Text 1562, 274 rader
Skriven 2006-06-03 17:02:00 av Robert E Starr JR (2008.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Atheists: America's m
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* * * This message was from Carl to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
* * * and has been forwarded to you by Lord Time * * *
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"John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:CMjgg.478$SD3.286@fe11.lga...
> Carl wrote:
>> "John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote in message
>> news:Fnfgg.40$eY3.34@fe08.lga...
>>> Carl wrote:
>>>> "John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote in message
>>>> news:yI7gg.3677$n91.1519@fe09.lga...
>>>>> Carl wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Yeah, Gates has been too busy giving $29 Billion to charities and
>>>>>> trying to bring medicines to third world countries. I can see where
>>>>>> you'd be looking for a 666 birthmark. :)
>>>>> Bill Gates has, almost single-handedly, brought the entire software
>>>>> industry to a screeching halt. He has ruined the careers of thousands,
>>>>> and he has done it by repeated criminal acts, and by a completely lack
>>>>> of personal and business ethics.
>>>> Nonsense.
>>> Absolute truth. I've been in the business for over 40 years, and the
>>> last ten have been absolutely stagnant. IBM was ten times more
>>> innovative back in the days when A) they were an effective monopoly and
>>> B) they gave away all their software for free.
>>
>> Stagnant? Wake up! There is the integration of the internet into many
>> things. Information becoming available via RSS, web services, etc.
>> Music, movies, podcasts, blogs...informatyion everywhere and requiring
>> computers to be able to sort, filter and present it all. It's just the
>> start.
>
> None of which was achieved by Microsoft.
Exactly...which pretty much destroys your argument that
Microsoft has "brought the entire software industry to a screeching halt."
>
>> What in the world makes you think it's Microsoft's job to do it all?
>> There are a lot of companies doing very interesting things. MS provides
>> a common platform. If Linux were the standard I'd be just as happy
>> (perhapsd moreso...and I develop Windows software for a living)... but MS
>> created a platform in which there are common APIs and developers can
>> write it once rather than writing it multiple times for multiple
>> platforms.
>
> They created a /lousy/ platform and forced it down the world's throat by
> criminal means.
Oh for the love of...
I suggest that you look up in the archives a discussion on the history of
why MS
chose the practices they did. It was about a year ago.
Most of MS practices only became "criminal" because at some arbitrary point
when you're declared a monopoly (after the fact) different rules apply.
Let's lookl at some of the alternatives, shall we?
Presentation Manager was an abomination. Even so, if it wasn't for some
mind-boggling stupidity on IBM's part they had a shot at making a go of it.
"Poor" IBM (the little guy that you seem to think needed protecting from big
bad Microsoft...that same company that won a war of attrition against the
govt in the monopoly case against IBM a few decades ago) wanted to force the
MicroChannel architecture down our throats. They wanted all of the third
party card makers to have to register their cards with IBM in order to allow
them to work on a MC machine. They wanted to tailor OS/2 for the
MicroChannel architecture. You want to talk Monopoly? Try living with a
company that controls the hardward AND the OS.
By the way...they bundled Warp with....GASP...a web browser (Netscape).
Let's try another one of the poor little guys...SUN. After a lot of rather
suspicious deals that were going to be investigated by the govt, they drove
Appolo outr of business. Then they decided to make a special alliance with
AT&T so that Unix was going to be speciialy tailored for the Sun SPARC
plaqtform. This got IBM, HP, DEC & others so nervous they got together to
form the OSF and define POSIX.
Given their way, Sun would have controlled hardware and software too.
Even with Java they wanted to keep control of the platform ***far*** too
long and lost the momentum it once had. It even took 5 years to come to a
resolution on licensing and packaging issues for Java on Linux.
Let's look at Apple...the darling of the anti-MS crowd. They DO control the
hardware and software side of the platform. Theyget to define anything and
everything both hardware and software.
Apple does some wonderful stuff. Still, it was their pig-headedness in
having a closed box,closed OS, mono colored display, single button mouse and
considering themselves a hardware company that hurt them and drove them to a
3% market share.
That leaves Linux. I like Linux. As I mentioned elsewhere, I wouldn't mind
if Linux became the dominant OS...as long as someone has the dominant OS. I
don't want to waste my time writing my apps 4 tiomes for 4 OSs that each
have a 25% market share. THAT would kill innovation because we'd be wasting
all of our time re-inventing the wheel over and over.
Linux needs several things to succeed on the desktop.
1) A single, standard GUI. You wopn't get far making users choose between
variations of Gnome, KDE, and whatever else might come.
2) A realistic business model in which people that want to make a living
writring software for the platform aren't considered parasites because they
don't want to giove away their work.
You don't like Windows. Fine. As a Windows developer you would find it
difficult to find someone woith harsher criticism of MS in a number of areas
technically. Then again, an estrimated 850 million people use it to get
thiings done. As much as you want to crab about it, it works for the vast
majority of those people.
