Microsoft Hatred FAQ

[Xah Lee]

Microsoft Hatred, FAQ

Xah Lee, 20020518

Question: U.S. Judges are not morons, and quite a few others are
not morons. They find MS guilty, so it must be true.

Answer: so did the German population thought Jews are morons by
heritage, to the point that Jews should be exterminated from earth.
Apparently, the entire German population cannot be morons, they must be
right.

Judge for yourself, is a principle i abide by. And when you judge, it
is better to put some effort into it.

How much you invest in this endearvor depends on how important the
issue is to you. If you are like most people, for which the issue of
Microsoft have remote effect on your personal well-being, then you can
go out and buy a case of beer on one hand and pizza on the other, and
rap with your online confabulation buddies about how evil is MS. If you
are an author writing a book on this, then obviously its different
because your reputation and ultimately daily bread depend on what you
put down. If you are a MS competitor such as Apple or Sun, then
obviously you will see to it with as much money as you can cough out
that MS is guilty by all measures and gets put out of business. If you
are a government employee such as a judge, of course it is your
interest to please your boss, with your best accessment of the air.

When i judge things, i like to imagine things being serious, as if my
wife is a wager, my daughter is at stake, that any small factual error
or mis-judgement or misleading perspective will cause unimaginable
things to happen. Then, my opinions becomes better ones.

Q: Microsoft's Operating System is used over 90% of PCs. If that's
not monopoly, i don't know what is.

A: Now suppose there is a very ethical company E, whose products have
the best performance/price ratio, and making all the competitors
looking so majorly stupid and ultimately won over 90% of the market as
decided by consumers. Is E now a monopoly? Apparently, beer drinkers
and pizza eaters needs to study a bit on the word monopoly, from the
perspectives of language to history to law. If they have some extra
time, they can sharpen views from philosophy & logic contexts as well.

Q: What about all the people in the corporate environments who are
forced to use MS products and aren't allowed the option/choice to use
Mac/Linux/UNIX?

A: Kick your boss's ass, or, choose to work for a company who have
decisions that you liked.

Q: What about MS buying out all competitors?

A: Microsoft offered me $1 grand for saying good things about them.
They didn't put a gunpoint on my head. I CHOOSE to take the bribe.
Likewise, sold companies can and have decided what's best for them.
It's nothing like under gunpoint.

Q: Microsoft forced computer makers to not install competitor's
applications or OSes.

A: It is free country. Don't like MS this or that? Fuck MS and talk to
the Solaris or BeOS or AIX or HP-UX or Apple or OS/2 or Amiga or NeXT
or the Linuxes with their free yet fantastically easy-to-use and
network-spamming X-Windows. Bad business prospects? Then grab the
opportunity and become an entrepreneur and market your own beats-all
OS. Too difficult? Let's sue Microsoft!

Q: Microsoft distributed their Internet Explorer web browser free,
using their “monopoly� power to put Netscape out of business.

A: entirely inane coding monkeys listen: It takes huge investment to
give away a quality software free. Netscape can give away Operating
Systems free to put MS out of business too. Nobody is stopping Sun
Microsystem from giving Java free, or BeOS a browser free, or Apple to
bundle QuickTime deeply with their OS free.

Not to mention that Netscape is worse than IE in just about every
version till they become the OpenSource mozilla shit and eventually
bought out by AOL and still shit.

• Netscape struggles, announced open browser source code in 1998-01,
industry shock
http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease558.html

• Netscape browser code released in 1998-03. Mozilla FAQ.
http://mozilla.org/docs/mozilla-faq.html

• AOL buys Netscape in 1998-11 for 4.2 billion.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-218360.html?legacy=cnet

• Jamie Zawinski, resignation and postmortem, 1999-04
http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html

• suck.com, Greg Knauss & Terry Colon, 2000-04, Netscape 6 mockery
http://www.suck.com/daily/2000/04/10/
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/_...s_netscape.zip

• Xah Lee, Netscape Crap
http://xahlee.org/Writ_dir/macos-talk/58.txt

Q: Microsoft implemented extra things to standard protocols in
their OS so that other OS makers cannot be compatible with their OS
while their OS can be compatible with all. They used this Embrace &
Extend to lock out competitors.

