>On Sun, 21 Jan 2001, Max More wrote:
>>
>> I don't share your intense hatred of all things Microsoft. Far from it.
>
>
>Most people would agree with you. I personally don't have any sort of
>knee-jerk animosity towards Microsoft. However as a software developer, I
>am exposed to parts of the Microsoft world that are very objectionable on
>many different levels. Unless you write software though, you aren't likely
>to see or understand these strong objections.
This is true. Microsoft plays dirty tricks to sabotage the
competition. Most people will not have debugged Microsoft's stuff
enough to figure out what is going on inside. Not to start an
anti-Microsoft discussion, but here are some examples:
- font smoother in Windows serves smooth fonts to Internet Explorer
and jagged fonts to Netscape
- server serves Internet Explorer first but delays serving Netscape
- server refuses to give Netscape common gif or jpeg formats, but
serves an error message that Netscape can't display these images but
Internet Explorer can
- takes control of Novell printer and then when finished, gives it to
other Windows systems first, delaying the Novell printer queue until
all windows systems are done printing
- writes invalid HTML code that fails to work in other browsers, then
extends Internet Explorer to read the invalid code so it works
- bought Apple technology to create Windows, and then claimed that
Windows 3.0 was not the same Windows they built with Apple source code
- promised IBM Windows technology for OS/2 including all future
versions of Windows, but then claimed Windows 95 was not the same as
Windows.
- used open-source Kerberos source code while promising the open
source foundation they will publish their source code, then published
source code but only to people who sign an agreement not to compete
with Microsoft
- set cheap prices for servers as long as they did not support
Netscape or link to Netscape's site, those that did had to pay much
higher prices *retroactively* as a punishment for supporting the
competition
- put delays in Excel for Macintosh so it would run slower than Excel
for Windows
- gives developers degraded system calls while their internal
software developers use better system calls so competitor software
can never work as fast or as well as Microsoft products
- Java deliberately breaks security rules so that they can add more features
- Java deliberately checked platform so that it would act differently
for Windows than other systems
- signed agreement not to change the Java syntax one bit, but then
used tricks to act differently with the same syntax such that the
same command would act different for different systems or situations
Most people who dislike Microsoft do so because they support open and
fair competition. The way to win in the market should be to build a
better product, not sabotage a competitor's product. Sometimes it
seems that Microsoft puts more work into sabotaging other products
rather than making their product better.
-- Harvey Newstrom <HarveyNewstrom.com>
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