Most of the other options in the past failed because of their own mistakes.
Often MS either got lucky or screwed up a little less then their
competitors.
Phillipe Kahn (Borland)
Had a real shot at taking the compiler and tools business away from MS but
blew it when Kahn decided to go after spreadsheets etc and compete with MS
on everything. Phillipe made it personal.
Ray Noorda (Novell)
Same thing.
Scott McNeally (Sun)
Same thing, but he had a strength in workstations and decided to protect his
hardware margins rather than realizing that without the software, the
hardware is a paperweight (or a space heater). They had a shot with Java
and blew it by overreaching...promising that Java could replace the OS.
People tried for a long time to do something lioke a good word processor or
spreadsheet in Java and couldn't.
These guys made it personal, overreached, and failed because of their own
mistakes. They failed to realize that
hating Microsoft is not a viable business plan.
Lotus had a chance to do to Microsoft in applications what MD did to Apple,
but blew it by noit realizing until waaaaay too late that Windows was going
to make it.
As to people complaining that you have to buy Windows with a PC... you
don't. You could have bought an Apple. You begrudge paying MS $50-100 to
make your PC usefull when you turn it for the first time on (which most
people want so they don't have to think about it) when you can load Linux
without paying a dime more.
>
>>> Bill Gates doesn't deserve any credit for the PC revolution; that was
>>> the work of hardware engineers and of programmers working for companies
>>> other than Microsoft.
>
>> You are obviously ignoring the entire history of the PC.
>
> ...which Microsoft had nothing to do with, apart from creating "me-too"
> products and driving the real innovators out of business.
<sigh> Getting back to the history of the industry...
never mind...you seem to prefer to continue your resentment towards MS
without interference.
>
>> ? Ever since he drove all his competitors out of
>>> business, or to marginalization, and he found himself with no one left
>>> to rip off, Microsoft has been completely unable to maintain its facade
>>> of "innovation".
>>
>> Whether MS innovates or not does not prevent anyone else from innovating.
>
> Unfortunately, it prevents innovation from going anywhere, by making it
> impossible for innovative products to be used.
Completely false. Windows itself is a set of giant hooks that you can tap
into,
override or bypass if you want to.
Consider StarDock They do a better UI for WIndows than MS does.
Consider http://www.spheresite.com/ which has some interesting ideas on the
UI.
Lotus Notes ignored a lot of the Windows standards and did things its own
way.
Take a look at Office 2007. MS has gone and changed things again. I can't
say that I like what they've done to the toolbars.
MS integrated a speech engine so you can add voice recognition and TTS
capabilities to your apps.
MS tried (and failed miserably with both "Bob" and "Clippy") with the idea
of wizards and avatars, but they tried.
They aren't very good at innovating (no one says that they are), but after 3
tries they usually make a technology usable in a standard platform.
>>> Advances in the World Wide Web, for example have been stopped dead by
>>> Internet Explorer, which, even after the new IE7 comes out, will still
>>> be supporting web technology only as of the late 90's.
>>
>> Personally I use FireFox. So do a growing number of others. Then there's
>> Opera, Safari, Netscape, etc.
>> If you're trapped with IE, it's a trap of your own making. If you want
>> to innovate, add to Firefox. The code is available.
>
> I just want to be able to create websites that work, a /hideous/ job,
> because 90% of the public is using a browser that doesn't even have future
> plans to support vital standards that were released as far back as 1998.
Define standard: some group's specification or what people use.
<Python reference: Say I went around saying I was a standard <emporer> or
something. They'd put me away."
Until recently IE was good enough for most users. It was free and worked
for them. The fact that it didn't support features that you wanted to use in
development DIDN'T MATTER to users. How difficult a program is to a
developer is never a consideration to the user.
MS didn't think they had to put more work into IE until they were forced to.
Boo hoo. Netscape sat on it's collective rear end and let IE catch up to
it. Firefox has gained market share at MS expense. Deservedly so. I
hope it continues to. Now there's competition and MS is scared again. This
is a great thing too because hopefully Firefox will have to continue to
innovate.
>>> The only thing Bill Gates deserves "credit" for is having been born a
>>> selfish, spoiled, multimillionaire brat.
>>
>> It would be better if you knew the facts before condemning others.
>
> I /do/ know the facts.
Apparently you don't. See the archives.
> He was a trust-fund baby
Yup, his dads had money so he must be the anti-christ, right?
> and he has used that money in order to build an empire of organized crime.
Garbage. Sour grapes.
What a load. He had money, but his father was always quite charitable and
tried to instill a sense of responsibility to the community.
He was also brought up very competitive. The yearly family competitions are
almost legendary.
> Not to mention that he donates $1,000,000 a year to an organization with
> the avowed purpose of overthrowing the Bill of Rights and installing a
> theocracy in America.
Ahh... the real source of your hatred.
Gee, hate the guy because he gives money to the party that doesn't demonize
him.
Aren't we full of hyperbole today?
Carl
How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.
-- Benjamin Disraeli
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