It's Time to Get Over Microsoft

I don't obsess, I just don't like em much. A lot of it has to do with their business practices, and their ongoing procedures of saying one thing and doing another.

If you like computers they are a necessary evil. If it wasn't them it would be someone else. Personally, I think a little dislike is good for them. They are arrogant, and need watching to keep them honest. If MS had their way they would be the only company left, and would dictate what is good for all. Back in the day they used quite a few dirty tactics and sometimes outright thievery to get on top. Anyone remember the difference between DOS 6.2 and 6.22? Lord help someone who steals their code though.

But, like I said, they are necessary, and have done some good things. I just wish they wouldn't reinvent the wheel and rename all the parts every couple of years, and expect everyone to pay $200+ for the privilege.

FOSS isn't the answer for everyone, not by a long ways. I've tinkered with Linux, but I'm not even close to being able to use it effectively. Even when I used a TRS-80 Model I with tiny BASIC I was using Microsoft, and that didn't change when I went to Commodores. One of the things Microsoft did definitively was firm up standards when it was needed most. We still see slight vestiges of the standards wars (as in MP4 vs. Qtime), but for the most part even open source has benefited from these issues being resolved.

 

I agree totally with Bill. There is a whole laundry list of reasons that I choose to hate MS, but like Bill I am not going to write blogs about my hate. I also am not going to be some MS apologist though, going through life saying that everything MS is like mana from the heavens. Catching the breath of Bill Gates in a jar will not cure lepers, nor is it a tool for summoning demons from the ether. It probably just smells bad.

Another reason to hate Microshaft, every one loves a success story, but hates successful people or companies. Quite the dichotomy, isn't it?

 

Be honest though, who doesn't wish they weren't Mr. or Mrs. Bill Gates?

 

As a home user If you don't like it, don't use it.
I imagine it is somewhat more difficult for businesses :confused

One of things that a lot of average users require is an easy to use GUI, Microsoft provides that.

While I am very inexperienced with other Operating systems (installed Gutsy Gibbon, haven't got around to looking at it yet), I see no reason why they cannot make themselves more user friendly. From what I have read here and elsewhere that appears to be a very common gripe.

The pricing and license restrictions are a definite problem, I wouldn't mind paying the price if I could use the OS on up to 3 computers. I would still see it within their rights to only have this applicable for computers owned by the same person though.

I am also still confused as to why it is generally acceptable for software developers to release products that are not completed (service packs) I am aware that a lot of this has to do with security updates, but it would be nice if the final service pack was released at least a year before the replacement OS hit the shelves.

 

I think the major grip that most have with Microsoft is the monopolistic nature of the company. Hey don't get me wrong, anyone in business would love to be able to have a monopoly. And as for griping I can remember a Mr Bill Gates some almost thirty years ago griping about IBM, and its monopoly. Funny what goes around comes around again.

What ticks me off the most, are those that malign any new software, that includes those that maligned Mr Gates when he introduced MS-DOS. Open code is always a gutsy move for any company to make, for it means that they have to keep current, in order to stay at the top. Mr Gates and his company chose Open Architecture, because they didn't have the resources to do otherwise, but unfortunetly chose to go the closed code route with their software to entrench their ability to survive. Strange isn't it, it was the Open Architecture, that enabled DOS PC's to trounce the Closed Architecture of Apple, even though at the time the Apple system was superior in many respects.

Closed Code is a Poor choice, for it will mean their eventual lose, as it did for Ma Bell, IBM, General Motors and many others. Any person or company that can not take having their stance challenged, always fails. One of the Open Coders Mantra's:- "Open Code, Open Mind - Closed Code, Closed Mind", and I remember a Mr Gates saying that in a Seattle Convention I attended some almost thirty years ago.

Strange isn't it how things change, when the challenger becomes the challenged

 

I've not seen a direct advantage of open source, aisde from swift updates, and of course it being free to do with what you like. Even Apple knows better than keeping their entire OS Open source.

Open source = more developers, sure, including crappy ones that muck up things. It also removes standardization, which is a bad thing.

LOTD is not going to happen until there is standardization, which is tough with FOSS.