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]

"Peter T. Breuer" <pt*@oboe.it.uc 3m.es> wrote in message
news:0h******** ****@news.it.uc 3m.es...

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.
I don't know what drugs you're on, but the McDonald's corporation most
certainly is in the business of the wholesale distribution of burger
patties. One key reason to become a franchisee is to access their wholesale
distribution network.
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.
That's not even remotely analogous. Microsoft didn't say that customers
who bought OS2 couldn't buy Windows. They said (in acutality something less
than that) people who buy Windows wholesale can't also resell other
operating systems. This is perfectly analogous to McDonald's saying that
retailers who buy their burger patties wholesale can't also sell Whoppers.
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,
They are wholesale suppliers to those people who agree to their
distribution terms. This requires, among other things, that you prepare them
in a precise way and only sell approved items.
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.
I'm afraid I don't understand what "altering the competitive nature of
the market in hamburger sales" actually means. What is it that you are
claiming they can't do?
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").

What, precisely, is illegal?

DS

[David Schwartz]

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

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.

In other words, who or what it harms is not the issue. Which was
precisely my point. Private individuals and corporations are allowed to harm
other people, so long as they don't violate the rights of those people when
they do so, for example by using force or fraud.

If a McDonald's opens across the street from my little burger joint
family business, that hurts me. However, it isn't force, it isn't fraud, it
doesn't violate rights, it's just part of life.

Not even the amount of harm is at issue. Burger King firing someone for
cause might result in their family going hungry.

The issue is whether the action is within the scope of the actor's
authority.

DS

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 11:51:02 -0700, David Schwartz 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.

Burger King doesn't take actions to prevent you from going to another
vendor who will stay open after 10PM, as you very well know.

Nor is Burger King a monopoly -- if they refuse to open after 10 in the
face of great demand, they only harm themselves. As I said a few days ago,
it is not the place for either us or the government to care about the
success or failure of any specific vendor, but only about the health of
the entire market. As there is no shortage of competition in the fast food
market, the harm done to you by Burger King's refusal to open after 10PM
is not sufficient for anyone to care. If there is significant demand, then
Burger King will merely harm themselves by refusing to open because they
will lose customers to those vendors who do open, and if there is
insignificant demand, then why should anyone care?

--
Steven.

[Luc The Perverse]

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

On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 11:51:02 -0700, David Schwartz 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.

Burger King doesn't take actions to prevent you from going to another
vendor who will stay open after 10PM, as you very well know.

Nor is Burger King a monopoly -- if they refuse to open after 10 in the
face of great demand, they only harm themselves. As I said a few days ago,
it is not the place for either us or the government to care about the
success or failure of any specific vendor, but only about the health of
the entire market. As there is no shortage of competition in the fast food
market, the harm done to you by Burger King's refusal to open after 10PM
is not sufficient for anyone to care. If there is significant demand, then
Burger King will merely harm themselves by refusing to open because they
will lose customers to those vendors who do open, and if there is
insignificant demand, then why should anyone care?

NO! There ~is~ a conspiracy by Egg farmers to not make burgers available
before 10 am.

Burger King used to be one of the last great vestiges of the 24 hour burger,
and now it's gone.

They know no one would buy the shitty egg McMuffins/equivalent if they had
delicious burgers available, so there is something underhanded going on
behind the scenes.

Same thing with pizza. Don't try to tell me that there are not hungry
partiers at 3 am - but are any of the delivery places open? NO!

Why is it this way? Who knows! But when in doubt, blame the right wing
extremist politicians.

--
LTP

[Roedy Green]

On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 16:36:37 +0200, "Peter T. Breuer"
<pt*@oboe.it.uc 3m.es> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who
said :

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

It was not a discount. I was being denied the right to buy from any
wholesaler. The "deal" MS offered was that I as an independent
retailer had to by ALL my MS OS products retail if I wanted to sell
even one machines without Windows.