A: My perspective is this: suppose you are now a company who's OS sits
over 90% of computers (regardless how this come to be for the moment).
Now, lots of “standard� protocols in the industry is a result of
popularity (RFC = Really Fucking Common), and popularity resulted from
being free, from the RFCs of the fantastically incompetent by the
truely stupid unix tech morons. What can you do if you want to improve
these protocols? If you go with totally different protocols, then the
incompatibility with the rest 10% isn't your best interest. I would
adopt existing protocols, and extend them with improvements. Being a
commercial entity, i'm sorry that it is not my duty to release my
improvments to my competitors. Any of you incompetent IBM/AIX/OS/2 or
SGI/Irix or HP/HP-UX or Sun/Solaris or Apple/AU-X/Mac can do the same,
not that they haven't.

Of course, the universe of moronic unixers and Apple fanatics cannot
see that. The unix idiots cannot see that their fantastically stupid
protocols are fantastically stupid in the first place. The Apple
fanatics are simply chronically fanatic.

Q: Microsoft product is notorious for their lack of security.

A: In my very sound opinion, if Microsoft's OS's security flaws is
measured at one, then the unixes are measured at one myriad. If unixes
suddenly switch popularity with Windows, then the world's computers
will collapse uncontrollably by all sorts of viruses and attacks. This
can be seen for technical person who knows unix history well:

• http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/freebooks.html (e.g.
ftpd/proftpd, inetd/xinetd, sendmail/qmail, X-Windows, telnet, passwd,
login, rsh, rlogin.)

• on the criminality of buffer overflow, by Henry Baker, 2001.
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/_..._overflow.html

• Fast Food The UNIX Way:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/_.../fastfood.html

• Jargon File: http://www.tuxedo.org/%7Eesr/jargon/

• The Rise of Worse is Better, by Richard P. Gabriel, 1991, at
http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html

and plenty other pre-90s documents to get a sense of just how
fantastically insecure unix was and is. Unix today is not just
technically slacking in the “security� department, but the unix
ways created far more unmanageable security risks that's another topic
to discuss.

The unix crime, is not just being utmost technically sloppy. Its entire
system and “philosophy†� created an entire generation of incompetent
programers and thinking and programing languages, with damage that is a
few magnitude times beyond all computer viruses and attacks damages in
history combined. See also:

• Responsible Software License:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/w...e_license.html

Q: Microsoft products are simply poor quality.

A: Perhaps this in general is true pre-1997. I think the vast majority
of MS products today have better performance/price ratio then
competitors. This includes their operating system, their input devices
(mouse & keyboard), their X-Box gaming console, their software game
titles, their software architectures and languages (.NET, C#), their
technologies (few i know: SMB), and many of their software applications
(suite of Office, which consistently ranked top since early 90s).

e.g. Tom's hardware review on x-box, esp in comparison with Sony
Playstation 2. (2002-02):
http://www4.tomshardware.com/consume...204/index.html

the leading role of MS Office products can be seen in MacUser &
MacWorld magazine reviews through out early 90s.

Q: BeOS was once to be bundled with PC, but MS meddled with it and
basically at the end fucked Be up.

A: BeOS is a fantastically fucking useless OS. No DVD player, No Java,
No QuickTime, No games, no Mathematica, no nothing. For all practical
purposes, fucking useless in a different way than every donkey unixes.
Not to mention the evil Apple computer, refused to pass the QuickTime
technology, and tried to prevent BeOS from running on Apple hardware by
refusing to release their PPC hardware spec. Be founder Jean-Louis
Gassee wrote an article about it. Who's fucking whom?

Q: X inc tried to do W, but MS threatened to depart.

A: Dear X inc., try to find a bigger dick for your needs. If you cannot
find any, too bad! Suck it up to the big brother and hold on to what
you can get! If you have the smarts, milk him dry! Free country, free
to choose partnership. Ladies, previous night's indiscretion is not
rape the morning after.

Q: I'm not a beer bucket or pizza hole, but i want to do research
over the web. Is there any free stuff on the web i can grab? I'm an
OpenSource advocate, i demand free things.

