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/

[Roedy Green]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 00:49:27 -0700, "David Schwartz"
<da****@webmast er.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who
said :

I guess I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying that
Microsoft demanded you pay them per machine you sold under the table in the
absence of a written contract that said that? Or are you simply saying that
they changed the terms of your agreement when it came up for renewal?

This was all under the table.
--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

[Roedy Green]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 07:58:42 GMT, Roedy Green
<my************ *************** ***@munged.inva lid> wrote, quoted or
indirectly quoted someone who said :

I guess I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying that
Microsoft demanded you pay them per machine you sold under the table in the
absence of a written contract that said that? Or are you simply saying that
they changed the terms of your agreement when it came up for renewal?

This was all under the table.

The other thing to understand is almost no one buys straight from
Microsoft. One wholesale side there are levels of distributors.

The threat is if you don't comply and they catch you, they will see to
it none of your wholesalers will sell to you.

No contracts involved anywhere.

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

[Paul Rubin]

"David Schwartz" <da****@webmast er.com> writes:

But there is no law against that type of conduct, *unless* you are a
monopolist. So your conclusion hinges on the determination that Microsoft
had a monopoly, and that hinges on the definition of the "market". That's a
different can of worms for a different part of this thread.

The trial court determined and two different appeals courts upheld
that MS had an illegal monopoly. I think they have more experience
and knowledge of these things than you do. MS's illegal monopoly
is an established legal fact regardless of your irrelevant opinion.

[Roedy Green]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 00:49:27 -0700, "David Schwartz"
<da****@webmast er.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who
said :

I guess I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying that
Microsoft demanded you pay them per machine you sold under the table in the
absence of a written contract that said that? Or are you simply saying that
they changed the terms of your agreement when it came up for renewal?

They were demanding I sell a copy of windows with every machine I
constructed, whether the customer wanted or not, even if the customer
had us install some other OS.

The threat was that I did not comply, they would put me out of
business by arranging that my wholesalers would stop selling any MS
product to me, with veiled threat of even worse strangulation.

What I don't think you understand this threat would was just as
effective in putting he out of business as threatening to sending in
goons every week to smash my shop to pieces.

I could at least have a chance of legal recourse with the vandals.

It will be very hard to prosecute MS for their crimes because they
commit them much the way the Mafia does.

No one has any paper. Everyone was terrified of MS and would never
dream of going public. I have talked about this publicly many times
because it always looked as if I were going to die in a few years
anyway.

To put this in perspective, IBM's salespeople made much nastier
threats in their heyday. Dick Toewes, head of Inland Natural Gas, was
in charge of a tender for a new mainframe to do billing. I was
working on the Univac bid at the time. He said that the IBM salesman
said to him, "We know you have an eight year old little girl. We know
she walks along X street every day on her way to school. It would be
a terrible thing if somebody hurt her."

I wrote a tender for about $1 million in computer equipment for BC
Hydro gas. There were many bidders hoping to get a foothold in a
solidly IBM shop. IBM sent a weird chap to see me, dressed as a
gangster, talking in a gangster accent, with a strange tic like Dustin
Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo in midnight cowboy. He made no specific
threats, but his act was straight out of Hollywood,"you knows what I
means" warning me about the "consequenc es" of picking anything but
IBM, how I might get the reputation as unreliable..."

There were the standard tactics on $1 million contracts. Imagine the
dirty tricks for the big ones. Mind you, back then $1 million was
serious money, especially when you considered the no-bid followons
over the years.
--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

[Roedy Green]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 09:13:39 GMT, Roedy Green
<my************ *************** ***@munged.inva lid> wrote, quoted or
indirectly quoted someone who said :

To put this in perspective, IBM's salespeople made much nastier
threats in their heyday. Dick Toewes, head of Inland Natural Gas, was
in charge of a tender for a new mainframe to do billing. I was
working on the Univac bid at the time. He said that the IBM salesman
said to him, "We know you have an eight year old little girl. We know
she walks along X street every day on her way to school. It would be
a terrible thing if somebody hurt her."

