'm not saying that your problem is trivial or insignificant, but I've never seen it before.
Sometimes, it comes down to particular installs.
Anyway, your story reminds me of the frustration I used to feel whenever X would shit itself, drop me to the command line, and refuse to start again.
Trying to get help from the h4x0rz in the user groups was like pounding my head against the wall.
There are problems on both sides of the fence.
"I hate Microsoft"
Wow. That's a bit of a strong sentiment.
I certainly don't hold the entire OSS world for every problem I've ever had with open source software (and the problems have been many).
Interesting.
"I work with microsoft software, and occasionally I am filled with rage rather than that, "hrm.... how do I fix this," feeling. Natural reaction in a way, but when all you get is a little error box and a, 'Please reboot this app'"
Just out of curiosity, what Microsoft software is telling you to "Please reboot this app"?
I work for Microsoft, but I'm a tech-enthusiast, and I love to install bits of everything (Windows CE/XP/etc., I own a Mac, have some Linux boxes, blah blah blah).
I used to be heavily into Linux/OSS, even going so far as to write a textbook on Linux for a local vocational school, but eventually lost interest when I realized that some very vocal members of the "community" were more interested in bashing Microsoft than in furthering Linux. I just didn't get it.
Most recently, I was reading Linux Magazine when I read an inflammatory letter from the editor in which he did *nothing* to promote linux, but spent his entire monthly column talking smack about Microsoft.
Where's the value in that? As an MS stockholder, it doesn't help me out any to say this, but there's enough interesting stuff going on in OSS land that people shouldn't have to resort to MS bashing to get people excited.
Not only that, but if one of the points of something like Linux Magazine is to drive adoption of Linux/OSS, it seems like a stupid move to do anything that will alienate *any* potential customers/users, keeping in mind that softies can play with Linux when they get home, too.
For anybody who's interested, I provided my response to the editor here: "Dear Linux Magazine"
It's such a messy world.
As an employee of Microsoft, I feel that I have some inside knowledge that I can contribute to this conversation...
"Whlie MS is a corporation, it is made up of people, and its direction and attitude are controlled by a handfull of people, the same ones who have been there all along. So when you're looking at how the company responds, the company's response is a reflection of how those at the top feel."
While it might appear that way from the outside, it's really very different from within the b0rg cube.
Although strategy, as in many large companies, is typically handed down from the top, the highest rewards go to the employees who change something about Microsoft - whether that change is financial, cultural, or whatever.
In a sense, this is top management asking *everybody* in the company to contribute to strategy.
The problem is that, with 55,000 of us, it can sometimes be tough to be heard. But, the opportunity is there for anybody who wants to step up and suggest a new way of doing things.
This new Encarta strategy, for example, almost certainly came from someone low down in the hierarchy. The higher-ups are too busy making the decisions that suits make (which is exactly what they should be doing). Someone on the Encarta team probably took a look at Wikipedia and figured out a way to integrate aspects of the system into Encarta to improve Encarta's value. That's not a top-down decision.
"...once they realize they aren't winning, they tip the tables in their favor by whatever tricks they can, and NOT by improving their product."
First of all, you'd be hard pressed to find someone in the company who feels that we aren't "winning." Most MS employees are so consumed with doing their jobs well that they could care less about whether or not a product is succeeding against a competitor - that, fortunately, is a concern for the higher-ups. The people building this stuff absolutely *do* work on improving products. There are exceptions (IE, although we're working on this), but for the most part, in order to make products better and encourage future adoption, we *have* to improve products, and most employees relish the process.
The fact is, your average softie could double or triple his/her salary by going to a competitor like IBM - Microsoft doesn't pay that well in spite of the money in the bank. Most people are at Microsoft because they *want* to be there and because they believe in the company, which actually makes them more akin to OSS developers than, say, developers working for another company.
It's just that we happen to like MS software, and OSS devs happen to like OSS software.
In short, we're all working to change the company from the *bottom* up. Not all direction comes from the top.
"Linux is different for many reasons. It's not about profit."
Linux, like Microsoft, isn't that simple.
There are people who are definitely in it for the dough. Believe me - I live in Portland (my cousin lives a few houses down from Linus, actually), and I encounter my fair share of OSS consultants out here, and I can assure you that my car looks rather shabby next to some of the nice pieces of machinery these people are driving.
