Re: CHAT: Microsoft

Terbor Jung:
>    In response to some people's hatred of Microsoft, I wondered: Why do
>    people hate Microsoft? What's so wrong with it? (Not that I either like or
>    dislike it - I'm just trying to find out the truth.)
Neal Stephenson, in his excellent essay "In the Beginning Was the
Command Line" (http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html) opines that
Microsoft is the technological equivalent of the bourgeois.  They get it
from both sides - from laymen, because they have so much power/money, and from
the technology cognoscenti, because of the crappy stuff they do with it.

More concretely - and the above essay has a lot more about the
whole Microsoft thing - some of it boils down to nasty business
practices.  From the very beginning, when a just-incorporated
Microsoft sold IBM software it didn't have, then proceeded to
buy someone else's software (without telling them about the IBM
deal) at a fraction of what IBM was paying, Microsoft has tended
toward the morally questionable.  This tradition has continued
through to the present day  - almost none of their so-called
"innovations" (Stephenson argues this is intentional doublespeak
for "inventions", because inventions are patentable and subject
to intellectual property law and other inconveniences)
were actually developed by the company; they were bought,
licensed, or outright stolen from the actual inventors.  IE was
another company's browser; IIS was another company's web server;
SQL*Server was another company's RDBMS; etc, etc, etc.  Most
of the time the creators proportinally got diddly for their efforts.

The other argument is that Microsoft products are technically inferior.
They tend to acquire an underdog product - because it's cheap - and
underdog products are usually that way for a reason.  They do a pretty
good job of making it salable, and they do add features that people seem
to want, but they aren't overly concerned about stability, security,
interoperability with anyone else's software, and so on.

Some Apple fans are annoyed that Microsoft, to borrow a line from Vezzini of
"The Princess Bride", kidnapped what Apple had rightfully stolen (from
Xerox); part of the agreement between Apple and Microsoft (which let
Microsoft in on the workings of the Mac OS so they could write software
for it) was that Microsoft not develop a GUI OS of its own.  Then along
came Windows, which they argued wasn't really an OS but a separate
application that ran on top of DOS.  Of course, later they would be
taking the opposite point of view that not only was Windows an OS, but
that the web browser was a fundamental part thereof.

Then there's the Raving Monster Stallman party perspective
that All Software Should Be Free, in which case treating source code as
a trade secret to maximize profitability is Evil.    (I'm a big fan of
open source software, and I support it whenever I can and contribute,
etc., but I also make a living writing code, and I don't subscribe to
the FSF's extreme ideals on the topic).

Recommended for further study:

        _The_Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley_
                ("fictionalized" account of the beginnings of Apple and
                 Microsoft)
        _Microserfs_
                Novel about life as a Microsoft employee

        Back issues of Cringely's column at http://www.pbs.org/cringely
        are good for the perspective of someone who has been around and
        watching -from the outside- ever since the beginning.

-Mark