The tactic Univac/Burroughs/Prime used, at least for big sales, was
for example invite the potential customer to view some installation to
talk to a satisfied client about how they were using their gear. There
might be a convenient client in say ... Las Vegas.

The game then became to get the client to get drunk and laid and do
crazy things to help very uptight people cut loose.

On one of these trips, we ran through fields chasing fireflies.
--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

[Sibylle Koczian]

David Schwartz schrieb:

When you are not in the majority, you are going to face inconveniences.
You'd face the same inconvenience if you wanted to buy a new car without
seats. Most people wants cars with seats, so that's the way they're
packaged.

What a stupid comparison! A computer without Windows is a computer with
another operating system. It isn't even comparable to a car with
specially expensive non standard seats.

--
Dr. Sibylle Koczian
Universitaetsbi bliothek, Abt. Naturwiss.
D-86135 Augsburg
e-mail : Si************* @Bibliothek.Uni-Augsburg.DE

[Harold Stevens]

In <7x************ @ruckus.brouhah a.com> Paul Rubin:

[Snip...]

The trial court determined and two different appeals courts upheld
that MS had an illegal monopoly.

And M$ is still intransigent about that LEGAL FACT, much to the dismay
of the federal judge overseeing the latest (toothless) consent decree:

In a rare display of indignation, U.S. District Judge Colleen
Kollar-Kotelly demanded an explanation from Microsoft's lawyers and
told them, "This should not be happening."

Legal and industry experts said Microsoft's demands probably would
have violated a landmark antitrust settlement the same judge approved
in 2002 between the company and the Bush administration. The
government and Microsoft disclosed details of the dispute in a court
document last week.

More at:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/051026/micro...rust.html?.v=3

Just to really get her riled, the M$ snakes pulled another stunt:

"This needs to get done," U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly
said of a project designed to help put potential rivals on a more
equal competitive footing with Microsoft.

"If there's an issue of resources, then put them in," said
Kollar-Kotelly, who endorsed the settlement with the U.S. government
and state attorneys general in November 2002.

More at (line wrapped):

http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuot...l?duid=mtfh193
85_2005-10-26_23-14-09_n26509630_ne wsml

Any M$ apologists saying M$ isn't an illegal monopoly are just as much
a part of that pack of liars and thieves as M$ itself.

They need to discuss it with Judge Colleen, and STignorantFU about it.

--
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.

[Roedy Green]

On Sun, 16 Oct 2005 16:31:41 GMT, Roedy Green
<my************ *************** ***@munged.inva lid> wrote, quoted or
indirectly quoted someone who said :

I used to be a retailer of custom computers. MS used a dirty trick to
compete with IBM's OS/2. They said to me as a retailer. You must buy
a copy of our OS for EVERY machine you sell. The alternative is to
pay full retail for the OSes.

Through intimidation, MS managed to control the entire retail computer
market in Vancouver BC to the extent you could not buy even the most
stripped down computer without having to buy a copy of Windows with
it, whether you wanted it or not.

You might not want it because you bought OS/2.

You might not want it because you already owned Windows from your
older machine you were upgrading.

You might not want it because somebody stole your machine and they did
not steal all your software masters.

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

[David Schwartz]

Paul Rubin wrote:

"David Schwartz" <da****@webmast er.com> writes:

But there is no law against that type of conduct, *unless* you
are a monopolist. So your conclusion hinges on the determination
that Microsoft had a monopoly, and that hinges on the definition of
the "market". That's a different can of worms for a different part
of this thread.

The trial court determined and two different appeals courts upheld
that MS had an illegal monopoly. I think they have more experience
and knowledge of these things than you do. MS's illegal monopoly
is an established legal fact regardless of your irrelevant opinion.