I also have friends who could care less about the dough, and for whom the whole reward is understanding something more about the kernel.
Also, where profit is concerned, I think you might find some opposition to your point of view coming from companies like IBM which have simultaneously contributed to, and fed off of OSS.
None of the this stuff is black and white - Linux, MS, IBM, whatever - *none* of it.
"Once thing I've noticed about wikipedia is that articles are updated within hours of new information or breaking news. I don't see that happening with Encarta, due to this reviewing process."
There are pros and cons to both situations, and neither can easily be called the "correct" way to do it.
Take the Wikipedia method: Changes are contributed and quickly reflected in available content. However, does this actually improve Wikipedia's value, and particularly to a researcher? Also, in allowing the content to filter up so quickly without a review, there is a greater risk of inaccuracy in the data.
Take the Encarta method: Changes are contributed and slowly bubbled up through a process meant to filter out the junk. The flow might not be fast enough to, for example, keep up with changes in certain African governments, but it will hopefully be fast enough to continue to provide value to people who aren't looking to an encyclopedic reference as a "hot off the presses" type resource.
If the goal of Wikipedia were to provide the latest breaking news as quickly as possible, then I could see "fresh" information as being valuable, but I don't think that's really the case.
Doesn't make it "wrong" or "incorrect," but where the goals of a reference material are concerned, I don't think that rapidity == necessary feature.
Which isn't to say that this isn't a pleasant aspect of Wikipedia.
"Oh man, that should have garnered you enough -1 Trolls to be modded out of my threshold. When has MS EVER been concerned with getting a quality product out???"
Speaking of trolls...
You might not believe it, but MS employees are constantly, even obsessively concerned with putting out quality products.
Unfortunately, intention isn't everything. We've made plenty of mistakes, but you'd be surprised at the conversations you'd have with people on various product teams.
I certainly was.
We're more concerned with quality than ever now, of course - thanks to OSS we have some real competitors, and it's pushing us to work harder.
Things are certainly far from perfect at Microsoft, but don't think that it has anything to do with intention.
"This is definitely a response to Encarta becoming obsolete in the face of Wikipedia and in typical MS style they don't really get why the competition is better and are implementing the wrong part."
I disagree. I don't even consider Wikipedia and Encarta to be direct competitors.
Sure, there's overlap between the target audiences, but I think of Encarta as being a sort of "World Book" style reference - lots of pictures, movies, and other assorted media, whereas I consider Wikipedia to be just as much about the community and experience as it is about the information.
Your average Encarta user *doesn't* want to contribute back, but at least we've given them a way.
Hey - it's not open source, and it's not Creative Commons, but it's a step in the right direction.
"I can't imagine that this will actually work"
:)
That's a great attitude. Thanks for the vote of confidence.
"It will be impossible for Microsoft's small (in comparison) payed staff to sift through hundreds, even thousands of changes, even if they use an automated filter to reduce the number of poor submissions."
Impossible?
So you've tried it?
We couldn't possibly know the chances of success without having more information. I work for the company, and *I* don't even have any idea how many people we've hired to handle this.
There are also assumptions being made here about the volume of changes. It could be that the type of person who is an Encarta customer isn't the type of person who likes to submit corrections/additions, and that the overall traffic might be very *low*.
I say give it a chance. At worst, it will quietly fail, and nobody gets hurt.
At best, Encarta becomes a community effort.
Sounds like it's worth the risk to me.
"this just seems like Microsoft saying, hey look 'me too!'"
It's actually very difficult to find *anything* in the tech world that doesn't somehow fall under the category of "me too!"
Frankly, I'm glad that Microsoft is more concerned with getting a quality product out than with its image as an innovator.
The fact is, people seem to like Wikipedia, and we're giving it a shot ourselves, not because of the "Hey - we need to be like Wikipedia" factor, but because it seems like a good idea.
Not only that, but I actually rather like the idea here (and this post is the first I've heard of it). Adding a panel to review submissions for accuracy seems like a good move. If it works, then I think it will greatly enhance the value of the product.
But, then, I'm biased. I *do* own stock in the company