A: •
http://www.moraldefense.com/Campaign...AQ/default.htm
(The Center for the Moral Defense of Capitalism)

• http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_repo.../friedman.html (The
Business Community's Suicidal Impulse by Milton Friedman, 1999-03)
local copy

Q: I'm thinking of putting my wife and daughter on the table. What
do you suggest to begin with?

A: Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell:
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_di...economics.html

Q: Are you confident enough to bet your wifes and daughters for
what you say?

A: No. But I put my reputation in.
-------
This post is archived at:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/w...hatredfaq.html

Xah
xa*@xahlee.org
∑ http://xahlee.org/

[David Schwartz]

"Steven D'Aprano" <st***@REMOVETH IScyber.com.au> wrote in message
news:pa******** *************** *****@REMOVETHI Scyber.com.au.. .

The first two points are factually wrong, and the third is an opinion
based on the concept, as far as I can see, that Microsoft should be
allowed to do anything they like, even if those actions harm others.

Of course this alleged "harm" is simply a lack of a benefit.

Why is Burger King allowed to close at 10PM? That harms me when I'm
hungry after 10.

DS

[David Schwartz]

"Martin P. Hellwig" <mh******@xs4al l.nl> wrote in message
news:43******** *************** @news.xs4all.nl ...

Not Bill Gates wrote:

st***@REMOVETHI Scyber.com.au wrote...

On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:35:47 +0000, Not Bill Gates wrote:

Heck, I dunno. Like you, I don't even really care all that much.
You don't care that innovation in desktop software has been crippled by
the actions of the monopoly player Microsoft?

You need to first prove innovation in desktop software has been crippled,
don't you?

How about their "java" implementation between 1998 and 2004?
Sure killed the _easier_ write once run everywhere mantra, of course they
where not alone in the killing, SUN helped a great deal.

It's easy to point to things you think are mistakes and claim that if
you had been in charge of the world, those mistakes would not have been
made. If you are trying to balance completely different possible paths the
universe might have taken, you need to make sure to include everything on
both sides, and that's really really hard to do.

Perhaps the desktop software is good enough that how much better it
would have been wouldn't make much difference. And perhaps the lack of
competition steered the innovators into other fields where their innovations
made huge differences. Perhaps not -- perhaps the desktop software we would
have had in a more competitive market would have made other people's lives
majorly better. Who knows?

I don't think it's possible or sensible to try to have a reckoning of
this type. There are so many variables and unpredictable possibilities.

DS

[Brian Utterback]

David Schwartz wrote:

Do you think it would be immoral if Microsoft said, "we will only sell
Windows wholesale to dealers who don't sell other operating systems?"

That's the crux of the problem, isn't it? When you are a virtual
monopoly, it is at least unlawful. The Sherman Anti-trust act as well
as the various follow-on anti-trust laws essentially say that what is
okay when you have 49% of a market is illegal when you have 51%. You
have maintained that Microsoft is not a monopoly, but they clearly
are by U.S. Anti-trust law. Congress has set the definition, and
the courts have upheld it, explicitly in Microsoft's case. The courts
have declared Microsoft a monopoly in the desktop OS market, and that
decision stands.

You have said that it was unreasonable to expect Microsoft to define
the market in the manner required to make them into a monopoly, but
it was their primary market. Again, court records show that they not
only had a monopoly, they knew they had a monopoly and took steps
to preserve their monopoly. Some of those steps were illegal by U.S.
law.

Also, you have said that it was unreasonable to expect Microsoft to
know that they were in violation of the law. In addition to the fact
that the laws have been in place since the late 1800's, the consent
decree explicitly and in no uncertain terms informed them of their
violations, and they continued to violate the law even afterward.

I have read some interesting things written by some of the principles
involved that the culture in Microsoft explicitly resisted against
checking the legality of these matters, not because they wanted to
do illegal things, but because Bill Gates viewed the legal vetting
process that he saw IBM use as being the primary cause of the
inability of IBM to react to the changing market. He didn't want
his company to have the same legal baggage. Microsoft resisted
having any kind of "working within the law" type of employee
training until long after most other large companies had them.

--
blu

Remember when SOX compliant meant they were both the same color?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Utterback - OP/N1 RPE, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Ph:877-259-7345, Em:brian.utterb ack-at-ess-you-enn-dot-kom

[Martin P. Hellwig]

David Schwartz wrote:
<cut>

It's easy to point to things you think are mistakes and claim that if
you had been in charge of the world, those mistakes would not have been
made. If you are trying to balance completely different possible paths the
universe might have taken, you need to make sure to include everything on
both sides, and that's really really hard to do.

