I don't think we're quite done with this thread. It seems that Gates did a
thing in Time, in which he claimed that MS invented the toolbar. For a
response to this, see:
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-05-11-001-07-OP-MS
From: John "sb" Werneken <johnwerneken@netzero.net>
> Eric, thank you for your thoughtful reply. It is nice to see a non-devotee
> of Microsoft note that my views have some validity, and it is nicer to
have
> learned something from you.
>
> I have been enjoying a hobby web site lately, that so far has been
> inexhaustible: in several weeks of poking around, I have neither exhausted
> its internal links nor its interest. Maybe I am impoverished in my surfing
> options <grin> but it is about the single most interesting - except
possibly
> Slashdot.org, which is a different thing entirely, a journal and an
archive.
> The site is http://www.friesian.com/#contents and the main items are
> philosophy, chronologies & maps of ancient dynasties, libertarianism, and
> military history. You might enjoy it too.
>
> I mention this because you have caused me to change my mind. I now favor a
> divorce of the Microsoft OS and Applications departments. The reason is I
> learned something from the above-mentioned site. For many years, I have
> believed that my obligation was to try to do the right action, and to
leave
> the results to God. This philosophy professor has taught me a "Socratic
> principle": the principle of human ignorance, he calls it. The pineapple
> matches my pre-existing belief but extends it, as follows: since I in
> principle can not know for sure the results of my actions, and since in
> principle I can never know the desires of others as well as I know my own,
I
> should NEVER justify a means by an end.
>
> If I do not really know the affect of my action, nor how it will really
> affect others, I must act rightly (by the standard Christians call the
> "Golden Rule"), and truly abandon justifying things by their results.
>
> As regards Microsoft, I kind of like the cheap-in-one-box result (even if
I
> totally agree that as regards most of the pieces, things like DR DOS, Word
> Perfect, Corel Draw, Netscape, Borland Paradox, Lotus 1-2-3 or Borland
> Quatro, Stacker, DesqView, etc etc - the original competition was FAR
> better, at least at one time, cause I used to use ALL of those things in
> preference to Microsoft).
>
> But analyzing just their action, and not the result, the bogus
> OS-Applications "Chinese Wall" really let them unfairly outdo a lot of
> competitors. The Word Perfect developers working on the MS-IBM OS2 are
> perhaps the premier example of that...
>
> So I agree that some of their action was wrong, and should be undone and
> also prevented in the future.
>
> Thank you for your insight.
>
> I still lack sympathy for Microsoft's competitors, in that MS ended up
doing
> a better deal FOR ME (and IMHO for the average user and for the industry
in
> general). But results should not be the basis of a moral/legal judgment
(or
> we would be hanging people who caused accidents, and praising those who
> assassinated people we are afraid of).
>
> You are right, and I shall try to keep that in mind, should the topic of
MS
> present itself to my mind again.
>
>
>
>
>
> Eric Armstrong Wrote:
>
> >Message: 15
> > Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 14:49:39 -0700
> > From: Eric Armstrong <eric.armstrong@eng.sun.com>
> >Subject: Re: Slashdot thread; License type
> >
> >John \"sb\" Werneken wrote:
> >>
> >> Microsoft in my opinion got where they are by doing three things
> >> better than others did. And better than others do now:
> >>
> >> 1. The concept of the application suite (and, later, the OS) gaining a
> >> semi-common user interface.
> >>
> >Yes, yes, yes, and yes. They were the FIRST and often the ONLY company
> >to really "get it", to understand that a person's *time* is the most
> >valuable commodity on the planet, and that wasting even a millisecond of
> >it was essentially immoral, and ultimately ineffective. There are Unix
> >hackers today who *still* don't get it, but many fewer of them now that
> >MS has beat their brains into mush. (My own moral imperative: If you
> >take enough time from enough people, it is the moral equivalent of
> >killing someone. Any software that is intended for wide, general use
> >*must* be as ergonomically efficient as possible.)
> >
> >> 2. The concept of embrace, extend, engulf:
> >>
> >Here, we part company. If Lotus (an application vendor) had managed to
> >do so, I would say great. If MS-app (the soon to be independent app
> >division of MS) does so, that will also be fine. But MS abused its OS
> >monopoly to carry out that policy. I'm a fan of the standard interface,
> >and I only buy software that meets those standards. But a lot of
> >competition has vaporized that probably would still be in business.
> >There were companies making all kinds of add ons, all competing with one
> >another. But once MS took one, the rest vanished overnight.
> >
> >> 3. The care, feeding, and management of third part developers. The VBA
> >> world for example.
> >>
> >> So they try to be accessible to ordinary people; comprehensive in what
> >> they deliver; and thrive by remaining valuable themselves to maybe a
> >> million or so more minor-league developers. Not bad concepts to
emulate.
> >>
> >They do work hard at it. What they deliver is not always the best. It
> >can take a long time to search their knowledge base CDs for example, but
> >they work hard at getting whatever they have out the door. They
> >understood better than everyone that you have to get the developers on
> >board. They write the apps that bring the customers. It was a lesson
> >lost on nearly everyone in the industry until Java came along and
> >demonstrated their thorough understanding of the facts of life -- the
> >battle is for developer mindshare. Developers will then battle for
> >customer mindshare, amplifying your message many-fold
>
>
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