That would have been easily enough to put any retailer out of business
if he did not comply.

Even in retrospect, when I kick myself for abandoning my principles,
It would still be a tough decision.

1. I had eight people working for me who would have become unemployed.

2. The city would have lost one of its most ethical retailers.

3. Microsoft would STILL have won.

4. I would have had to put up taunts from people calling me crazy for
destroying my business in what they would see as a vainglorious
attempt to stop the Microsoft juggernaut.

What MS did was put me in a position where felt I had little choice
but to violate my OWN moral code of conduct. That is what has me so
pissed.

It is bad enough to be extorted from. It even worse to be forced into
a racket to extort others.

If any one here considers what MS did acceptable I am glad by their
public stance they have warned others off ever having business
dealings with them because their low standards of conduct.

--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

[Roedy Green]

On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 02:03:36 +1000, Steven D'Aprano
<st***@REMOVETH IScyber.com.au> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
someone who said :

You don't care that because of Microsoft's neglect, there are millions of
zombie PCs running their sub-standard OS across the world, sending
hundreds of millions of spam emails?

Of course he cares. He is a shill. He licks that hand that feeds him.
--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

[Roedy Green]

On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:49:46 -0400, Brian Utterback
<br************ *@sun.removeme. com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
someone who said :

Some of those steps were illegal by U.S.
law.

There is also the matter of the Bush administration interfering in the
DOJ prosecution of Microsoft first thing when they got elected. Can
you smell corruption?
--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

[David Schwartz]

"Roedy Green" <my************ *************** ***@munged.inva lid> wrote in
message news:io******** *************** *********@4ax.c om...

Of course he cares. He is a shill. He licks that hand that feeds him.

In an indirect sense. The company I work for does get a lot of sales
because we are "anyone but Microsoft". So we actually profit from people's
dislike of Microsoft's products. FWIW, I do think most Microsoft products
are utter crap with one exception -- in a sufficiently controlled situation,
the product can be demonstrated to be able to do what most people think they
want it to do.

I'm not sure whether or not the market really wants crap. It may be that
Microsoft correctly read that the mass market for software is for crap
software, just like the mass market for science television is for crap
science television. Frankly, I hope not.

It's kind of like how a PBS science special, largely free from market
forces, is generally of fairly high quality. On the other hand, a network
science special shaped largely by market forces, is likely to be about a
person who has learned how to speak with cats or the dead.

DS

[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:0h******** ****@news.it.uc 3m.es... I don't know what drugs you're on, but the McDonald's corporation most
certainly is in the business of the wholesale distribution of burger
patties. One key reason to become a franchisee is to access their wholesale
distribution network.

Then they are not in the wholesale business. So lock the drugs cabinet.

(What they are marketting is a "brand", complete with clowns and
arches, and a secret formula for making up patties in buns).
Peter

[Eike Preuss]

David Schwartz wrote:

But if *every* vendor has to make that same choice, there is no place for
that other 5% to go to buy another operating system. So the other
operating system(s) die off. And those 5% become customers of Microsoft
since there's no other choice left. And *that* is where the legal
problems start: they gained market share by preventing consumers from
finding competing products.

Right, except that's utterly absurd. If every vendor takes their tiny
cut of the 95%, a huge cut of the 5% is starting to look *REALLY* good.

Sure, that would be true if the market would be / would have been really
global. In practice if you have a shop you have a limited 'region of
influence'. Optimally you are the only shop in this region that sells
the stuff, or perhaps there are a few shops that compete with you. Lets
say in your region are two shops competing with you, and you must decide
wether to sell product A (95%) or B (5%), but you may not sell both.
Decision 1: Sell A, share the 95% of the local market with two -> about
32% of the local market for all of you, if all perform equally good
Decision 2: Sell B -> you get the 5% of the market, the others 47% each

This calculation is probably still a very bad approximation of the
truth, but things are definitely not as easy as you state them.

EP