Perhaps the desktop software is good enough that how much better it
would have been wouldn't make much difference. And perhaps the lack of
competition steered the innovators into other fields where their innovations
made huge differences. Perhaps not -- perhaps the desktop software we would
have had in a more competitive market would have made other people's lives
majorly better. Who knows?

I don't think it's possible or sensible to try to have a reckoning of
this type. There are so many variables and unpredictable possibilities.

DS

I agree that it is hard, nearly impossible, to make the _one_ best
decision in a situation.
However it is quit possible to not make the very obvious wrong decision.

Just that it is very hard to hit a specific tree with a small handgun
from a 2 mile distant, that is nearly impossible.
However, just avoiding your feet should be doable.

BTW, I think you are management material...

--
mph

[Harold Stevens]

In <43************ **@sun.removeme .com> Brian Utterback:

[Snip...]

that the laws have been in place since the late 1800's, the consent
decree explicitly and in no uncertain terms informed them of their
violations, and they continued to violate the law even afterward.

It's M$ corporate DNA; they literally couldn't change and survive:

Howard University law professor Andrew Gavil said he wonders whether
Microsoft's early demands -- which would have compelled manufacturers
to distribute to consumers only Microsoft's Windows Media Player
software -- were a genuine mistake or a signal the company intends to
revert to its hardball tactics.

"It's somewhat amazing it even happened," said Gavil, who has closely
followed the Microsoft case. "It's troubling that anyone inside
Microsoft was still thinking this was a legitimate business strategy."

Well, duh. All they got was a useless wrist-slap from the dickless US DOJ
in 2002, so this is not at all surprising--just bidness as usual for M$.

More:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/051020/micro...rust.html?.v=6

And any M$ apologists are just as much liars and thieves as M$ itself.

--
Regards, Weird (Harold Stevens) * IMPORTANT EMAIL INFO FOLLOWS *
Pardon any bogus email addresses (wookie) in place for spambots.
Really, it's (wyrd) at airmail, dotted with net. DO NOT SPAM IT.
Kids jumping ship? Looking to hire an old-school type? Email me.

[Mike Meyer]

Not Bill Gates <nb*@nbg.invali d> writes:

st***@REMOVETHI Scyber.com.au wrote...

On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:35:47 +0000, Not Bill Gates wrote:

> Heck, I dunno. Like you, I don't even really care all that much.

You don't care that innovation in desktop software has been crippled by
the actions of the monopoly player Microsoft?

You need to first prove innovation in desktop software has been
crippled, don't you?

MS took desktop software through pretty much the same sequence of
offerings that the mainframe and minicomputer software industry had
been throgh: flat file systems and single-tasking OS's in a command
line environment, adding nested file systems, adding TSRs, adding a
windowing environment, adding true multitasking and finally
multiprocessor systems. This took them what - 20+ years?

While MS was "innovating " by giving us directories, others who had
learned the lessons from mainframe and minicomputer systems were
offering us desktop systems with all those features - and an office
suite that ran in the windowing systems - for a fraction of the price
of anything that was capable of running MS-DOS.

MS managed to kill off or drive into niche markets the companies who
were actually doing innovative work on desktop systems, and it's taken
the desktop software industry two decades to recover from that. I'll
accept that as crippling until a better definition comes along.

<mike
--
Mike Meyer <mw*@mired.or g> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.

[Not Bill Gates]

mw*@mired.org wrote...

Not Bill Gates <nb*@nbg.invali d> writes:

st***@REMOVETHI Scyber.com.au wrote...

On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:35:47 +0000, Not Bill Gates wrote:
> Heck, I dunno. Like you, I don't even really care all that much.
You don't care that innovation in desktop software has been crippled by
the actions of the monopoly player Microsoft?

You need to first prove innovation in desktop software has been
crippled, don't you?

MS took desktop software through pretty much the same sequence of
offerings that the mainframe and minicomputer software industry had
been throgh: flat file systems and single-tasking OS's in a command
line environment, adding nested file systems, adding TSRs, adding a
windowing environment, adding true multitasking and finally
multiprocessor systems. This took them what - 20+ years?