The appeals courts upheld that the trial court did not abuse its
discretion. However, both a finding of "yes, Microsoft had a monopoly" and a
finding of "no, Microsoft did not have a monopoly" would both have been
within the trial court's discretion. They could just as easily have found
that Linux, OSX, FreeBSD, and other operating systems competed with Windows.

To call it an "establishe d legal fact" is to grossly distort the
circumstances under which it was determined and upheld.

DS

[David Schwartz]

Roedy Green wrote:

On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 00:49:27 -0700, "David Schwartz"
<da****@webmast er.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who
said :

I guess I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying that
Microsoft demanded you pay them per machine you sold under the table
in the absence of a written contract that said that? Or are you
simply saying that they changed the terms of your agreement when it
came up for renewal?

They were demanding I sell a copy of windows with every machine I
constructed, whether the customer wanted or not, even if the customer
had us install some other OS.
Right I understand that. You could have complied simply by only selling
computers with Windows preinstalled. In other words, you could have treated
this the same as a demand for franchise or exclusivity if you had wanted to.
The threat was that I did not comply, they would put me out of
business by arranging that my wholesalers would stop selling any MS
product to me, with veiled threat of even worse strangulation.
Well shit, how surprising that they wouldn't want to do business with
you if you broke your agreements with them.
What I don't think you understand this threat would was just as
effective in putting he out of business as threatening to sending in
goons every week to smash my shop to pieces.
I understand that it is just as effective, but that's not the issue. If
I'm hungry, a person who refuses to give me a loaf of bread for free may be
just as effective at killing me as a person who shoots me. But that doesn't
change the fact that there is no obligation to feed a person and there is an
obligation not to shoot them.
I could at least have a chance of legal recourse with the vandals.
Only because their actions are unreasonable and Microsoft's are not.
It will be very hard to prosecute MS for their crimes because they
commit them much the way the Mafia does.
Right, they send gun-wielding thugs to use force against people. That's
a lot like refusing to do business with people who won't uphold their
contractual obligations.
No one has any paper. Everyone was terrified of MS and would never
dream of going public. I have talked about this publicly many times
because it always looked as if I were going to die in a few years
anyway.
I think you're starting to go off the deep end.
To put this in perspective, IBM's salespeople made much nastier
threats in their heyday. Dick Toewes, head of Inland Natural Gas, was
in charge of a tender for a new mainframe to do billing. I was
working on the Univac bid at the time. He said that the IBM salesman
said to him, "We know you have an eight year old little girl. We know
she walks along X street every day on her way to school. It would be
a terrible thing if somebody hurt her."
Yep, way off the deep end.
I wrote a tender for about $1 million in computer equipment for BC
Hydro gas. There were many bidders hoping to get a foothold in a
solidly IBM shop. IBM sent a weird chap to see me, dressed as a
gangster, talking in a gangster accent, with a strange tic like Dustin
Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo in midnight cowboy. He made no specific
threats, but his act was straight out of Hollywood,"you knows what I
means" warning me about the "consequenc es" of picking anything but
IBM, how I might get the reputation as unreliable..." There were the standard tactics on $1 million contracts. Imagine the
dirty tricks for the big ones. Mind you, back then $1 million was
serious money, especially when you considered the no-bid followons
over the years.

If that kind of thing ever happened (which I seriously doubt), it's
absolutely reprehensible. I find it almost possible to believe that
individuals on commission might do this kind of thing with no knowledge of
their corporate higher ups, or perhaps even that people one level up or so
might do it if they are also on commission. But I find it almost impossible
to believe that any major corporation could do this as a policy.

Of course, the individuals who use actual force or threats of fraud (and
blacklisting because they didn't buy from you is fraud), deserve to be
prosecuted and imprisoned.

Do you have any documentation or evidence to support these claims? Or am
I supposed to take your word for it? (Honestly, it seems like you're just
trying to mess with me.)

DS