<shrug> Being pissed off about how things could have been done
better is a losing proposition. Even so, I'm a LOT more pissed off
that we're still driving around in 25 mpg polluting gas-burners than
I am about not having Windows XP available in 1985.

[Peter T. Breuer]

In comp.os.linux.m isc David Schwartz <da****@webmast er.com> wrote:

"Peter T. Breuer" <pt*@oboe.it.uc 3m.es> wrote in message
news:lg******** ****@news.it.uc 3m.es...

Yes, it certainly is. However, it is also Microsoft's right as a
seller
to refuse discounts to those who also sell competing products. You may
not

No it is not their "right"! That would be a discriminatory practice,
not to mention an anti-competitive practice. Totally.

Businesses have the right to be discriminatory and anti-competitive in
this way.
No they don't. I'm simply open-jawed at such a statement.
McDonald's won't sell a Burger King their burger patties.
McDonald's are not in the business of wholesale distribution of burger
patties so your statement is simply sited in the wrong universe of
discourse. Coming back to the current universe of discourse, I assure
you that a McDonald's director can go into a Burger King and buy a
burger like anyone else, so no discrimination. Mind you - I'm not sure
if they'd let Ronald in. He's obviously dangerously nutty.
his is
both discriminatory and anti-competitive,
It's neither. It's simply not part of their business.
but also perfectly legal, moral,
and proper.
Dalse assumptions, hence invalid conclusions.
You only run into a problem under United States law if the company is a
monopoly. And I've already addressed that issue in this thread.

If MacDonalds were wholesale suppliers of hamburgers to the
distribution trade, then they couldn't discriminate among their
customers for the purposes of altering the competitive nature of the
market in hamburger sales to you and me across the counter. Companies
have been sued for trying that - sports shoe manufacturers, I seem to
recall. They've tried to make sure their shoes are sold only by
specified outlets at specified prices, in order to artificially manage
the market. That's illegal. Sued they got (or perhaps "suede").
Peter

[Peter T. Breuer]

In comp.os.linux.m isc David Schwartz <da****@webmast er.com> wrote:

"Steven D'Aprano" <st***@REMOVETH IScyber.com.au> wrote in message
news:pa******** *************** *****@REMOVETHI Scyber.com.au.. .

The first two points are factually wrong, and the third is an opinion
based on the concept, as far as I can see, that Microsoft should be
allowed to do anything they like, even if those actions harm others.

Of course this alleged "harm" is simply a lack of a benefit. Why is Burger King allowed to close at 10PM? That harms me when I'm
hungry after 10.

They can close when they like because the policy is not discriminatory,
nor is part of an attempt to manage the market. If they were to do
things that harmed the market - such as telling meat suppliers that
supplied them that they couldn't supply anyone else, that would be a
possible candidate for anti-competitive behaviour suits. It would have
to be shown that the arrangement WAS materially anti-competitive,
though, and that's difficult to conceive of because MacDonalds does
not constitute a major portion of the market demand for corned beef,
so they don't have the leverage.

Peter

[Mike Meyer]

Not Bill Gates <nb*@nbg.invali d> writes:

mw*@mired.org wrote...

Not Bill Gates <nb*@nbg.invali d> writes:

> st***@REMOVETHI Scyber.com.au wrote...
>> On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:35:47 +0000, Not Bill Gates wrote:
>> > Heck, I dunno. Like you, I don't even really care all that much.
>> You don't care that innovation in desktop software has been crippled by
>> the actions of the monopoly player Microsoft?
> You need to first prove innovation in desktop software has been
> crippled, don't you?

MS took desktop software through pretty much the same sequence of
offerings that the mainframe and minicomputer software industry had
been throgh: flat file systems and single-tasking OS's in a command
line environment, adding nested file systems, adding TSRs, adding a
windowing environment, adding true multitasking and finally
multiprocessor systems. This took them what - 20+ years?

<shrug> Being pissed off about how things could have been done
better is a losing proposition.

I'm not pissed off about it - I've got better things to do. You asked
for prove that desktop software development was crippled by MS. I
provided it.

<mike
--
Mike Meyer <mw*@mired.or g> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.